Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs Adrian and Angela Lee asked the bankruptcy court to declare that the automatic stay in Adam and Jennifer Peeples’ bankruptcy case applied to a separate lawsuit Adrian Lee filed in state court against defendant Scott McCardle. The Lees also asserted that the automatic stay prevented McCardle from collecting attorney’s fees levied against Adrian Lee in that state-court lawsuit. The Lees sought damages against McCardle for willfully violating the automatic stay. The bankruptcy court found, and the district court agreed, that the automatic stay didn’t apply to the state-court lawsuit, thus granting summary judgment to McCardle. The Lees appealed, arguing that the district court erred in ruling that the automatic stay didn’t apply. The Tenth Circuit did not reach that question; instead, the Court vacated the district court’s judgment against Angela Lee because she lacked Article III standing to bring this lawsuit, and affirm summary judgment against Adrian Lee because his claims didn’t fall within the Bankruptcy Code’s “zone of interests.” View "Lee v. McCardle" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Tenth Circuit’s review centered on how, or even whether, an important-but-subtle and often confusing doctrine limiting federal-court jurisdiction should apply to a unique Colorado procedure for “nonjudicial” foreclosure of mortgages. Plaintiff Mary Mayotte was the debtor on a note held by U.S. Bank, NA. Wells Fargo serviced the loan for U.S. Bank. One allegation was that Plaintiff contacted Wells Fargo to modify her loan, that Wells Fargo told her she needed to miss three payments to secure a modification, and that she eventually took this advice. Rather than granting her a modification, however, Wells Fargo placed her in default. She further alleged the defendants fabricated documents, that their actions rendered her title unmarketable, that they had no ownership interest in her promissory note or property, that they have been unjustly enriched by accepting payments not due them, that they damaged her credit standing, and that they violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The jurisdictional doctrine raised by this appeal was the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which forbade lower federal courts from reviewing state-court civil judgments. Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 120 requires creditors pursuing nonjudicial foreclosure to first obtain a ruling by a Colorado trial court that there is a reasonable probability that a default exists. The Tenth Circuit determined it did not need to decide whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine barred a federal court challenge to a Rule 120 proceeding or ruling: the federal-court suit here was not barred because none of the claims (at least none pursued on appeal) challenged the Rule 120 proceedings or sought to set aside the Rule 120 ruling. The Court left that issue for the district court on remand to consider what effect, if any, the Rule 120 ruling may have had on this case under state-law doctrines of claim and issue preclusion. View "Mayotte v. U.S. Bank National Association" on Justia Law

This civil rights class action lawsuit was filed thirty years ago to challenge various aspects of the institutionalization of developmentally disabled individuals at two state-supported facilities in New Mexico. After a lengthy trial in 1990, the district court ruled that Defendants (the two institutions and the individuals charged with their operation) were violating class members’ federal constitutional and statutory rights. The district court ordered the parties to develop a plan to cure the violations, and the plan was implemented over the ensuing years through several consent decrees and other court-approved agreements. Although the two institutions closed in the 1990s, the district court has continued to monitor whether Defendants complied with the obligations mandated by the consent decrees. In the years since the court’s initial ruling, the parties have agreed to, and the court has approved, numerous additional decree obligations of varying specificity with which Defendants must comply before the court will discontinue its oversight. As of the district court’s most recent order, Defendants had yet to fulfill over 300 decree obligations. In August 2015, Defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) to vacate all consent decrees and to terminate the court’s oversight, arguing that changed factual circumstances warrant the requested relief. The district court denied the motion in June 2016. Defendants appealed. The Tenth Circuit vacated the 2016 Order and remanded the matter for the district court to decide whether Defendants were currently violating class members’ federal constitutional or statutory rights, and to reassess the equity of continuing federal oversight with the benefit of that determination. View "Jackson v. Los Lunas Community Program" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Dennis Obduskey appealed a district court’s order granting Defendants-Appellees Wells Fargo and McCarthy and Holthus, LLP’s motions to dismiss numerous claims, including whether either party was liable as a “debt collector” under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). In 2014, Wells Fargo hired McCarthy and Holthus, LLP, a law firm, to pursue a non-judicial foreclosure on Obduskey’s home. Obduskey responded to a letter McCarthy sent him; rather than responding further, McCarthy initiated a foreclosure action. Obduskey then filed this action claiming (1) a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act; (2) a violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act; (3) defamation; (4) extreme and outrageous conduct - emotional distress; and (5) commencement of an unlawful collections action. Wells Fargo and McCarthy filed motions to dismiss, which the district court granted on all claims. Regarding the FDCPA claim, the district court held that Wells Fargo was not liable because it began servicing the loan prior to default. It also held that McCarthy was not a “debt collector” because “foreclosure proceedings are not a collection of a debt,” but it noted that “not all courts have agreed” on whether foreclosure proceedings are covered under the FDCPA. After review, the Tenth Circuit found that the FDCPA does not apply to non-judicial foreclosure proceedings in Colorado, and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Obduskey’s claims. View "Obduskey v. Wells Fargo" on Justia Law

Defendant Texas Brine Company, LLC (Texas Brine) operated brine wells on land owned by Co-Defendant Occidental Chemical Corporation (Oxy) in Louisiana. In August 2012, a sinkhole appeared near one of these wells. After the sinkhole appeared, Texas Brine began clean-up efforts. In December 2012, Texas Brine retained Frontier International Group, LLC (Frontier), an Oklahoma-based consulting firm, for “emergency management, state and local government relations, community relations, litigation settlement strategy, and media communications.” Some time later, Texas Brine retained Brooks Altshuler, an attorney and Frontier’s owner, in his individual capacity to advise the company on response and remediation efforts and to negotiate with government agencies. Later, Texas Brine retained Frontier as a consulting expert for trial preparation. Litigation began soon after the sinkhole appeared, with multiple plaintiffs suing Texas Brine and Oxy in the Eastern District of Louisiana. To verify the work Frontier performed and the cost of such work, Oxy issued a subpoena duces tecum to nonparty Frontier, requesting production of eight categories of documents related to services Frontier provided Texas Brine. In response, Texas Brine filed a motion to quash the subpoena in the Western District of Oklahoma, the district where compliance was required. Proceeding under the uncontested assumption that Louisiana law applied, Texas Brine first claimed the attorney-client privilege protected the subpoenaed communications. In a written order, the trial court noted that Texas Brine failed to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(e)(2)(A), instead, relying on a “blanket claim of privilege.” In the context of Texas Brine’s claim of a blanket privilege did the court address whether Louisiana’s attorney-client privilege statute extended the privilege to a public relations firm and its agents. Without a privilege log before it, the court concluded that much of the work Frontier performed for Texas Brine did not constitute “legal advice” and, thus, was not protected by the attorney-client privilege. The court ultimately required Texas Brine to produce a privilege log for any communications that it believed were protected. Texas Brine appealed. Frontier complied with the district court’s order and has, at this point, produced around 20,000 documents and a privilege log regarding the confidentiality of the withheld documents. The Tenth Circuit determined that the trial court’s factual record was insufficient, and the court did not require the production of protected documents, Texas Brine’s appeal was not ripe for review. Accordingly, Frontier and Texas Brine’s appeals were dismissed for want of jurisdiction and lack of ripeness respectively. View "Texas Brine Co. v. Occidental Chem. Corp." on Justia Law

This appeal stems from a district court’s denial of qualified immunity to the former El Paso County Sheriff, Terry Maketa and undersheriff, Paula Presley. The claims were brought by three categories of subordinates: (1) Lieutenant Cheryl Peck; (2) Sergeant Robert Stone; and (3) Commanders Mitchell Lincoln, Rodney Gehrett, and Robert King. Lt. Peck, Sgt. Stone, and the three Commanders alleged retaliation for protected speech. The district court held that the subordinates’ allegations were sufficient to defeat qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage. The Tenth Circuit disagreed because the law was not clearly established that: (1) Lt. Peck’s speech fell outside of her duties as a public employee; (2) the investigations of Sgt. Stone and his children constituted adverse employment actions; and (3) the investigation of the Commanders, their placement on paid administrative leave, and their alleged humiliation constituted adverse employment actions. Therefore, Sheriff Maketa and Undersheriff Presley were entitled to qualified immunity and dismissal of the complaint. View "Lincoln v. Maketa" on Justia Law

This case involved an implied covenant to market gas. Energen owned and operated oil and gas wells in the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Its wells were subject to leases and other agreements (many of which were quite old) requiring it to pay a monthly royalty or overriding royalty on production to the Anderson Living Trust, the Pritchett Living Trust, the Neely-Robertson Revocable Family Trust (N-R Trust), and the Tatum Living Trust. Believing Energen was systematically underpaying royalties, the Trusts filed a putative class action complaint against it. The New Mexico Trusts claimed Energen was improperly deducting from their royalties their proportionate share of (1) the costs it incurs to place the gas produced from the wells in a marketable condition (postproduction costs) and (2) a privilege tax the State of New Mexico imposes on natural gas processors (the natural gas processors tax). They also alleged Energen had not timely paid royalties or interest thereon, as required by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Proceeds Payments Act. Both the New Mexico Trusts and the Tatum Trust further claimed Energen was wrongfully failing to pay royalty on the gas it used as fuel. The district judge dismissed the New Mexico Trusts’ marketable condition rule claim for failure to state a claim under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and entered summary judgment in favor of Energen on the remaining claims. All of the Trusts appealed those judgments. For the most part, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court. The Tenth Circuit’s analysis differed from that of the district court relating to: (1) the fuel gas claims made by the N-R Trust and Tatum Trust; and (2) the New Mexico Trusts’ claim under the New Mexico Oil and Gas Proceeds Payments Act. As to the former, the N-R Trust’s overriding royalty agreement required royalty to be paid on all gas produced, including that gas used as fuel. And the Tatum Trust’s leases explicitly prohibited Energen from deducting post-production costs (Energen treats its use of the fuel gas as an in-kind postproduction cost). Moreover, the “free use” clauses and royalty provisions in the Tatum Trust’s leases limited the free use of gas to that occurring on the leased premises. Because use of the fuel gas occurred off the leased premises, Energen owed royalty on that gas. With regard to the latter, the district court was right in permitting Energen to hold funds owed to the N-R Trust in a suspense account until a title issue concerning a well was resolved in favor of that Trust. However, the district court did not address whether the N-R Trust was entitled to statutory interest on those funds. It was so entitled, yet the current record (at least in the Tenth Circuit’s analysis) did not show interest to have been paid on the funds. View "Anderson Living Trust v. Energen Resources" on Justia Law

During a ski lesson at Keystone Mountain Resort (“Keystone”), Doctor Teresa Brigance’s ski boot became wedged between the ground and the chairlift. She was unable to unload but the chairlift kept moving, which caused her femur to fracture. Brigance filed suit against Vail Summit Resorts, Inc. (“VSRI”), raising claims of: (1) negligence, (2) negligence per se, (3) negligent supervision and training, (4) negligence (respondeat superior), (5) negligent hiring, and (6) violation of the Colorado Premises Liability Act (the “PLA”). The district court dismissed Brigance’s negligence and negligence per se claims at the motion-to-dismiss stage. After discovery, the district court granted VSRI’s motion for summary judgment on the remaining claims, concluding the waiver Brigance signed before participating in her ski lesson, as well as the waiver contained on the back of her lift ticket, were enforceable and barred her claims against VSRI. Finding no reversible error in the district court’s decision, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Brigance v. Vail Summit Resorts" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Rocky Mountain Wild appealed a district court’s determination of law that Defendant-Appellee U.S. Forest Service had no duty under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to disclose unseen documents in possession of third-party contractors. The question on appeal was whether the documents are “agency records” within the meaning of FOIA. The Tenth Circuit determined the documents were not created, obtained, or controlled by the Forest Service and thus were not “agency records” subject to FOIA. View "Rocky Mountain Wild v. United States Forest Service" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Donald Gutteridge, Jr. appealed a district court order granting summary judgment to defendants Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, and several individuals on two claims arising from injuries suffered by D.C., a child who was then in Oklahoma’s foster-care system. The Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on Gutteridge’s 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim. Likewise, the Court agreed Gutteridge’s state-law tort claim was barred to the extent it arose from D.C.’s placement in two different foster homes. But to the extent Gutteridge’s state-law claim instead arose from the alleged failure to timely remove D.C. from one of those homes and the alleged failure to provide D.C. with timely medical care for injuries she suffered there, the placement exemption did not apply. View "Gutteridge v. Oklahoma" on Justia Law