Angela Sims v. Chase Home Finance, LLC

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Angela Sims v. Chase Home Finance, LLC, 471 F. App'x 877 (11th Cir. 2012)
Tjoflat, Pryor, Krayitch

Angela Sims v. Chase Home Finance, LLC

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Angela Sims appeals the dismissal of her amended complaint against Chase Home Finance, LLC. Sims filed in a Georgia court a complaint that Chase violated the Home Affordable Modification Program and its obligations to implement the Pro *878 gram under a Servicer Participation Agreement when it denied Sims’s applications to modify her residential mortgage loan. Chase removed the civil action to the district court, which dismissed Sims’s complaint for failure to state a claim. Fed. R. Civ.P. 12(b)(6). We affirm.

The district court did not err by dismissing Sims’s complaint. Sims failed to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face” from which the district court could “draw the reasonable inference that [Chase] is liable for [any] misconduct.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009); see Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1964-65, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). Sims complained that Chase failed to “properly apply” and “negligently implemented” the guidelines of the Program, but Sims failed to explain which guidelines that Chase allegedly misapplied, how the guidelines required Chase to modify Sims’s loan, or how the “ ‘language of the statute, the statutory structure, or some other source’ ” gave her a private right of action under the Program, Thompson v. Thompson, 484 U.S. 174, 180, 108 S.Ct. 513, 516, 98 L.Ed.2d 512 (1988) (quoting Nw. Airlines, Inc. v. Transp. Workers, 451 U.S. 77, 94, 101 S.Ct. 1571, 1582, 67 L.Ed.2d 750 (1981)). Sims complained that Chase breached its contract with the U.S. Department of the Treasury to evaluate loans under the Program, but Sims admitted that she was not a party to the contract and failed to explain how she was anything more than an incidental beneficiary of the contract. See Noe v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., 644 F.2d 434, 437 (5th Cir. 1981). Sims failed to state a claim that Chase had breached a covenant of good faith and fair dealing because Sims failed to state a claim that Chase had breached any contract with Sims. See Stuart Enters. Int’l, Inc. v. Peykan, Inc., 252 Ga.App. 231, 555 S.E.2d 881, 884 (2001). Sims failed to state a claim that Chase had negligently inflicted her emotional distress because Sims failed to allege that she had “suffered [a] physical impact ... [without which she] had no basis to bring a claim for the negligent infliction of emotional distress.” Johnson v. Allen, 272 Ga.App. 861, 613 S.E.2d 657, 663 (2005). Sims also failed to state a claim of promissory estoppel because Sims never alleged that Chase had promised to modify her mortgage loan under the Program. See Ga. Invs. Int’l, Inc. v. Branch Banking and Trust Co., 305 Ga.App. 673, 700 S.E.2d 662, 664 (2010).

We AFFIRM the dismissal of Sims’s complaint.

Reference

Full Case Name
Angela SIMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHASE HOME FINANCE, LLC, Defendant-Appellee
Status
Unpublished