Jimmy Bryson v. Specialized Loan Servicing

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: June 8, 2026
• Docket: 25-5846
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0258n.06

Case No. 25-5846

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jun 08, 2026 ) KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk JIMMY BRYSON; LATONYA BRYSON, ) Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED v. ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR ) THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF SPECIALIZED LOAN SERVICING, LLC, ) TENNESSEE Defendant-Appellee. ) ) OPINION

Before: GRIFFIN, LARSEN, and READLER, Circuit Judges.

READLER, Circuit Judge. Following the dismissal of their complaint, plaintiffs Jimmy

and LaTonya Bryson moved to alter the judgment against them in accordance with Federal Rule

of Civil Procedure 59(e) and to amend their complaint in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 15. The district court denied both motions. Because the Brysons fail to identify a basis

for relief, we affirm.

I.

In 2007, the Brysons purchased a home in Memphis, Tennessee. To do so, they executed

two mortgages with First Franklin Financial Corporation: the first for $220,100, and a second for

$55,025. Many years later, the Brysons defaulted on the second mortgage, which, by that time,

was serviced by Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC (hereinafter, Specialized Loan). Specialized

Loan obtained satisfaction of the debt through a foreclosure sale soon thereafter. No. 25-5846, Bryson v. Specialized Loan Servicing

The Brysons challenged the foreclosure in Tennessee state court. In their complaint, the

couple alleged that they “received no notice of the foreclosure” or “notice of [their] default on the

mortgage,” R. 1-1, PageID 8, and that Specialized Loan “lied both orally and in writing to the

[Brysons] about the status of the loan,” id. at PageID 10. Reading the complaint in a charitable

light, the Brysons appear to have asserted three causes of action tied to those allegations: wrongful

foreclosure in violation of “two sections of the Tennessee Code,” id. at PageID 8, violations of

“due process or notice,” id., and fraudulent misrepresentation based on a payoff statement issued

after the foreclosure sale, id. at PageID 10.

Specialized Loan timely removed the case to federal court for reasons of diversity, at which

point the company moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that the Brysons’ complaint did not

state a cognizable claim. For two months, the Brysons failed to respond to Specialized Loan’s

motion (which carried a 28-day response period), at which point the district court ordered the

Brysons to show cause for why their case should not be dismissed. The couple responded a week

later with a two-page filing, in which they claimed that “[t]he only reasonable conclusion from the

record is that the foreclosure notices were in error.” R. 11, PageID 79. Reading the complaint

otherwise, the district court granted Specialized Loan’s motion and entered judgment in the

company’s favor.

That decision spurred the Brysons to action. The couple filed a Rule 59(e) motion to alter

or amend the judgment and a Rule 15 motion to amend the complaint. The district court denied

each request, giving rise to today’s appeal.

II.

A. Before us, the Brysons challenge the district court’s denial of their Rule 59(e) motion

as well as their Rule 15 motion. By and large, the Brysons’ appeal rises or falls with our resolution

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of their Rule 59(e) arguments, so we begin there. We have understood Rule 59(e) to authorize a

district court to alter or amend its judgment in four circumstances: “if there was (1) a clear error

of law; (2) newly discovered evidence; (3) an intervening change in controlling law; or (4) a need

to prevent manifest injustice.” Mich. Flyer LLC v. Wayne Cnty. Airport Auth., 860 F.3d 425, 431

(6th Cir. 2017). We review the district court’s denial of a Rule 59(e) motion for abuse of

discretion. Leisure Caviar, LLC v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., 616 F.3d 612, 615 (6th Cir. 2010).

1. Turn first to the Rule’s clear-error inquiry. We see no abuse of discretion in the district

court’s conclusion that it did not clearly err in dismissing the Brysons’ complaint. Reaching that

threshold requires more than just “disappointment” from the losing party, but a “wholesale

disregard, misapplication, or failure to recognize controlling precedent” by the district court. See

Oto v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 224 F.3d 601, 606 (7th Cir. 2000) (citation modified). Here, the

Brysons have failed to identify any such error by the district court, as none of the couple’s causes

of action came close to stating a cognizable claim. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)

(citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Take the wrongful foreclosure

claim, which centered on the assertion that the Brysons did not receive the foreclosure notice.

Even if that were the case, more is needed to adequately allege a violation of Tennessee law. The

Volunteer State asks only whether notice of the foreclosure was sent by registered mail, not

whether it was received. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 35–5–101(e) (2025) (requiring that the notice of

foreclosure “be sent . . . by registered or certified mail”). Yet the Brysons did not allege that

Specialized Loan failed to comply with the mailing requirement.

As for the Brysons’ fraudulent misrepresentation and due process claims, it is unclear

whether the Brysons in fact contest their dismissal. The Brysons’ Rule 59(e) motion did not seem

to address them, nor does the couple appear to resurrect those claims on appeal. Either way, we

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agree with the district court that the claims were “fundamentally deficient.” R. 18, PageID 109.

In particular, the Brysons’ allegations that Specialized Loan “lied both orally and in writing to

[them] about the status of the loan,” R. 1-1, PageID 10, and “denied them due process,” id. at

PageID 8, are mere “[t]hreadbare recitals” and “conclusory statements” that do not satisfy federal

pleading standards, Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citation modified). All said, the district court did not

err (let alone clearly so) in issuing its judgment against the Brysons.

Seeing things otherwise, the Brysons fault the district court for failing to consider a

purported inconsistency between the promissory note covering the $55,025 loan and the

underlying deed of trust. According to the Brysons, Tennessee law requires that the original note

and deed of trust be construed together and, where there is an irreconcilable difference between

the two, that the terms of the note control. See Ferguson v. Peoples Nat’l Bank of LaFollette, 800

S.W.2d 181, 183 (Tenn. 1990). Yet the district court, the Brysons contend, paid no heed to those

terms before entering judgment against them.

We disagree in multiple respects. Start with a foundational flaw in the Brysons’ claim for

relief. Neither their complaint nor their response to Specialized Loan’s motion to dismiss made

any assertion or argument regarding a conflict between the terms of the governing documents.

That point was not raised until the Rule 59 stage. In re E. Palestine Train Derailment, 160 F.4th

751, 759 (6th Cir. 2025) (recognizing Rule 59(e) is “not a vehicle to present new arguments that

could have been raised prior to the court’s dispositive decision”); Leisure Caviar, 616 F.3d at 616

(quoting Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians v. Engler, 146 F.3d 367, 374 (6th Cir. 1998));

see also Banister v. Davis, 140 S. Ct. 1698, 1703 (2020). Nor, at all events, do the Brysons explain

the nature of the inconsistency. Even in their Rule 59(e) motion, the Brysons failed to address

what terms are inconsistent across the various documents. In other words, the Brysons fault the

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district court for erring in its treatment of information the Brysons never put forward, and for

ignoring arguments the Brysons never made.

Were we to overlook that reality, it remains unclear which of the Brysons’ three causes of

action is informed by this purported “error.” The Brysons’ briefing fails to connect the error to

any cause of action in their complaint. Instead, the Brysons appear to be making a belated effort

to transform their allegation into a breach of contract claim. That theory of liability, however, was

similarly absent from their complaint as well as their response to Specialized Loan’s motion to

dismiss, appearing for the first time in the Brysons’ Rule 59(e) motion. That is too late in the day.

See In re E. Palestine, 160 F.4th at 759.

2. Turn next to newly discovered evidence. In their Rule 59(e) motion, the Brysons

pointed to four documents purportedly “uncovered by [their] counsel in his investigation of the

facts, which,” when taken into account, they say, “manifestly change the outcome of this case.”

R. 21, PageID 115. One problem for the Brysons is that newly discovered evidence “must have

been previously unavailable” to them. Leisure Caviar, 616 F.3d at 617 (quoting GenCorp, Inc. v.

Am. Int’l Underwriters, 178 F.3d 804, 834 (6th Cir. 1999)). That said, the Brysons admitted that

two of the four documents—the notes tied to their two loans—were “provided to [them] at the

closing of the loan in 2007.” R. 21, PageID 115–16. Definitionally then, those items were not

newly discovered. See Zucker v. City of Farmington Hills, 643 F. App’x 555, 567 (6th Cir. 2016)

(explaining that “it is ‘well established’ that Rule 59(e) relief is not warranted ‘when [a motion] is

premised on evidence that the party had in his control prior to the original entry of judgment’”

(alteration in original) (quoting Emmons v. McLaughlin, 874 F.2d 351, 358 (6th Cir. 1989))).

As for the two remaining documents, the Brysons fail to allege how those items “would

have produced a different result if presented before the original judgment.” Good v. Ohio Edison

5 No. 25-5846, Bryson v. Specialized Loan Servicing

Co., 149 F.3d 413, 423 (6th Cir. 1998) (citation modified). According to the Brysons, the

documents reflect various assignments of the $220,100 deed the couple possessed at closing. Why

that information is material to a foreclosure dispute regarding a separate $55,025 loan, however,

is left unsaid. We thus see no basis to conclude that the purported newly discovered evidence

would have changed the result if presented pre-judgment.

3. Nor was there an intervening change in controlling law. Rule 59(e) affords relief to an

unsuccessful party who can point to an intervening legal change that alters the basis for the district

court’s judgment. See U.S. ex rel. SNAPP, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 618 F.3d 505, 512–13 (6th Cir.

2010). This exception understandably seeks “to protect those who, despite due diligence, fail to

prophesy a reversal of established adverse precedent.” GenCorp, Inc. v. Olin Corp., 477 F.3d 368,

374 (6th Cir. 2007). But to successfully invoke the exception, the Brysons must provide a case

that “plainly forecloses the relief [Specialized Loan] obtained.” Id. at 375.

Here again, the Brysons come up short. The decision they highlight, Case v. Wilmington

Trust, N.A., 703 S.W.3d 275 (Tenn. 2024), is far from a post-judgment change in law. One, it was

not issued post judgment. Case was published before the district court’s entry of judgment and

the court relied on Case to dismiss the Brysons’ wrongful foreclosure claim. And two, Case does

not reflect a change in law to the district court’s rationale in entering its judgment. Truth be told,

Case declined to recognize a cause of action for wrongful foreclosure, the same theory the Brysons

pursued. 703 S.W.3d at 294–95. In short, the decision does not upend the district court’s entry of

judgment against the Brysons—it supports it.

Nevertheless, the Brysons read Case as requiring the district court to “recast[] the[ir]

wrongful foreclosure claim into a breach of contract claim.” Appellant Br. 11–12. But courts do

not cast (or recast) claims for parties—the parties do. Guarino v. Brookfield Twp. Trs., 980 F.2d

6 No. 25-5846, Bryson v. Specialized Loan Servicing

399, 406 (6th Cir. 1992) (deeming it “utterly inappropriate for the court to abandon its position of

neutrality in favor of a role equivalent to champion for the non-moving party: seeking out facts,

developing legal theories, and finding ways to defeat the motion”). And the Brysons did not cast

a breach of contract claim in their pleadings. Even as late as the scheduling conference held four

months after Case was issued, the Brysons continued to describe their claim as one for wrongful

foreclosure. It was too late to recast that claim at the Rule 59 stage, and it is especially late now.

See Banister, 140 S. Ct. at 1703; Begala v. PNC Bank, Ohio, N.A., 214 F.3d 776, 784 (6th Cir.

2000).

4. Finally, the Brysons fail to show that the district court’s dismissal constituted a manifest

injustice. In analyzing this factor, we seek to balance “the judicial imperative of bringing litigation

to an end” with the need to render just decisions. Am. Int’l Underwriters, 178 F.3d at 834.

What purported manifest injustice occurred here? According to the Brysons, it was

Specialized Loan’s failure to produce documents or affidavits demonstrating that the loan servicer

mailed the foreclosure notice to the couple. True, as mentioned, Tennessee law requires that the

trustee (or the party selling the property) send the foreclosure notice by registered mail to the

debtor. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 35–5–101(e) (2025). But, again, the Brysons’ complaint alleged

only that the notice was not received; it did not allege that it was never mailed. They similarly did

not press the mailing point in their response to Specialized Loan’s motion to dismiss. As the

district court summed up the situation, the Brysons “had nearly ten months from filing to judgment

to investigate their claims,” yet largely sat on their hands. R. 29, PageID 232. It is far too much

to ask a court to reopen a case simply to “correct what has—in hindsight—turned out to be a poor

strategic decision” by the losing party. Id. at 231 (citation modified).

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Nor, it bears adding, does the Brysons’ assertion appear to have much of a factual basis.

Specialized Loan stated in its motion to dismiss that “[a]ll required notices were sent during the

foreclosure on the Property,” and provided documentation to support that claim, assertions the

Brysons have never countered. R. 9-1, PageID 45.

B. Lastly, the Brysons claim that the district court erred in denying their motion to amend

the complaint, a decision we likewise review for an abuse of discretion. Leisure Caviar, 616 F.3d

at 615. Before we may conclude that such an abuse occurred, we must be left with a “definite and

firm conviction that the [district] court committed a clear error in judgment” in denying the motion

to amend. Cummins v. BIC USA, Inc., 727 F.3d 506, 510 (6th Cir. 2013) (citation modified).

A fundamental error dooms their Rule 15 argument from the start. As the district court

emphasized, the couple failed to file “a proposed amended complaint for the Court’s review,

making it impossible to assess whether any new claim would be properly pled or would survive a

motion to dismiss.” R. 29, PageID 232. That alone was a sufficient basis for the district court to

deny the Brysons’ Rule 15 motion to amend. Cf. Crosby v. Twitter, Inc., 921 F.3d 617, 627–28

(6th Cir. 2019); Spadafore v. Gardner, 330 F.3d 849, 853 (6th Cir. 2003).

Even setting that misstep aside, the Brysons still fail to demonstrate an abuse of discretion.

As a general rule, a district court is free to grant a plaintiff permission to amend a complaint “when

justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). But when a request to amend comes after judgment

is entered against the plaintiff, we must “consider[] the competing interest of protecting the finality

of judgments and the expeditious termination of litigation.” Leisure Caviar, 616 F.3d at 615–16

(alteration in original) (citation modified). As a result, to successfully move to amend a complaint

at that late stage, a plaintiff must first meet the requirements for reopening a case set forth by Rule

59(e). See id. Our Rule 15 inquiry, therefore, turns on our Rule 59(e) analysis. And, for reasons

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already explained, that reality is fatal to the Brysons’ request to amend their complaint, as the

Brysons fail to carry the day on their Rule 59(e) arguments. So too, then, for their Rule 15 motion.

* * * * *

We affirm the district court.