Williams v. Capital One Bank (Usa), N.A.

• Decision Date: 08 January 2018
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 5:17-CV-01216-CLS
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama
• Parties: TROY T. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. CAPITAL ONE BANK (USA), N.A., and EQUIFAX INFORMATION SERVICES, INC., Defendants.

TROY T. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. CAPITAL ONE BANK (USA), N.A.,and EQUIFAX INFORMATION SERVICES, INC., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 5:17-CV-01216-CLS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA NORTHEASTERN DIVISION

January 8, 2018

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiff, Troy Williams, who is proceeding pro se, filed a Second Amended Complaint on October 17, 2017, asserting a claim against defendant, Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. ("Capital One"), for violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. ("FCRA").¹ The case currently is before the court on Capital One's motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).² Upon consideration of the motion andplaintiff's response thereto,³ the court concludes that the motion should be granted.

I. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

A. Rule 12(b)(1) — Dismissal for Lack Of Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Federal district courts are tribunals of limited jurisdiction, "'empowered to hear only those cases within the judicial power of the United States as defined by Article III of the Constitution,' and which have been entrusted to them by a jurisdictional grant authorized by Congress." University of South Alabama v. The American Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 405, 409 (11th Cir. 1999) (quoting Taylor v. Appleton, 30 F.3d 1365, 1367 (11th Cir. 1994)). Accordingly, an "Article III court must be sure of its own jurisdiction before getting to the merits" of any action. Ortiz v. Fiberboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 831 (1999) (citing Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 88-89 (1998)).

A motion to dismiss a case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1).⁴ When ruling upon a Rule 12(b)(1) motion asserting a lack of jurisdiction on the face of the plaintiff's complaint, the court must consider the allegations of the complaint as true. See Williamson v.Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 412 (5th Cir. 1981) (citations omitted).⁵ On the other hand, "a 'factual attack' on subject matter jurisdiction 'challenge[s] the existence of subject matter jurisdiction in fact, irrespective of the pleadings, and matters outside the pleadings, such as testimony and affidavits are considered.'" Douglas v. United States, 814 F.3d 1268, 1278 (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting In re CP Ships Ltd. Securities Litigation, 578 F.3d 1306, 1311-12 (11th Cir. 2009), abrogated on other grounds by Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247 (2010)) (alteration in original).

B. Rule 12(b)(6) — Dismissal for Failure To State A Claim Upon Which Relief Can Be Granted

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) permits a party to move to dismiss a complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). This rule must be read together with Rule 8(a), which requires that a pleading contain only a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). While that pleading standard does not require "detailed factual allegations," Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 550 (2007), it does demand "more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)(citations omitted).⁶

Furthermore, whenever matters other than the pleadings are presented to, but not excluded by the district court when ruling upon a defendant's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss a compliant for failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, the motion normally "must be treated as one for summary judgment under Rule 56," and "[a]ll parties must be given a reasonable opportunity to present all the material that is pertinent to the motion." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d) (alterations supplied). In other words, "[a] court is generally limited to reviewing what is within the four corners of the complaint on a motion to dismiss." Bickley v. Caremark RX, Inc., 461 F.3d 1325, 1329 n.7 (11th Cir. 2006) (alteration supplied).

Even so, there are narrow exceptions to that general proposition. Indeed, the Eleventh Circuit has held that a district court "may consider a document attached to a motion to dismiss without converting the motion into one for summary judgment if the attached document is (1) central to the plaintiff's claim and (2) undisputed." Day v. Taylor, 400 F.3d 1272, 1276 (11th Cir. 2005) (emphasis supplied). The term "undisputed" is defined as meaning that "the authenticity of the document is not challenged." Id.

Here, the only documents outside the allegations of plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint that have been considered by this court are documents from other court cases, and the authenticity of those documents cannot be disputed. See United States v. Jones, 29 F.3d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir. 1994) ("[A] court may take notice of another court's order only for the limited purpose of recognizing the 'judicial act' that the order represents or the subject matter of the litigation."); United States v. Rey, 811 F.2d 1453, 1457 (11th Cir. 1987) ("A court may take judicial notice of its own records and the records of inferior courts."). Moreover, the other court documents are central to plaintiff's FCRA claim against Capital One, because that claim concerns whether a judgment entered in state court was fairly reported.

II. RELEVANT FACTS

A. Prior State Court Proceedings

Plaintiff's FCRA claim is based upon a state-court judgment that Capital One obtained against him in the District Court of Madison County, Alabama, on December 20, 2010 — now, more than seven years ago. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals described the circumstances leading to that judgment and its subsequent disposition in Williams v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 192 So. 3d 4 (Ala. Civ. App. 2015), as follows:

On December 20, 2010, Capital One filed a complaint againstWilliams in the district court, asserting that Williams owed $4,078.83 on an account stated between Capital One and Williams. On January 18, 2011, Capital One sought a default judgment against Williams for failure to answer or otherwise defend against the complaint. On January 21, 2011, the district court entered a default judgment in favor of Capital One in the amount of $4,078.83, plus court costs and postjudgment interest.

On September 14, 2011, Williams filed in the district court an "affidavit of status as secured party and creditor" in which he declared himself a member of the "Sovereign People of the Free Republic of Alabama" and sought the withdrawal of any "adverse information" from his credit records and relief from the default judgment. On October 11, 2011, Williams filed in the district court a motion to dismiss, in which he stated, among other things, that "[t]his notice is a trespass in admiralty." Williams also filed in the district court a "common law copyright notice," purporting to reserve rights regarding the copyright and trademark of his name. On November 9, 2011, the district court denied Williams's motion requesting that the case be dismissed.

On September 16, 2013, Williams filed in the district court an independent action seeking to set aside the default judgment. In the pleading initiating the action, Williams asserted, among other things, that Capital One and Holloway [i.e., defendant Holloway & Moxley, L.L.P., Capital One's collection agency] had committed fraud upon the court. Williams also asserted in his pleading, based on his assertion of fraud upon the court, various claims against Capital One and Holloway, and he sought damages in the amount of $128,000,000. On September 23, 2013, the district court entered an order that stated: "The Court having lost jurisdiction in this matter, [Williams's] MOTION TO SET ASIDE is hereby DENIED." On October 3, 2013, Williams filed a "motion to reconsider — motion to amend complaint." In that postjudgment motion, Williams purported to amend his claims against Capital One and Holloway, asserting fraud upon the court, to reduce the requested amount of damages to $2,900, so that his claims would remain within the district court's jurisdiction. See Ala. Code 1975, § 12-12-31(a) (providing that the district court has exclusive jurisdiction over allcivil actions in which the matter in controversy does not exceed $3,000). As argued by Capital One on appeal, Williams's October 3, 2013, postjudgment motion was denied by operation of law on October 17, 2013, pursuant to Rule 59.1(dc), Ala. R. Civ. P. On October 22, 2013, Williams filed a document titled "addendum — motion to amend complaint," again seeking to set aside the default judgment based upon fraud upon the court and, for the first time, citing Rule 60(b), Ala. R. Civ. P. That motion was a successive postjudgment motion, however, seeking substantially the same relief as Williams's October 3, 2013, motion; thus, that motion did not toll the time for taking an appeal. See Green v. Green, 43 So.3d 1242, 1243-44 (Ala. Civ. App. 2009). On November 1, 2013, the district court entered an order purporting to deny Williams's "motion to reconsider"; however, that order was a nullity because the motion had already been denied by operation of law on October 17, 2013. See Moragne v. Moragne, 888 So.2d 1280, 1282 (Ala. Civ. App. 2004); and Rule 59.1(dc).

Williams filed an appeal to the circuit court on November 12, 2013. Capital One and Holloway filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on the basis that the appeal had been untimely filed. On February 3, 2014, the circuit court entered an order granting the motion to dismiss. Williams filed a postjudgment motion on February 28, 2014; that motion was denied by the circuit court on April 10, 2014. Additionally, in the circuit court's April 10, 2014, order denying Williams's postjudgment motion, the circuit court awarded attorney's fees in the amount of $1,112.50 as a sanction against Williams, as requested by Capital One and Holloway. Williams filed his notice of appeal to this court on May 15, 2014.

Capital

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