Elyazidi v. SunTrust Bank
| Decision Date | 05 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–1290.,14–1290. |
| Parties | Mounia ELYAZIDI, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. SUNTRUST BANK; Mitchell Rubenstein & Associates, P.C., d/b/a Rubenstein and Cogan, Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED:Ernest P. Francis, Ernest P. Francis, Ltd., Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Ronald S. Canter, Law Offices of Ronald S. Canter, LLC, Rockville, Maryland; John Russell Griffin, Hartman & Egeli, LLP, Annapolis, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Matthew A. Egeli, Hartman & Egeli, LLP, Annapolis, Maryland, for Appellee SunTrust Bank.
Before NIEMEYER, THACKER, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge THACKER wrote the opinion, in which Judge NIEMEYER and Judge HARRIS joined.
Mounia Elyazidi (“Appellant”) overdrew her checking account when, despite having only a few hundred dollars in the account, she cut herself a check for nearly $10,000. A debt collector, acting on behalf of the bank, took her to court in Virginia and won. Appellant, not content to pay the judgment and let the matter drop, filed this lawsuit against the bank and its lawyers (collectively, “Appellees”). Her suit alleges that Appellees violated Maryland consumer protection laws, and that the bank's lawyers violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). The federal district court dismissed Appellant's suit for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We affirm.
Appellant lives in Fairfax County, Virginia. In September 2010, she opened a checking account with SunTrust Bank (“SunTrust”), a Georgia-based bank with thousands of branches and ATMs across much of the South and along the East Coast. In the course of opening the account, Appellant signed an agreement stating that her banking transactions “shall be governed by the rules and regulations for this account.” J.A. 38.1 Those rules and regulations include a provision addressing the account holder's overdraft liability:
As of September 15, 2010, the account held no more than a few hundred dollars. Nevertheless, Appellant cut herself a check for $9,800.2 She cashed the check at a SunTrust branch, resulting in a sizeable overdraft.
After its own attempts to collect the money proved unsuccessful, SunTrust hired a Maryland law firm, Mitchell Rubenstein & Associates (“MR & A”),3 to bring a debt collection suit. MR & A filed suit on SunTrust's behalf in the general district court of Fairfax County, Virginia, on June 12, 2012. Instead of drafting a detailed complaint, MR & A utilized a warrant in debt, a standardized pleading that the Virginia courts make available to creditors.4 This standardized pleading provides, in relevant part:
J.A. 25. Appellees filled in the blanks to indicate that Appellant owed $9,490.82, plus 6 percent interest; $58 in costs; and $2,372.71 in attorneys' fees.
To support the warrant in debt, Appellees submitted to the court an “Affidavit of Account,” in which a SunTrust officer affirmed that “[t]he amount of Nine thousand four hundred ninety and 82/100 dollars ($9,490.82) plus reasonable attorney fees of 25% and the costs of this proceeding is justly due and owing from debt to SunTrust.” J.A. 31. In addition, MR & A submitted its own affidavit, dated June 11, 2012, in support of the claim for attorneys' fees. In that document (the “June 2012 Revesman Affidavit”), attorney Cynthia Kaplan Revesman (“Revesman”) requested “an award of 25% percent [sic] as a just and reasonable fee, which is equal to or less than the actual arrangement with client in this case.”Id. at 32. Her affidavit attests that her billable rate was $250 per hour and that she spent approximately one hour preparing the warrant in debt. The affidavit further states that Revesman “will require an additional 3 hours for Court appearances and travel,” and that, based on similar cases she has handled during her career, “counsel anticipates at least 20 additional hours in order to satisfy its judgment by execution.” Id.
Later, in response to a court order, Appellees filed a bill of particulars outlining the allegations against Appellant. Among the exhibits accompanying this filing were two monthly statements for Appellant's checking account. Appellant's social security number appeared on both statements. When, in December 2012, Appellant's attorney complained about the exposure of his client's personal financial information, the judge agreed to have the number redacted.
The general district court entered judgment “in the sum demanded for the plaintiff on the evidence.” J.A. 151. Later, at a separate hearing, counsel for SunTrust submitted an updated affidavit supporting the claim for attorneys' fees. In this new affidavit, dated February 27, 2013, Revesman reported that she had expended approximately 13.9 hours on the case. She provided a breakdown of how she spent those hours and, based on that breakdown, calculated a billable amount of $4,025. The court—explaining that “it's been the practice of this Court normally to award less than what [counsel] ask[s] for”—opted to award only $2,372.71 “because I think that ... minimally more than that was spent in this entire matter.” Id. at 174–75.
Appellant's response to her defeat in the collection suit was to file a complaint against SunTrust and MR & A in circuit court in Montgomery County, Maryland. Her amended complaint asserted seven claims in all, of which five are at issue in this appeal.5 The first four counts challenged Appellees' efforts to recover attorneys' fees in the Virginia suit:
Lastly, Appellant sought to recover for the disclosure of her social security number. Specifically:
• Count VI accused MR & A of violating 15 U.S.C. § 1692f by failing to redact Appellant's social security number from the bank statements accompanying the bill of particulars.
Appellees removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. There, SunTrust and MR & A separately filed motions to dismiss all claims. Broadly speaking, these motions argued that Appellant's amended complaint did not state a claim. In addition, MR & A argued that the Rooker–Feldman doctrine deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over the FDCPA claims in Counts III and IV.
Preliminarily, the district court rejected MR & A's Rooker–Feldman argument, reasoning that Counts III and IV were not barred because they do not challenge “the propriety of the [Virginia] court's order granting a fee award.” Elyazidi v. SunTrust Bank, No. 13–2204, 2014 WL 824129, at *5 (D.Md. Feb. 28, 2014). Having assured itself of its jurisdiction, the court proceeded to dismiss all of Appellant's claims pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
First, the court concluded that Counts III and IV, brought under the FDCPA, failed because the warrant in debt and accompanying affidavits did nothing more than supply an estimate of the attorneys' fees that would be due at the conclusion of the case, in compliance with Virginia state court procedure. See Elyazidi, 2014 WL 824129, at *6. Next, the court explained that Count VI could not survive because the disclosure of Appellant's social security number was, in all likelihood, a mere “oversight that was cured by redaction of the relevant documents.” Id. at *7.
Finally, the district court acknowledged that, having dismissed all federal claims, it was under no obligation to consider Counts I and II, the state law claims. See Elyazidi, 2014 WL 824129, at *7 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) ). Nevertheless, the court opted to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over those claims “[i]n the interest of judicial economy.” Id. The court proceeded to dismiss Counts I and II on the ground that the Maryland statutes “have no extraterritorial effect.” Id. at *8.
On appeal, Appellees renew their argument that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Counts III and IV. The limits of subject matter jurisdiction pose a “threshold issue” that this court must investigate “before addressing the merits” of Appellant's claims. Jones v. Am. Postal Workers Union, 192 F.3d 417, 422 (4th Cir.1999).
Appellees argue that the Rooker–Feldman doctrine bars Counts III and IV because these counts—both challenging MR & A's pursuit of attorneys' fees in state court—“are premised on the theory that the state court erred when it awarded SunTrust 25% attorney's fees in the judgment.” Appellees' Br. 10. Generally speaking, the Rooker–Feldman doctrine provides that jurisdiction to review state court decisions lies not with the lower federal courts, but “exclusively...
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