Peters v. Cohen

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 7, 2025
• Docket: 24-1040
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 7 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JAN PETERS, No. 24-1040 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 2:22-cv-00266-JAM-DB v. MEMORANDUM* MALIA M. COHEN, replacing Betty T. Yee, in her official capacity as Chief Fiscal Officer, State Controller of The State of California, and as Trustee of The Unclaimed Property Fund,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California John A. Mendez, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 5, 2025 San Francisco, California

Before: McKEOWN, FORREST, and SANCHEZ, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiff-Appellant Jan Peters appeals the district court’s grant of summary

judgment to Defendant-Appellee the California State Controller in this action

concerning the escheatment of Peters’s Amazon stock to the state under

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. California’s Unclaimed Property Law (“UPL”), see Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 1500, et

seq. Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not recite them

here. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

“We review questions of standing de novo.” Tyler v. Cuomo, 236 F.3d

1124, 1131 (9th Cir. 2000). “Whether a state is immune from suit under the

Eleventh Amendment is a question of law” also reviewed de novo. Bethel Native

Corp. v. Dep’t of Interior, 208 F.3d 1171, 1173 (9th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted).

Finally, we review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment,

considering the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. King v.

Cnty. of L.A., 885 F.3d 548, 556 (9th Cir. 2018).

To demonstrate standing, Peters must show that he suffered an injury in fact

that is “fairly traceable” to the challenged conduct and is “likely” to be “redressed

by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992)

(cleaned up). Peters seeks to enjoin the Controller from enforcing or administering

California’s UPL against him in the future. He must therefore demonstrate “a

sufficient likelihood that he will again be wronged in a similar way.” Bates v.

United Parcel Serv., Inc., 511 F.3d 974, 985 (9th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted).

As the district court observed, “[Peters] has not identified that any other

property has been, or will imminently be, escheated to the State.” Indeed, Peters

already received the proceeds from the sale of his escheated stock and testified that

2 24-1040 he has no additional assets in his Charles Schwab account nor owns any other

accounts or property located in the United States. Peters’s concern over the

possibility the Controller may seek to reach stocks located in his German

brokerage account is too speculative to confer standing. See Clapper v. Amnesty

Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 409 (2013) (“‘[A]llegations of possible future injury’ are

not sufficient [to satisfy standing].” (citation omitted)). Peters has therefore failed

to demonstrate the requisite likelihood of future harm to pursue his claim for

prospective injunctive relief against the Controller.1

We have held that the Eleventh Amendment does not prevent suits against

the Controller for the return of non-permanently escheated property or the proceeds

of that property where the claim is “based on the public official having acted

beyond his statutory authority (the ‘ultra vires exception’)” or where “the plaintiff's

theory [is] that the action leading to the government’s possession of the property

was constitutionally infirm.” Taylor v. Westly (Taylor I), 402 F.3d 924, 934 (9th

1 Peters argues that because one of the plaintiffs in Taylor II was English, we must reach the same result in this case—that a non-resident has standing for a prospective injunction. See Taylor v. Westly (Taylor II), 488 F.3d 1197, 1199– 1200 (9th Cir. 2007). But in Taylor II we did not address whether the absence of property held in the United States deprived a plaintiff of the required likelihood of a future injury. Therefore, it does not control the question before us. See Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511 (1925); accord United States v. Marin, 90 F.4th 1235, 1240 (9th Cir. 2024). This is true even of jurisdictional issues, like standing. See United States v. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U.S. 33, 38 (1952).

3 24-1040 Cir. 2005) (footnote omitted); see also Suever v. Connell (Suever I), 439 F.3d

1142, 1147 (9th Cir. 2006).

Peters attempts to align this case with Taylor I and Suever I by asserting

violations of the UPL’s notice provisions as well as his Fifth and Fourteenth

Amendment rights and characterizing his requested relief as seeking the “return of

his property.” Peters concedes that his escheated stock was sold by the state and

the sale proceeds returned to him. He contends, however, that he is entitled to the

difference between the current market value of his escheated stock and the price at

which it was sold in 2018.

This form of relief is plainly foreclosed under our precedent in Suever v.

Connell (Suever II), 579 F.3d 1047, 1059 (9th Cir. 2009) (rejecting a claim against

the Controller for “the amount of the difference between the proceeds of the sale of

[the plaintiffs’] unclaimed property and the current market value”). In Suever II,

we explained that plaintiffs are “not entitled to more than the actual property that

the State took into its possession or the proceeds of that property” because “such

claims for additional compensation, whether described as ‘restitution’ or otherwise,

are indistinguishable in effect from claims for money damages against the State

and, as such, are barred by the Eleventh Amendment.” Id. (citing Taylor I, 402

F.3d at 932, 935).

4 24-1040 Peters’s claim under the Takings Clause is similarly unavailing. This court

has clarified that “the constitutionally grounded self-executing nature of the

Takings Clause does not alter the conventional application of the Eleventh

Amendment.” Seven Up Pete Venture v. Schweitzer, 523 F.3d 948, 954 (9th Cir.

2008), cert. denied, 555 U.S. 885 (2008). In Seven Up Pete Venture, we held that

the Eleventh Amendment bars reverse condemnation actions brought in federal

court against state officials in their official capacities. Id. at 956. In any event,

where a plaintiff’s property has been seized or sold by the state pursuant to

California’s UPL, their “property [or its proceeds] ha[ve] not been taken at all, but

ha[ve] merely been held in trust . . . by the Controller.” Taylor I, 402 F.3d at 936.

Thus, Peters cannot establish a violation of the Takings Clause.

We conclude that Peters’s request for injunctive relief ordering the return of

his property is a request for money damages barred under the Eleventh

Amendment. This bar applies equally to his related request for declaratory relief

because such relief does “not fall within the Ex parte Young prospective relief

exception to the Eleventh Amendment.” Id. at 935.

AFFIRMED.

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