Ignacio Damian Figueroa v. Merscorp, Inc.

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 11-10984 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
MAY 11, 2012
Non-Argument Calendar
JOHN LEY
________________________
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 0:10-cv-61296-CMA
IGNACIO DAMIAN FIGUEROA,
on behalf of himself and others similarly situated,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
MERSCORP, INC., a foreign corporation,
DAVID J. STERN, individually, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
_________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________________________
(May 11, 2012)
Before TJOFLAT, EDMONDSON, and CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Ignacio Damian Figueroa appeals the district court’s dismissal of his
complaint, filed pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. No
reversible error has been shown; we affirm.
Figueroa co-owned property that was subject to a mortgage held by
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (“MERS”). After Figueroa failed
to make his mortgage payments, his mortgage went into default; and IndyMac
Federal Bank FSB (“IndyMac”) filed a foreclosure action in state court.1 Figueroa
failed to respond to the complaint. The state court granted IndyMac’s motion for
summary judgment and entered a judgment of foreclosure. Figueroa then filed two
motions to vacate the judgment in which he raised various fraud claims and stated
that he intended to file a counterclaim for damages under the federal RICO statute.
The state court denied the motions, and Figueroa’s property was sold at auction.
Three months after the auction, Figueroa initiated this federal lawsuit. His
third amended complaint raised 3 counts of RICO violations against 27
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Figueroa disputes whether IndyMac was the designated holder of the mortgage when the
foreclosure action was filed.
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defendants, including MERS’s parent company, MERS’s law firm, and MERS’s
shareholders (“Defendants”). Figueroa contended that, but for Defendants’
fraudulent scheme, his property would not have been foreclosed upon and asserted
that he was injured by Defendants’ acts because “he lost his one-half interest in his
property and home.” Figueroa sought damages equal to three times the value of
his lost property interest as determined by the amount alleged in IndyMac’s
foreclosure complaint. The district court granted Defendants’ consolidated motion
to dismiss, concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Figueroa’s claims
pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman2 doctrine.
We review de novo a district court’s determination that it -- in the light of
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine -- lacked subject matter jurisdiction over a plaintiff’s
claim. Casale v. Tillman, 558 F.3d 1258, 1260 (11th Cir. 2009). The Rooker-
Feldman doctrine precludes federal courts -- other than the United States Supreme
Court -- from reviewing final judgments of state courts. Id. (explaining that the
doctrine applies to federal claims previously raised and ruled on by a state court
and to those claims “inextricably intertwined” with a state court’s judgment).
Rooker-Feldman bars lower federal court jurisdiction in “cases brought by state-
2
D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 103 S. Ct. 1303 (1983); Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 44
S. Ct. 149 (1923).
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court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered
before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review
and rejection of those judgments.” Id. at 1261 (citation omitted).
We conclude, as did the district court, that the Rooker-Feldman criteria are
satisfied. Figueroa was a state-court loser in his state court foreclosure
proceeding. The state court judgment formed the basis of or was intertwined with
the injury complained of in Figueroa’s instant compliant: that “he lost his one-half
interest in his property and home” because of an improper foreclosure proceeding.3
The state court proceedings had ended before Figueroa instituted the present
federal lawsuit in the district court. Figueroa also sought, in effect, to have the
district court “review and reject” the state court proceedings because his federal
RICO claims could only succeed if the state court’s foreclosure judgment was in
error.
Figueroa argues that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is inapplicable because
he lacked a full and fair opportunity to litigate his federal RICO claims in state
court. See id. at 1260 (stating that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply
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We reject Figueroa’s argument that “his damages were accomplished through, rather
[than] caused by the state court final judgment.” See Casale, 558 F.3d at 1260 (stating that “[a]
claim is inextricably intertwined if it would ‘effectively nullify’ the state court judgment, or it
‘succeeds only to the extent that the state court wrongly decided the issues.’” (citation omitted)).
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“where a party did not have a ‘reasonable opportunity to raise his federal claim in
state proceedings’”). We disagree. Federal RICO claims may be raised in Florida
courts. See, e.g., Transpetrol, Ltd. v. Radulovic, 764 So. 2d 878 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 2000). In his motions to vacate, Figueroa raised many of the same fraud
claims that now underlie his federal RICO claims and asserted that he intended to
file a counterclaim for damages under the federal RICO statute. Although
Figueroa failed to litigate his RICO claims in state court, he had a reasonable
opportunity to do so.
AFFIRMED.
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