Dora Yeboah v. Wilmington Trust, N.A.

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
APR 19 2021
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
DORA YEBOAH, No. 19-56344
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
2:18-cv-10242-CJC-MRW
v.
WILMINGTON TRUST, N.A., as MEMORANDUM*
Successor Trustee of Lehman XS Trust
Mortgage Pass Through Certificate Series,
2005 3; NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE
SERVICE, LLC,
Defendants-Appellees,
and
ALL PERSONS, Known and Unknown
Who Claim an Interest in the Property;
DOES, 1-10,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Cormac J. Carney, District Judge, Presiding
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Submitted April 15, 2021**
San Francisco, California
Before: THOMAS, Chief Judge, and R. NELSON and HUNSAKER, Circuit
Judges.
Plaintiff Dorah Yeboah appeals a district court order dismissing her claims
for (1) wrongful foreclosure; (2) quiet title; (3) violation of California’s Unfair
Competition Law (“UCL”); and (4) violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices
Act (“FDCPA”) for failure to state a claim. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, and we affirm. Because the parties are familiar with the history of this
case, we need not recount it here. We review a district court’s order granting a
motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) de novo.
Metzler Inv. GMBH v. Corinthian Colls., Inc., 540 F.3d 1049, 1061 (9th Cir.
2008).
The district court properly dismissed Yeboah’s wrongful foreclosure claim
because she failed to properly allege “an illegal, fraudulent, or willfully oppressive
sale.” Lona v. Citibank, N.A., 134 Cal. Rptr. 3d 622, 633 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011).
Defendant Wilmington Trust, NA (“Wilmington”) had authority to foreclose on
Yeboah’s property under California law because it held a beneficial interest in the
deed of trust, whether or not it also held an interest in the underlying promissory
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
note. Shuster v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, 149 Cal. Rptr. 3d 749, 754 (Cal.
Ct. App. 2012).
Likewise, Yeboah failed to state a claim to quiet title because she did not
properly allege she was the rightful owner of the property at issue. Kelley v.
Mortg. Elec. Registration Sys., Inc., 642 F. Supp. 2d 1048, 1057 (N.D. Cal. 2009).
The district court also properly dismissed Yeboah’s UCL claim, which was
premised on Yeboah’s wrongful foreclosure theory. See Krantz v. BT Visual
Images, L.L.C., 107 Cal. Rptr. 2d 209, 219 (Cal. Ct. App. 2001).
The district court properly dismissed Yeboah’s claim for violation of the
FDCPA’s debt collection provisions because defendants Wilmington and
Nationstar Mortgage, LLC (“Nationstar”) fall outside the FDCPA’s definition of
“debt collectors.” Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, 139 S. Ct. 1029, 1031
(2019). We decline to consider Yeboah’s argument, raised for the first time on
appeal, that Wilmington and Nationstar violated 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(6), which
regulates nonjudicial foreclosures. See El Paso v. Am. W. Airlines, Inc. (In re Am.
W. Airlines, Inc.), 217 F.3d 1161, 1165 (9th Cir. 2000).
AFFIRMED.