Davis v. Wells Fargo Bank – 3d Cir. –
May 27, 2016
In
this federal follow-up to a foreclosure case, Michael Earl Davis is pursuing a
variety of claims against an entity 3 that he calls “Wells Fargo U.S. Bank
National Association as Trustee for the Structured Asset Investment Loan Trust,
2005-11.” It is the purported holder of Davis’s mortgage, and we will refer to
it as “Wells Fargo” or “the bank.”1 Davis has also sued Assurant, Inc.,
believing it to be the provider of insurance on his home. His claims against
both Wells Fargo and Assurant arise from damage that occurred to his house
after Wells Fargo had locked him out of it, damage that went unrepaired and
worsened into severe structural problems.
The
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed
Davis’s claims against Wells Fargo, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6), on the grounds that claim preclusion and a statute of limitations
barred recovery. We will affirm that portion of the District Court’s order.
The
District Court also dismissed all of Davis’s claims against Assurant, pursuant
to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. The Court reasoned that Davis lacked standing to bring those
claims because he sued the wrong corporate entity, namely Assurant, when he
should have sued Assurant’s wholly-owned subsidiary, American Security
Insurance Company (“ASIC”). That conclusion about standing was in error.
Standing
is indeed a jurisdictional predicate, but, rightly understood, this case is not
about standing at all. An analysis of
standing generally focuses on whether the plaintiff is the right party to bring
particular claims, not on whether the plaintiff has sued the right party. The
latter question goes not to standing and jurisdiction but to the merits of the
claims themselves. Therefore, the District Court erred in considering the
claims against Assurant under Rule 12(b)(1) rather than Rule 12(b)(6). That
difference has important consequences here. In the end, the difference between
those rules of procedure dictates that we vacate that portion of the District
Court’s order dismissing Davis’s breach of contract claim against Assurant and
remand for further proceedings.
-----------------------
If the case is old, the link
may have become stale and may not work, but you can use the case name, court,
and date to find the opinion in another source (e.g., Westlaw, Lexis, Google
Scholar)
