Nicholson v. Bank of America ( 2023 )

Case: 22-11064 Document: 00516990218 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/05/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
____________ FILED
December 5, 2023
No. 22-11064 Lyle W. Cayce
____________ Clerk
Harriet Nicholson,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Bank of America; Countrywide Home Loans,
Incorporated,
Defendants—Appellees.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
USDC No. 3:21-CV-1779
______________________________
Before Davis, Southwick, and Ho, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam: *
Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal district courts “cannot sit
as appellate courts in review of state court judgments.” Weekly v. Morrow,
204 F.3d 613, 615 (5th Cir. 2000).
Plaintiff Harriet Nicholson sued Defendants Bank of America and
Countrywide Home Loans in federal district court after exhausting her
_____________________
*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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No. 22-11064
remedies in Texas state court. Because we find the state court’s judgment to
have been final and not void, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine precludes the fed-
eral district court from hearing this case because of lack of subject matter ju-
risdiction. Thus, we affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss Plaintiff’s
case.
I.
In the underlying state court proceedings, Plaintiff Harriet Nicholson
brought claims against several Defendants, including Bank of America and
Countrywide Home Loans, related to the foreclosure sale of her home. The
state trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants. It also
granted Bank of America and Countrywide’s motion to sever Nicholson’s
claims against them. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals sided with the state
trial court and affirmed the orders, and the Supreme Court of Texas denied
Nicholson’s petition for review.
Nicholson then sought relief in federal court. In the operative
amended complaint, Nicholson argued that the state appellate court’s judg-
ment was void because the court lacked jurisdiction. Bank of America and
Countrywide moved to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing that it was
an impermissible collateral attack on a state court order under the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine. The magistrate judge agreed and recommended that the
complaint be dismissed. The federal district court overruled Nicholson’s ob-
jections, accepted the magistrate judge’s findings, and dismissed Nichol-
son’s complaint.
II.
This case primarily concerns whether the federal district court has ju-
risdiction over a case that has already been adjudicated in state court. This
question rests on whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies.
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The Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars federal district courts from review-
ing final judicial determinations of state courts. See Liedtke v. State Bar of
Tex., 18 F.3d 315, 317 (5th Cir. 1994) (citing Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263
U.S. 413 (1923); Dist. of Columbia Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462(1983)). This doctrine applies to “cases brought by state-court losers com-
plaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the dis-
trict court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and re-
jection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp.,
544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005); see Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 464 (2006) (de-
scribing Rooker-Feldman as a “narrow doctrine”).
Nicholson argues that Rooker-Feldman does not apply to this case for
two reasons.
First, Nicholson maintains that the state appellate court’s judgment
is void for lack of jurisdiction because the state trial court’s orders were in-
terlocutory, not final. See Union Planters Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Salih, 369 F.3d
457, 461 (5th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he question we ask is not whether the order at
issue was, in fact, appealed, but only whether the order was a final state court
judgment in a particular case and thus was appealable.”) (internal quotations
omitted). She notes that the doctrine does not preclude federal courts from
reviewing void state court judgments. See Burciaga v. Deutsche Bank Nat’l
Tr. Co., 871 F.3d 380, 384−85 (5th Cir. 2017). So Nicholson argues that the
federal district court does have jurisdiction to hear this case.
Under Texas law, appeals are generally reserved for final judgments—
judgments that fully “dispose of all issues and parties in a case.” N.E. Indep.
Sch. Dist. v. Aldridge, 400 S.W.2d 893, 895 (Tex. 1966). But when a suit is
severed, the two or more independent actions each result in separate, final
appealable judgments. See Van Dyke v. Boswell, O’Toole, Davis & Pickering,
697 S.W.2d 381, 383 (Tex. 1985); see also Tex. R. Civ. P. 41 (“Any claim
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against a party may be severed and proceeded with separately.”). Thus, “a
judgment which fully adjudicates one of the severed causes is appealable even
though the entire controversy as it existed prior to the severance is not deter-
mined thereby.” Pierce v. Reynolds, 329 S.W.2d 76, 78−79 (Tex. 1959).
Here, the state trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Bank
of America and Countrywide on October 30, 2018. The next month, the state
trial court granted their motion to sever. Thus, under Texas law, the state
trial court’s summary judgment order became final and appealable when the
court severed Bank of America and Countrywide’s claims. Therefore, we
reject Nicholson’s argument that the state appellate court’s judgment was
void for lack of jurisdiction because the trial court’s judgment was interlocu-
tory.
Second, Nicholson also notes that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does
not apply here because it is limited to cases where “a party suffered an ad-
verse final judgment rendered by a state’s court of last resort.” Illinois Cent.
R.R. Co. v. Guy, 682 F.3d 381, 390 (5th Cir. 2012). The state appellate judg-
ment in this case originates from the state’s intermediate appellate court (i.e.,
Fort Worth Court of Appeals), and not from the state’s final appellate court
(i.e., Texas Supreme Court). Our court, in Miller v. Dunn, 35 F.4th 1007,
1011 (5th Cir. 2022), however, has noted the “uncertainty in this circuit as to
whether a pending state-court appeal precludes applying the doctrine.” In
Miller, our court settled previous confusion by holding that the Rooker-Feld-
man doctrine does not apply “where a state appeal is pending when the fed-
eral suit is filed.” Id. at 1012.
Here, unlike in Miller, the state proceedings were no longer pending
by the time Nicholson filed her complaint in federal court. The Texas Su-
preme Court denied Nicholson’s petition for review in July 2020, and Ni-
cholson did not bring suit in federal court until July 2021.
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We accordingly affirm. In addition, we deny Nicholson’s motions to
strike the Appellees’ brief and to sanction counsel.
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