Mohanna v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company
Opinion
1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 KEYHAN MOHANNA, Case No. 21-cv-04530-JSC
8 Plaintiff, ORDER OF REFERENCE TO 9 v. BANKRUPTCY COURT
10 DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY, 11 Defendant.
12 13 Plaintiff Keyhan Mohanna, who is proceeding without counsel, alleges claims for wrongful 14 foreclosure, violations of California Commercial Code § 3302 et seq., and violation of 11 U.S.C. § 15 362 against Defendant Deutsche Bank National Trust. Defendant moved to dismiss for failure to 16 state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).1 (Dkt. No. 18.) After reviewing 17 Defendant’s motion to dismiss, the Court issued an Order to Show Cause as to its subject matter 18 jurisdiction. (Dkt. No. 25.) Having reviewed the parties’ responses (Dkt. Nos. 26, 27), the Court 19 REFERS this matter to the bankruptcy court under General Order 24 for the reasons set forth 20 below. 21 “Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. They possess only that power authorized 22 by Constitution and statute.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 23 (1994). “Subject matter jurisdiction can never be forfeited or waived and federal courts have a 24 continuing independent obligation to determine whether subject-matter jurisdiction exists.” Leeson 25 v. Transamerica Disability Income Plan, 671 F.3d 969, 975 n.12 (9th Cir. 2012) (internal 26 quotation marks and citations omitted); Valdez v. Allstate Ins. Co., 372 F.3d 1115, 1116 (9th Cir. 27 1 2004) (noting that district courts are “obligated to consider sua sponte whether [they] have subject 2 matter jurisdiction”). There are two bases for federal subject matter jurisdiction: (1) federal 3 question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and (2) diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. 4 A district court has federal question jurisdiction in “all civil actions arising under the Constitution, 5 laws, or treaties of the United States.” Id. at § 1331. A district court has diversity jurisdiction 6 “where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000, ... and is between citizens 7 of different states, or citizens of a State and citizens or subjects of a foreign state....” Id. § 8 1332(a)(1)-(2). 9 In response to the Order to Show Cause, Plaintiff concedes that there is no diversity 10 jurisdiction and does not contend that there is federal question jurisdiction. (Dkt. No. 27.) 11 Defendant, for its part, does not address diversity jurisdiction and instead contends that there is 12 federal question jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claim under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a). (Dkt. No. 26.) 13 Defendant relies solely on Stone v. R.E.F.S. Inc., No. C-05-03321 MMC, 2005 WL 2171954, at *2 14 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 2005), to argue that the district court has jurisdiction over all claims that arise 15 under Title 11. That reliance is misplaced as neither Stone nor Defendant address the caselaw 16 concluding that “a claim for violation of the automatic stay ‘must be brought in the bankruptcy 17 court, rather than in the district court, which only has appellate jurisdiction over bankruptcy 18 cases.’” (Dkt. No. 25 (quoting Eastern Equipment and Servs. Corp. v. Factory Point Nat’l Bank, 19 Bennington, 236 F.3d 117, 121 (2d Cir. 2001), and collecting cases finding lack of subject matter 20 jurisdiction). 21 While the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has not squarely addressed this question, in MSR 22 Exploration, Ltd. v. Meridian Oil, Inc., 74 F.3d 914, 916 (9th Cir. 1996), it concluded that a claim 23 arising from bankruptcy proceedings must be “brought in the bankruptcy court itself, and not as a 24 separate action in the district court,” and thus held that “the district court properly determined that 25 it lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter.” Several district courts have dismissed claims challenging 26 a violation of the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, 27 relying on MSR. See, e.g., Wordtech Sys., Inc. v. Integrated Network Solutions, Inc., No. 2:04– 1 subject matter jurisdiction because the Eastern District of California’s Local General Order No. 2 182 referred all cases arising under title 11 to the bankruptcy courts); Guancione v. Wachovia 3 Mortg. Corp., No. 5:10–CV–3166 JF (HRL), 2010 WL 2991728, at *3 (N.D. Cal. July 28, 2010) 4 (“to the extent that Plaintiff could establish a violation of the automatic stay, their remedy lies 5 within the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court”). In ComUnity Collectors LLC v. Mortg. Elec. 6 Registration Servs., Inc., No. C-11-4777 EMC, 2012 WL 3249509, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 7, 7 2012), the court concluded that “this District’s local rules and other out-of-circuit authority 8 establish that the proper course of action would be to refer this matter to the bankruptcy court.” 9 This Court agrees that this is the appropriate approach here. The bottom line is that this Court 10 cannot resolve Plaintiff’s claim for violation of the automatic stay. Having so decided, the Court 11 does not have supplemental jurisdiction of Plaintiff’s state law claims and Defendant does not cite 12 any case to the contrary. 13 The next question, then, is how to proceed. Northern District General Order No. 24 states 14 that “[t]his court hereby refers to the bankruptcy judges of this district all cases under title 11, and 15 all proceedings arising under title 11 or arising in or related to cases under title 11.” The 16 bankruptcy court, which oversaw the bankruptcy proceedings and the automatic stay at-issue here, 17 is in the best position to decide Plaintiff’s title 11 claim. Accordingly, under General Order 24, 18 the Court will refer the title 11 claim to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of 19 California in the action In re: Mohanna, Debtor, U.S. Bankr. Ct., Case No. 16-30388 HLB for 20 further proceedings including resolution of Defendant’s pending motion to dismiss the title 11 21 claim. 22 As there remains no claim over which the Court has original jurisdiction, there can be no 23 pendent jurisdiction for the state law claims in Plaintiff’s Complaint. See Herman Fam. Revocable 24 Tr. v. Teddy Bear, 254 F.3d 802, 805-06 (9th Cir. 2001) (“where there is no underlying original 25 federal subject matter jurisdiction, the court has no authority to adjudicate supplemental claims 26 under § 1367.”). Even if the Court has subject matter jurisdiction, however, having referred the 27 title 11 claim, the Court declines to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction. See Acri v. Varian 1 amended (Oct. 1, 1997) (“[S]tate law claims ‘should’ be dismissed if federal claims are dismissed 2 || before trial.”) (emphasis omitted). 3 CONCLUSION 4 For the reasons explained above, pursuant to Northern District of California General Order 5 24, the Court REFERS Plaintiff's title 11 claim for violation of the automatic bankruptcy stay to 6 || the U.S.
Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI
Mohanna v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company (Mohanna v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.