Background
Nancy Alanis appealed the dismissal of her complaint asserting several claims arising from the foreclosure of two San Antonio properties: 1040 Blanco Road, identified by the court as the Blanco Property, and 13210 Hunters View, identified as the Hunters View Property. The defendants were U.S. Bank National Association in its stated successor-trustee capacity, Nationstar Mortgage, PHH Mortgage Corporation, Ocwen Loan Servicing, Wells Fargo Bank, and Mark D. Cronenwett. The appeal came from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in No. 5:23-CV-749.
The district court concluded that res judicata barred all of Alanis’s claims. It determined that those claims already had been, or could have been, raised in seven earlier lawsuits Alanis brought against the defendants or their privies. Alanis also challenged the denial of her motions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4), through which she sought relief from two allegedly void state-court orders entered in earlier foreclosure proceedings.
The Court’s Holding
In an unpublished per curiam opinion, the Fifth Circuit affirmed. On res judicata, the court did not independently reexamine whether each prior judgment precluded each claim. Instead, it held that Alanis had forfeited any argument that the district court erred in giving preclusive effect to the earlier judgments by failing to brief that issue on appeal, citing Yohey v. Collins, 985 F.2d 222, 224–25 (5th Cir. 1993). That forfeiture ruling was tied to Alanis’s presentation in this appeal, not announced as a universal rule dispensing with briefing in other cases.
The court separately rejected Alanis’s contention that the district court lacked jurisdiction to decide the defendants’ dismissal motions because of ripeness. It stated that this assertion lacked merit and cited Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148 (1967). The opinion therefore treated the ripeness objection as an unsuccessful challenge to the district court’s authority to rule on the motions, distinct from the briefing forfeiture concerning res judicata.
The panel also upheld the denial of Rule 60(b)(4) relief. It explained that, under the circumstances presented, Rule 60(b)(4) did not provide an avenue for relief from the state-court judgments at issue and that the district court did not err in declining the requested relief. The court cited Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1 and Callon Petroleum Co. v. Frontier Insurance Co., 351 F.3d 204, 208 (5th Cir. 2003). Its conclusion concerned the two state-court orders challenged in this case; the opinion did not purport to decide every possible use of Rule 60(b)(4).
Key Takeaways
- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment, leaving the dismissal of Alanis’s complaint and the denial of her Rule 60(b)(4) motions in place.
- Alanis forfeited any appellate challenge to the preclusive effect of the seven prior lawsuits by failing to brief that issue; the panel did not undertake a fresh claim-by-claim preclusion analysis.
- Her ripeness-based jurisdictional objection to consideration of the dismissal motions failed on the merits.
- Rule 60(b)(4) did not supply relief from the two challenged state-court foreclosure orders under the circumstances presented.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the practical consequence of inadequate appellate briefing: even where preclusion is the basis for dismissal, an appellant must preserve and develop a challenge to the district court’s application of that doctrine. It also distinguishes that procedural disposition from the panel’s separate rejection of the ripeness argument and its case-specific ruling on relief from state-court judgments.
The court additionally warned Alanis about future filings. It noted that she had been declared a vexatious litigant in the Western District of Texas and that it had previously affirmed dismissal of similar claims concerning the Hunters View Property in Alanis v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., No. 22-50246, 2022 WL 17844074, at *1 (5th Cir. Dec. 22, 2022) (per curiam) (unpublished). The present action was at least her fourth state or federal lawsuit concerning the Blanco Property foreclosure. The court warned that frivolous, repetitive, or otherwise abusive filings would invite sanctions, including possible dismissal, monetary sanctions, and restrictions on filing pleadings in the Fifth Circuit and courts subject to its jurisdiction, citing Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38 and Coghlan v. Starkey, 852 F.2d 806, 817 n.21 (5th Cir. 1988) (per curiam). The opinion was not designated for publication.