BUDGE v. ARRIANNA HOLDING COMPANY L.L.C. et al

Filing 40

MEMORANDUM OPINION fld. Signed by Magistrate Judge James B. Clark on 12/15/14. (sr, )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

STEVEN BUDGE,

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Plaintiff,
v.
ARRIANNA HOLDING COMPANY,
LLC, et al.,
Defendants.

Civil Action No. 13-0056 (CCC)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CLARK, United States Magistrate Judge
Currently pending before the Court is pro se Plaintiff Steven Budge’s (“Plaintiff”) motion
for leave to amend his complaint [Docket Entry No. 37]. Defendants Arrianna Holding Company,
LLC, Phoenix Funding, Inc. and William A. Collins (collectively, “Defendants”) have opposed
Plaintiff’s motion [Docket Entry Nos. 38, 39]. The Court has fully reviewed and considered all
arguments made in support of, and in opposition to, Plaintiff’s motion. The Court considers
Plaintiff’s motion without oral argument pursuant to L.Civ.R. 78.1(b). For the reasons set forth
more fully below, Plaintiff’s motion to file an amended complaint is DENIED.
I.

BACKGROUND
The parties and the Court are all familiar with the facts underlying this litigation. As such,

they are not restated at length herein. 1 This action arises out of a March 2006 public tax sale for
unpaid property taxes on Plaintiff’s property, located at 242 Outlook Boulevard, Old Bridge, New

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The facts relevant to this motion stated herein are taken from the District Court’s prior Opinions issued in this case.
See Docket Entry Nos. 15, 30.

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Jersey. A foreclosure action on the property was filed in June 2008 which Plaintiff untimely
opposed and ultimately lost. Plaintiff appealed the final judgment of the Superior Court to the
Appellate Division, which affirmed the decision of the Superior Court. Plaintiff’s petition for
certification with the Supreme Court of New Jersey was subsequently denied.
This action was filed on January 1, 2013 and Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s
complaint in lieu of an answer on February 13, 2013, arguing that Plaintiff’s claims were precluded
by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The District Court agreed and on August 19, 2013 granted
Defendants’ motions while also giving Plaintiff leave to amend to cure any deficiencies, if
possible. See August 19, 2013 Opinion (“Opinion I”); Docket Entry No. 15.
In the months that followed, several motions were filed by Plaintiff. See Docket Entry Nos.
18, 22. In an Opinion dated April 29, 2014, the District Court denied Plaintiff’s motions for
reconsideration, to amend the complaint, for default judgment and for a preliminary injunction.
See April 29, 2014 Opinion (“Opinion II”); Docket Entry No. 30. Again, the Court granted
Plaintiff leave to file a motion to amend the complaint. The instant motion followed.
II.

LEGAL STANDARD
The decision to grant or deny leave to amend is committed to the sound discretion of the

Court. Gay v. Petsock, 917 F.2d 768, 772 (3d Cir. 1990). Pursuant to FED.R.CIV.P. 15(a)(2),
leave to amend the pleadings is generally granted freely. See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182
(1962); Alvin v. Suzuki, 227 F.3d 107, 121 (3d Cir. 2000). Nevertheless, the Court may deny a
motion to amend where there is “undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the
movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue
prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, [or] futility of the
amendment.” Id. However, where there is an absence of undue delay, bad faith, prejudice or

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futility, a motion for leave to amend a pleading should be liberally granted. Long v. Wilson, 393
F.3d 390, 400 (3d Cir. 2004).
An amendment is futile if it “is frivolous or advances a claim or defense that is legally
insufficient on its face.” Harrison Beverage Co. v. Dribeck Imp., Inc., 133 F.R.D. 463, 468
(D.N.J. 1990) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). To evaluate futility the District
Court uses “the same standard of legal sufficiency” as applied for a motion to dismiss under Rule
12(b)(6). Shane v. Fauver, 213 F.3d 113, 115 (3d Cir. 2000). “Accordingly, if a claim is
vulnerable to dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), but the plaintiff moves to amend, leave to amend
generally must be granted unless the amendment would not cure the deficiency.” Id.
The Supreme Court refined the standard for summary dismissal of a complaint that fails to
state a claim in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009). The Court examined Rule 8(a)(2) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which provides that a complaint must contain “a short and plain
statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” FED.R.CIV.P. 8(a)(2). 2 Citing
its opinion in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), for the proposition that “[a]
pleading that offers ‘labels and conclusions' or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause
of action will not do,’” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555), the Supreme
Court identified two working principles underlying the failure to state a claim standard.
First, the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a
complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the elements
of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice ....
Rule 8 ... does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing
more than conclusions. Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for
relief survives a motion to dismiss. Determining whether a complaint states a
plausible claim for relief will ... be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing
court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. But where the wellpleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of

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Rule 8(d)(1) provides that “[e]ach allegation must be simple, concise, and direct. No technical form is required.”
FED.R.CIV.P. 8(d).

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misconduct, the complaint has alleged--but it has not “show[n]”--“that the pleader
is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).
Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949-1950 (citations omitted). The Court further explained that:
a court considering a motion to dismiss can choose to begin by identifying pleadings
that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption
of truth. While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they
must be supported by factual allegations. When there are well-pleaded factual
allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they
plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.
Id. at 1950.
Thus, to prevent a summary dismissal, a civil complaint must allege “sufficient factual
matter” to show that the claim is facially plausible. Id. at 1949. This then “allows the court to
draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. The
Supreme Court's ruling in Iqbal emphasizes that a plaintiff must demonstrate that the allegations
of his complaint are plausible. Id. at 1949-50.
III.

DISCUSSION
At the outset, the Court notes that it has accepted Plaintiff’s filing as timely. Although not

docketed until August 4, 2014, the date on Plaintiff’s submission is June 27, 2014. 3 As such, the
Court will consider the motion timely, given that Plaintiff was given an extension until June 30,
2014 to file same.
Plaintiff seeks to amend his complaint 4 to add various causes of action: 1) a violation of
Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. §1; 2) violations of the New Jersey Antitrust

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It appears that, due to a clerical error, Plaintiff’s instant motion was not timely docketed by the Clerk’s Office. As
a result, the case was dismissed and marked closed by the District Court on July 18, 2014. However, Plaintiff’s
motion was ultimately filed and backdated to reflect same. Therefore, because the error was rectified and Plaintiff’s
motion deemed timely, Plaintiff need not have made the additional showing that the case be reopened first. See
Janese v. Fay, 692 F.3d 221, 229 (2d Cir. 2012) (Explaining that, once judgment is entered, it is still possible to
amend the pleadings, but not until after the judgment is set aside or vacated pursuant to Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b)).
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Plaintiff did not file a legal brief with his motion, but instead appears to rely solely on the proposed amended
complaint itself.

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Act, N.J.S.A. 56:9-3 and N.J.S.A. 54:5-63.1 for charging an excessive fee in connection with the
redemption of a tax sale certificate; and 4) unjust enrichment. See Proposed Amended Complaint
at 45-51; Docket Entry No. 37. 5

It also appears from the amended complaint that Plaintiff is

seeking to add over a dozen additional defendants to this action. Defendants oppose Plaintiff’s
motion, arguing that it fails to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, and is barred by
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, res judicata and collateral estoppel.
Upon a review of the proposed amended complaint and the arguments made by Defendants,
the Court finds that all amendments and indeed, the entire complaint, fails as a matter of law and
is therefore futile. Plaintiff’s instant proposed amended complaint is nothing more than a lengthier
version of the previous amended complaints, which have been denied by this Court. See Docket
Entry Nos. 15, 30. As the District Court previously noted, Plaintiffs’ allegations fail to allege “the
way in which Defendants’ actions specifically affected his property.” Opinion II at 7. Likewise,
Plaintiffs’ instant complaint alleges no facts other than that the Defendants were purchasing and
bidding on tax sale certificates on the same day the tax certificate at issue was purchased and that,
as a result, the “interest rate, fees, penalties, cost, Redemption (sic) associated with the [tax sale
certificate] on the Plaintiffs (sic) property was artificially inflated, and Plaintiff has been damaged
thereby.” Prop. Am. Compl. at ¶23. These are the same allegations previously advanced by
Plaintiff. See e.g. Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration and to Amend (“Motion to Amend I”) at
11; Docket Entry No. 18 (“Defendants and their co-conspirators secretly rigged the bids…in order

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Although not specifically outlined as a cause of action in Plaintiff’s complaint, Plaintiff once again alleges that
Defendants have engaged in a “fraudulent scheme” and that they have committed common law fraud. See Prop. Am.
Compl. at 38, 42, 53. Likewise, Plaintiff’s first motion to amend contained similar allegations that were dismissed
by the District Court. See generally Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration and to Amend; Docket Entry No. 18. In
ruling against Plaintiff, the District Court specifically found that “[t]his Court is unconvinced that Plaintiff has the
ability to allege a fraud claim against Defendant that meets the pleading standard of [Fed. R. Civ. P.] 9(b).” Opinion
II at 8. Therefore, to the extent that Plaintiff had the intention to allege common law fraud as a separate cause of
action, the Court finds that the same reasoning applies to Plaintiff’s instant proposed complaint as well, rendering
the claim futile.

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to guarantee that the interest rate would stay artificially high”) (“Defendants’ actions often inflated
the amount to such a degree that foreclosure proceedings on the property could not be avoided”);
see also Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend the Complaint and for Default Judgment (“Motion to Amend
II”) at 6; Docket Entry No. 22-1 (“the above defendants purchased tax certificates on the same day
as plaintiffs (sic) [tax certificate] was sold.”)
Again, Plaintiff relies heavily on the fact that an investigation has been conducted by the
Department of Justice and that several of the proposed Defendants have pled guilty to violations
of the Sherman Act.

Nevertheless, this argument was also previously rejected by the District

Court because of Plaintiff’s failure to plead facts relating to his property. Opinion II at 7
(“Although Plaintiff continuously references the Department of Justice’s investigation into the
Additional Defendants for violating the Sherman Act, Plaintiff has failed to specifically allege how
these violations resulted in injury to him or his property.”) Moreover, Plaintiff advances the same
causes of action that have been previously dismissed without alleging any additional facts. In
Plaintiff’s second motion to amend, he alleges the following, in unedited form: “The Plaintiffs
Claim for Relief, alleges, among other things, A violation of the Sherman Act, Section one, 15
U.S.C. The New Jersey Antitrust Act N.J.S.A. 56:9-3. and multiple provisions of the New Jersey
Tax Lien Laws, N.J.S.A. 54:1 et seq.” Motion to Amend II at 10 (emphasis omitted). Additionally,
that motion also states that “Defendants were Unjustly Enriched and damaged plaintiff.” Id. at 11
(emphasis omitted).
The Court finds that there is no significant difference between the instant proposed
amended complaint and Plaintiff’s prior proposed amended complaints. Therefore, for the reasons
set forth above, and in the District Court’s prior Opinions denying Plaintiff’s motions to amend,
the Court finds that Plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint fails as a matter of law and is therefore

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futile. As such, the Court need not address Defendants’ remaining arguments with respect to the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine, res judicata and collateral estoppel.
IV.

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff’s motion to amend is DENIED. An appropriate

Order follows.

Dated: December 15, 2014
s/James B. Clark, III
HONORABLE JAMES B. CLARK, III
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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