Williams v. Jason Michael Katz, PC

Filing 33

ORDER Adopting 28 Report and Recommendation. Signed by District Judge Terrence G. Berg. (Chubb, A)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
FRANCENE WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff,

Case No. 13-12316
HON. TERRENCE G. BERG
HON. MONA K. MAJZOUB

v.
JASON MICHAEL KATZ, PC, and
CREDIT ACCEPTANCE CORP.,
Defendants.

/

ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION (Dkt. 28)
Plaintiff Francene Williams has sued Defendants Jason Michael Katz, PC
(“JMK Firm”) and Credit Acceptance Corp. (“CAC”) (collectively, “Defendants”)
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants violated her constitutional rights.
Specifically, Plaintiff asserts that Defendants violated Plaintiff’s rights, as
guaranteed by the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Constitution, by taking various actions to collect a debt from Plaintiff.
This matter is now before the Court on Magistrate Judge Mona K. Majzoub’s
Report and Recommendation of September 16, 2013 (Dkt. 28), recommending that
Plaintiff’s motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (Dkt.
2), Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction and permanent injunction (Dkt. 19),
and Plaintiff’s motion for reparative injunction (Dkt. 20) should be DENIED.
Magistrate Judge Majzoub further recommended that Defendant JMK Firm’s

motion to dismiss (Dkt. 11) and Defendant CAC’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. 15) should
be GRANTED and Plaintiff’s Complaint be dismissed.
The law provides that either party may serve and file written objections
“[w]ithin fourteen days after being served with a copy” of the Report and
Recommendation. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), E.D. Mich. LR 72.1(d). Plaintiff filed
timely objections to the Report and Recommendation (Dkt. 29); Defendants did not
file any objections. However, the court ordered Defendants to respond to Plaintiff’s
objections, and such responses were timely filed—Defendant JMK Firm submitted
its response on October 14, 2013 (Dkt. 31), and Defendant CAC submitted its
response on October 15, 2013 (Dkt. 32).
A district court must conduct a de novo review of the parts of a Report and
Recommendation to which a party objects. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). “A judge of
the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or
recommendations made by the magistrate judge. The judge may also receive
further evidence or recommit the matter to the magistrate judge with
instructions.” Id.
The Court has reviewed Magistrate Judge Majzoub’s Report and
Recommendation, Plaintiff’s objections thereto, and the Defendants’ responses. For
the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff’s objections are OVERRULED, and the Report
and Recommendation is ACCEPTED and ADOPTED as the opinion of the Court.
Consequently, the Complaint is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

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I.
A.

ANALYSIS

Plaintiff’s First Objection – Rooker-Feldman Doctrine1
Plaintiff Williams’ first objection appears to dispute Magistrate Judge

Majzoub’s conclusion that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents the Court from
exercising subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims.
This Court agrees with the Magistrate Judge’s Rooker-Feldman analysis. As
stated in the Report and Recommendation, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is a
jurisdictional prohibition against federal district court review of both state court
judgments and of those claims inextricably intertwined with an issue raised in a
state court proceeding. See DLX, Inc. v. Kentucky, 381 F.3d 511, 516-17 (6th Cir.
2004). A federal claim is inextricably intertwined with a state court judgment if the
federal claim succeeds only to the extent that the state court wrongly decided the
issues before it. Id. at 517. “Where federal relief can only be predicated upon a
conviction that the state court was wrong, it is difficult to conceive the federal
proceedings as, in substance, anything other than a prohibited appeal of the statecourt judgment.” Pieper v. Am. Arbitration Ass’n, Inc., 336 F.3d 458, 460 (6th Cir.
2003) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Over ten years ago, Defendant CAC obtained a default judgment against
Plaintiff in Michigan’s 36th District Court. In 2009, prior to the expiration of that
judgment, Defendant JMK Firm, as counsel for CAC, renewed the judgment for an
additional ten years pursuant to MCL § 600.5809(3). The JMK Firm then issued a

See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v.
Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983).
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writ of garnishment directed to Plaintiff’s employer. Plaintiff objected to the
garnishment and a hearing was scheduled in the 36th District Court for June 19,
2013. (See Dkt. 11, Ex. 8). At that hearing, the court denied Plaintiff’s objection
and ordered the garnishee to “immediately release all withheld funds to the
plaintiff” and “continue withholding and payment of funds as previously ordered by
the court.” (Dkt. 17, Register of Actions, Credit Acceptance Corporation v. Francene
Williams, No. 99-121163). The court also denied Plaintiff’s motion to set aside the
default judgment. Id.
To challenge the validity of the state district court’s rulings, Plaintiff should
have appealed to a higher state court. Instead, Plaintiff filed this federal action
requesting relief that, if granted, would necessarily reverse the judgment of the
state district court. Consequently, this Court is barred by the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine from exercising subject matter jurisdiction and will take no action on the
merits of Plaintiff’s impermissible attempt at appeal.

B.

Plaintiff’s Second Objection – Absence of State Action
Plaintiff’s second objection questions Magistrate Judge Majzoub’s alternate

ground for dismissal, i.e. the failure to allege facts sufficient to show that
Defendants were acting on behalf of the state. Because the Court has already
concluded that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, even a valid objection to nonjurisdictional grounds for dismissal would be unavailing. Nonetheless, in
considering Plaintiff’s objection to Magistrate Judge Majzoub’s alternate ground for

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dismissal, the Court concludes that the reasoning of Magistrate Judge Majzoub on
the question of state action was correct.
On this issue, Plaintiff’s objection is that it does not matter whether the
Defendants were state actors because the Defendants had acted fraudulently;
alternatively, Plaintiff suggests that Defendants became state actors because the
“state court was negligent or unwilling to carry out its responsibility of verifying
that documents were genuine.” (Dkt. 29).
Under controlling §1983 jurisprudence, it does matter whether the
Defendants actions were taken under color of state law:
Section 1983's purpose is to guard against the “[m]isuse of power,
possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the
wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law....” Monroe v.
Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 184, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961) (quoting
United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368
(1941)). Two elements are necessary to state a cause of action under 42
U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiff must plead and prove (1) that some person
has deprived him of a federal right, and (2) that the person has done so
under color of state law. Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 150,
90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L. Ed. 2d 142 (1970)
Molnar v. Care House, 574 F. Supp. 2d 772, 782-85 (E.D. Mich. 2008), aff’d, 359 Fed.
App’x 623 (6th Cir. 2009).
Moreover, Plaintiff’s theory that Defendants “became state actors” by way of
the state court’s alleged negligence is without merit. Although Plaintiff cites to
Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc., 457 U.S. 922 (1982), that case authorized a
plaintiff’s § 1983 claim to proceed only to the extent that the plaintiff was
challenging the constitutionality of the state’s attachment statute. Further, the
holding was limited to the prejudgment attachment context. Here, there was no
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prejudgment attachment. Likewise, Plaintiff is not challenging the
constitutionality of any law, but rather seems to be arguing that Defendants
misused or abused state law, a claim that Lugar specifically found to not constitute
state action. Lugar, 457 U.S. at 942 (“Petitioner did present a valid cause of action
under § 1983 insofar as he challenged the constitutionality of the Virginia statute;
he did not insofar as he alleged only misuse or abuse of the statute”); see also Hill v.
Langer, 86 F. App’x 163 (6th Cir. 2004) (declining to extend Lugar beyond the
narrow context of prejudgment attachment).
Because the complaint fails to allege that Defendants actions were “fairly
attributable to the state,” Plaintiff’s claim for liability under § 1983 fails to set forth
a claim upon which relief could be granted. Even if the Court could exercise subject
matter jurisdiction, Plaintiff’s complaint would not withstand Defendants’ motions
to dismiss.
II.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, Magistrate Judge Majzoub’s Report and
Recommendation of September 16, 2013 (Dkt. 28) is hereby ACCEPTED and
ADOPTED.
Accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion for temporary restraining order and
preliminary injunction (Dkt. 2), Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction and
permanent injunction (Dkt. 19), and Plaintiff’s motion for reparative injunction
(Dkt. 20) are all DENIED.

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Further, Defendant JMK Firm’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. 11) and Defendant
CAC’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. 15) are both GRANTED, and Plaintiff’s Complaint is
DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

Dated: October 29, 2013

s/Terrence G. Berg
TERRENCE G. BERG
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Certificate of Service

I hereby certify that this Order was electronically submitted on October 29,
2013, using the CM/ECF system; a copy of this Order was also mailed to Plaintiff at
3907 Van Dyke Street, Detroit, MI 48214.
s/A. Chubb
Case Manager

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