Manistee Apartments, LLC v. City of Chicago
Filing
Filed opinion of the court by Judge Manion. AFFIRMED. Richard A. Posner, Circuit Judge; Joel M. Flaum, Circuit Judge and Daniel A. Manion, Circuit Judge. [6805891-1] [6805891] [15-3113]
Case: 15-3113
Document: 32
Filed: 12/20/2016
Pages: 10
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 15‐3113
MANISTEE APARTMENTS, LLC,
individually and as class representative,
Plaintiff‐Appellant,
v.
CITY OF CHICAGO, a municipal corporation,
Defendant‐Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:14‐cv‐06813 — Robert W. Gettleman, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 — DECIDED DECEMBER 20, 2016
____________________
Before POSNER, FLAUM, and MANION, Circuit Judges.
MANION, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Manistee Apartments sued
the City of Chicago alleging that the City violated their due
process rights by refusing to release judgment liens until the
debtors paid attorneys’ fees and costs. The district court
dismissed the plaintiff’s class action complaint, holding that
the plaintiff suffered no deprivation of a constitutionally
protected property interest. The court also denied the
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plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration and for leave to file an
amended complaint. For the reasons below, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
On September 19, 2011, the City of Chicago obtained a
default administrative judgment of $3,540 against Manistee
Apartments, based upon a finding of various violations of the
Chicago Municipal Code. Pursuant to Illinois state law, the
City later registered this judgment with the Circuit Court of
Cook County and imposed a lien against plaintiff’s real estate.
735 ILCS 5/12‐101; 65 ILCS 5/1‐2.1‐8(d). Plaintiff contends that
it first received actual notice of this lien (as opposed to
constructive notice, which it received as soon as the lien was
recorded) during routine title insurance review and
underwriting that occurred as it was preparing to sell its
properties. Upon discovery that the title to the property was
not clean, and with a pending sale, plaintiff sought to quickly
settle its bill with the City.
On January 27, 2014, and in response to inquiry, the City
of Chicago provided a “payoff letter” demanding $5,655.16.
This demand letter reflected the original, undisputed $3,540
lien, plus $720.34 in uncontested statutory interest. The
remainder, $1,394.82, represents collection costs and
attorneys’ fees that the City demanded, and is the sole amount
in controversy before this court, an amount better suited for
small claims court in Illinois.
The day after the City issued the payoff letter, January 28,
2014, the plaintiff conveyed the property via warranty deed,
alleging to an out‐of‐state buyer that the title was
unencumbered. Around this time, the plaintiff also settled
with the City, paying the full amount demanded, $5,655.16,
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under protest. Eight months later, plaintiff filed a class action
complaint in federal district court, alleging violations of the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the
Illinois state constitution, and other violations of Illinois state
law.
The plaintiff contends that by responding to its request for
a payoff letter with a demand for payment greater than the
lien amount, the City of Chicago was violating the plaintiff’s
due process rights. What the City should have done,
apparently, is one of two things. It could have responded with
information the plaintiff already had—the publicly available
lien recorded in Cook County and the publicly available
statutory interest calculation, along with an offer to settle for
that amount or less. It also could have replied with a lawsuit
in Illinois court seeking from plaintiff the fees and costs. What
was not permissible, in the plaintiff’s view, was asking for
anything more. By refusing to release the lien immediately or
take action in Illinois state court, the plaintiff contends, the
City was depriving it of a property interest and thus needed
to provide the plaintiff due process. Since the City already
had a judgment, however, it had no incentive to settle for less.
Manistee’s litigation position, it seems, was intentionally
unreasonable: more calculated to triggering a ripe lawsuit
than actually seeking quick release of a lien.
The district court disagreed, granting the City’s motion to
dismiss. It noted that the plaintiff failed to allege facts that
plausibly supported the assertion that it paid the City’s
demand under duress. Because it was not under duress,
Manistee’s payment was voluntary. And because its payment
was voluntary, Manistee was not deprived of a
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constitutionally protected property interest, and therefore
failed to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983.
Finding no violation of the federal Constitution, the
district court went on to find no violation of the state
constitution (“the same tests apply”), and declined to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over the purely state law claims.
Plaintiff then moved for reconsideration and leave to amend
the class action complaint, which the court denied. Plaintiff
appeals both the dismissal of its case and the denial of its
motions for reconsideration and leave to amend.
II. ANALYSIS
We review a district court’s order granting a motion to
dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. Andonissamy v. Hewlett‐
Packard Co., 547 F.3d 841, 847 (7th Cir. 2008). We assume all
well‐pleaded allegations are true and draw all reasonable
inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. To
survive such a motion, a complaint must “state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face.” Justice v. Town of Cicero, 577
F.3d 768, 771 (7th Cir. 2009). We review a district court’s
denial of a motion for reconsideration under Rule 59(e) and
denial of a motion for leave to amend only for abuse of
discretion. Billups v. Methodist Hosp. of Chicago, 922 F.2d 1300,
1305 (7th Cir. 1991); Chavez v. Ill. State Police, 251 F.3d 612, 628
(7th Cir. 2001).
A. Dismissal of Constitutional Due Process Claims
The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly prohibits state
governments from depriving persons of “life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law.” U.S. CONST. amend.
XIV, § 1. Individual citizens are afforded a cause of action to
vindicate this constitutional right to procedural due process
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through 42 U.S.C. § 1983. To state a claim for a procedural due
process violation, a plaintiff must demonstrate (1) a
cognizable property interest; (2) a deprivation of that
property interest; and (3) a denial of due process. Buttitta v.
City of Chicago, 9 F.3d 1198, 1201 (7th Cir. 1993).
It is, of course, indisputable that the plaintiff had a
cognizable property interest in the entirety of the amount it
paid to the City of Chicago, $5,655.16. But, as the district court
correctly noted, Manistee voluntarily paid this amount to the
City, and voluntary payment is not a property deprivation.1
Against this, the plaintiff alleges that its payment was not,
in fact, voluntary, but coerced. Obviously, no one wants to
have to pay more than they have to in order to obtain a
benefit, such as the release of a lien outside established formal
process. Here, the City did not threaten to do anything to
Manistee: it just refused to accede to a demand by a private
party for a thing—immediate release of a lien—to which that
private party was not entitled.
As the district court properly held, Manistee was not
coerced to pay anything. The district court noted that
Manistee had a number of other options it could have taken
1 Even assuming Manistee were deprived of this payment, there appears
to have been ample pre‐ and post‐deprivation process. First, the
underlying administrative judgment itself—uncontested by the plaintiff—
explicitly noted that “Pursuant to Municipal Code Chapter 1‐19, the city’s
collection costs and attorney’s fees shall be added to the balance due if the
debt is not paid prior to being referred for collection.” This constituted
pre‐deprivation notice. Second, the plaintiff’s original complaint alleged
state law claims for restitution—this, and any prerequisite state law
administrative filings for overpayment suggest that state law provides
avenues for relief.
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without affecting the legal relationship between it and the
City. Manistee could have done as it had for years prior:
nothing. Eventually the City might move to foreclose on its
property, or the City might not. Or Manistee could have
tendered payment of principal and interest to the City and
sought immediate release of its lien under Illinois state law.
735 ILCS 5/12‐183(b). It chose not to do that. Or Manistee
could have sought a declaratory judgment action in state
court.
The district court notes a fourth option available to
Manistee: it could have sold the property encumbered by the
lien. And in its reply brief, the City raises a curious fact
relating to Manistee’s claim to have been over a barrel:
plaintiff managed to sell its property without actually
recording the release of judgment provided by the City. The
lien was only released on June 10, 2016, while this action was
pending. The property, however, was sold for $10 via
warranty deed to an Arizona corporation on January 28,
2014.2
These facts cut to the heart of the plaintiff’s contention that
it was forced to pay the $5,655.16 to the City, lest it break its
contract and miss out on a lucrative business deal. At the time
Manistee paid the City, the contract was already broken.
Presuming that the sale of the property was arm’s‐length, it
appears the value of the property less the City’s lien was
negative. The administrative record of municipal code
violations suggests that, at the time, the out‐of‐compliance
property was abandoned, requiring extensive repairs before
being certified for occupancy. In such a situation the
2 Brief and Appendix of Defendant‐Appellee at A4.
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economically rational thing to do would be to do nothing.
Surely if the property had substantial value and the plaintiff
were in a hurry to clear the title, the closing price would not
turn out to be $10.
And if the property were not valuable, what would be the
hurry? After recording the lien in January 2012 and then
failing to serve the plaintiff with a citation to discover assets,
the City simply gave up. Under state law, the City could have
foreclosed, however. And that might have mooted the
plaintiff’s class action.
The fact of the sale prior to clearing title also exposes the
heart of the plaintiff’s proposed class action. It claims that the
aggrieved class is numerous—in the hundreds, if not
thousands. But how many corporations find themselves in a
position like Manistee’s—having promised a third party that
title was clean, conveyed that property without clean title, and
allegedly at the mercy of the City over a lien no longer
attached to real property they own? Put another way: how
often is the City in a position to “coerce” payment from a
payee on the hook for a broken contract? That class cannot be
very large.
Finally, on appeal the plaintiff suggests that the
deprivation of the property interest occurred when the City
refused to release the lien upon receipt of the request for a
payoff letter. This might be taken to allege that the cognizable
property interest was not the $5,655.16, but a sort of option‐
contract interest—immediate release of a lien upon tendering
payment. But as the City makes clear, Manistee never actually
did tender payment of the judgment plus interest, nor did it
seek immediate release of the lien through the state law
process established by 735 ILCS 5/12‐183(b).
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In sum, on any read of the plaintiff’s allegations, no
property deprivation occurred, and thus, no violation of
constitutional due process.
So why would such a small amount cause the plaintiff to
exert so much time and effort? Obviously the filing fees and
attorneys’ fees relating to the many hours and hundreds of
pages of brief‐writing far eclipses $1,394.82. Bringing a federal
civil suit and litigating it to conclusion is an expensive
business. As conceded at oral argument by plaintiff’s counsel,
the only reason this case makes any economic sense is due to
its anticipated class action payout.
By demanding a payoff letter, and knowing full well that
the letter would include attorneys’ fees and costs above and
beyond the lien amount plus interest, plaintiff’s counsel was
able to obtain a benchmark for determining class damages.
And the hope in such cases is typically not to litigate the claim
to resolution, but to survive a motion to dismiss and settle the
case, obtaining a large award from the City.
Upon surviving a motion to dismiss, it is certain that class
counsel would argue the potential class to be extremely
broad. But as noted, given the uniqueness of the plaintiff’s
case it is highly unlikely there could be any class certification.
As a result, it is apparent that the goal here would be to settle
after surviving a motion to dismiss, but before losing at the
class certification stage.
The City might suspect as much, but might still be faced
with a situation where the costs to get through discovery and
briefing on the subject would be greater than the settlement
offer that plaintiff’s counsel might offer. In such a situation
the settlement offer represents the “nuisance value” of the
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case. This is a persistent problem for defendants in class
action lawsuits.
One possible solution to this problem is requiring judges
to do some threshold level of review of the merits of a class
action before allowing certification of a class, or before
approving a settlement.3 This has been held to be generally
barred under the current Rule 23, although the line has not
always been clear.4 Nevertheless, it is cases like the one before
us that demonstrate precisely why the courts, and Congress,
ought to be on the lookout for ways to correct class action
abuses.
Given the complexity of our legal system, it is impossible
to develop perfect standards for identifying and quickly
disposing of frivolous claims. Inevitably this court and other
courts will be faced with cases that waste the time and money
of everybody. Beyond addressing the legal claims before us
as we would in any ordinary case, we must frankly identify
situations where we suspect the lawyers, rather than the
claimants, are the only potential beneficiaries. This is one such
case.
3 See Randy J. Kozel & David Rosenberg, Solving the Nuisance‐Value
Settlement Problem: Mandatory Summary Judgment, 90 VA. L. REV. 1849
(2004). This article was written prior to the Class Action Fairness Act of
2005, Pub. L. No. 109‐2. That law ameliorated, but by no means solved, the
problem of class action abuse. See Mark Moller, The Rule of Law Problem:
Unconstitutional Class Actions and Options for Reform, 28 HARV. J.L. & PUB.
POL’Y 855 (2005); Keith N. Hylton, Asbestos and Mass Torts with Fraudulent
Victims, 37 SW. U. L. REV. 575 (2008).
4 Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156 (1974); see also Szabo v. Bridgeport
Machs., Inc., 249 F.3d 672, 677 (7th Cir. 2001).
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B. Denial of Motions to Reconsider and Amend
We also affirm the district court’s decision to deny both
Manistee’s motion for reconsideration and its motion for
leave to amend its complaint. The plaintiff’s motion for
reconsideration and its proposed amended complaint, both of
which are in the record, allege no new facts or law which
could turn Manistee’s payment into a property deprivation,
and thus state a claim for relief. Reconsideration or
amendment would have been a waste of that court’s time.
III. CONCLUSION
We agree with the district court that the plaintiff has failed
to state a claim against the City of Chicago. The dismissal of
its case, and denial of its motions for reconsideration and
amendment, are therefore
AFFIRMED.
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