Angela Sims v. Chase Home Finance, LLC

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-14464
JUNE 12, 2012
Non-Argument Calendar
JOHN LEY
________________________ CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 4:11-cv-00121-HLM
ANGELA SIMS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
CHASE HOME FINANCE, LLC,
Defendant - Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(June 12, 2012)
Before TJOFLAT, PRYOR and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Angela Sims appeals the dismissal of her amended complaint against Chase
Home Finance, LLC. Sims filed in a Georgia court a complaint that Chase
violated the Home Affordable Modification Program and its obligations to
implement the Program under a Servicer Participation Agreement when it denied
Sims’s applications to modify her residential mortgage loan. Chase removed the
civil action to the district court, which dismissed Sims’s complaint for failure to
state a claim. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). We affirm.
The district court did not err by dismissing Sims’s complaint. Sims failed to
“state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face” from which the district court
could “draw the reasonable inference that [Chase] is liable for [any] misconduct.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009); see Bell Atl.
Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1964–65 (2007). Sims
complained that Chase failed to “properly apply” and “negligently implemented”
the guidelines of the Program, but Sims failed to explain which guidelines that
Chase allegedly misapplied, how the guidelines required Chase to modify Sims’s
loan, or how the “‘language of the statute, the statutory structure, or some other
source’” gave her a private right of action under the Program, Thompson v.
Thompson, 484 U.S. 174, 180, 108 S. Ct. 513, 516 (1988) (quoting Nw. Airlines,
Inc. v. Transp. Workers, 451 U.S. 77, 94, 101 S. Ct. 1571, 1582 (1981)). Sims
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complained that Chase breached its contract with the U.S. Department of the
Treasury to evaluate loans under the Program, but Sims admitted that she was not
a party to the contract and failed to explain how she was anything more than an
incidental beneficiary of the contract. See Noe v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit
Auth., 644 F.2d 434, 437 (5th Cir. 1981). Sims failed to state a claim that Chase
had breached a covenant of good faith and fair dealing because Sims failed to state
a claim that Chase had breached any contract with Sims. See Stuart Enters. Int’l,
Inc. v. Peykan, Inc., 555 S.E.2d 881, 884 (Ga. App. 2001). Sims failed to state a
claim that Chase had negligently inflicted her emotional distress because Sims
failed to allege that she had “suffered [a] physical impact . . . [without which she]
had no basis to bring a claim for the negligent infliction of emotional distress.”
Johnson v. Allen, 613 S.E.2d 657, 663 (Ga. App. 2005). Sims also failed to state a
claim of promissory estoppel because Sims never alleged that Chase had promised
to modify her mortgage loan under the Program. See Ga. Invs. Int’l, Inc. v.
Branch Banking and Trust Co., 700 S.E.2d 662, 664 (Ga. App. 2010).
We AFFIRM the dismissal of Sims’s complaint.
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