Steven Maus v. Brian Toder

398 F. App'x 174

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• Decided: October 25, 2010
• Docket: 10-1349
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Steven M. Maus appeals the district court’s 1 grant of summary judgment in favor of Brian N. Toder and Chestnut & Cambronne, P.A. We affirm.

The dispute giving rise to this action is an attorney’s lien for unpaid attorney fees in the amount of $81,778.93 held by the appellees on Maus’s partnership dissolution trust account. After a state court entered judgment for the lien and the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment, Maus v. Galie, No. A06-1183, 2007 WL 1248160, at *2 (Minn.Ct.App. May 1, 2007), Maus brought this action in federal court seeking an accounting; he also stated claims for usury, breach of fiduciary duty, and an alleged violation of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1667Í. The district court concluded the claim for an accounting was barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel because of determinations made in the Minnesota state court proceedings; the district court further concluded the claims for usury, breach of fiduciary duty, and the alleged TILA violation either failed on the merits or were time-barred. Maus v. Toder, 681 F.Supp.2d 1007, 1013-19 (D.Minn. 2010).

Having carefully reviewed the record de novo, as well as the parties’ briefs, we affirm for the reasons stated by the district court in its thorough and well-reasoned decision. See 8th Cir. R. 47B.

1 . The Honorable Patrick A. Conmy, United States District Judge for the District of North Dakota, sitting in the District of Minnesota.