Brian K. Rice v. Chief Examiner of the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts

USCA11 Case: 24-13647 Document: 39-1 Date Filed: 06/24/2025 Page: 1 of 13

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________

No. 24-13647

Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

BRIAN K. RICE,

Plaintiff-Appellant, versus CHIEF EXAMINER OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF EXAMINERS OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS, EXAMINER OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF EXAMINERS OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS, NEVA CLAIRE CONWAY, in her individual capacity and official capacity as legal counsel for Alabama Real Estate Appraisers Board, LISA C. BROOKS, in her individual capacity and official capacity as Executive Director, Alabama Real Estate Appraisers Board, SYNOVUS BANK, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama D.C. Docket No. 2:24-cv-00033-ACA ____________________

Before NEWSOM, LAGOA, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In September 2019, Plaintiff Brian Rice received an appraisal report for certain properties he owned that he believed fraudu- lently valued those properties at $0. Over four years later, Rice, proceeding pro se, sued the appraisal company, the bank that hired the appraisal company, Alabama’s Real Estate Appraiser’s Board, the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts, and the Jefferson County Board of Equalization, alleging a wide-ranging conspiracy by private and state actors to deprive him of his prop- erty rights in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1981, and 18 U.S.C. §§ 656 and 1964. The district court dismissed Rice’s complaint in its entirety, and Rice appealed. After careful review, we affirm the district court.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In July 2018, Rice sought to secure a loan from Synovus Bank to maintain and develop certain properties he owned in Bir- mingham. Securing the loan required an appraisal of those prop- erties, so Synovus had CBRE, Inc., an appraisal company, perform an appraisal in July 2019. CBRE appraised Rice’s land at $45,000 and valued the proposed building improvements at $0. The prop- erties lacked value, CBRE explained, because they were in such dis- repair that they needed to be demolished. Synovus then declined to lend Rice the money he sought.

Rice, however, alleges that CBRE’s appraisal was “predeter- mined” and unfair. He contends that the appraisal report (1) omit- ted that Rice was making rent off the properties and (2) used inap- propriate comparables. Rice sought a new appraisal, and, alterna- tively, review of CBRE’s appraisal from the Alabama Real Estate Appraisers Board (AREAB) to no success.

His disagreement with CBRE’s appraisal notwithstanding, Rice figured he could at least use it to lower his property taxes; just that year, the Jefferson County Board of Equalization (JCBOE) had valued his properties at $229,790. He contacted the JCBOE in De- cember 2020 requesting a tax adjustment, but was denied the re- quest and told to wait until the 2021 tax season. Rice re-filed his request on July 26, 2021, and this time the JCBOE valued his prop- erties at $122,800.

In April 2023, the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts (ADEPA) reached out to Rice to let him know that they received the complaint he had lodged with the AREAB con- cerning CBRE’s appraisal and requested further information from him. Rice sent back a comprehensive letter detailing his grievances with CBRE and the AREAB, but the ADEPA never responded.

On January 10, 2024, Rice filed suit against certain employ- ees of the ADEPA, the AREAB, Synovus, CBRE, and the JCBOE, in both their private and official capacities, 1 alleging 11 Counts un- der the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1981, and 18 U.S.C. §§ 656 and 1964 for the deprivation of his prop- erty rights. Rice also sought to have the district court judge, Judge Annmarie Carney Axon, recused because she represented Synovus, First Commercial Bank, 2 and the State of Alabama in her private practice. The district court denied Rice’s motion to recuse and granted the Defendants’ motions to dismiss. As relevant to this ap- peal, the district court held that Rice’s claims against (1) the Syn- ovus and CBRE Defendants were time-barred by the applicable statutes of limitations; (2) the ADEPA and AREAB Defendants failed for lack of standing; and (3) the JCBOE were barred under the Tax Injunction Act. Rice timely appealed.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of a com- plaint for failure to satisfy the statute of limitations. Jackson v. Astrue, 506 F.3d 1349, 1352 (11th Cir. 2007). We review the dismis- sal of a complaint for lack of standing de novo. Scott v. Taylor, 470 F.3d 1014, 1017 (11th Cir. 2006). We review the district court’s in- terpretation of the Tax Injunction Act de novo and its factual find- ings on jurisdiction for clear error. I.L. v. Alabama, 739 F.3d 1273, 1282 (11th Cir. 2014). We review a district judge’s denial of a recusal motion for abuse of discretion. Jenkins v. Anton, 922 F.3d 1257, 1271 (11th Cir. 2019). We review a district court’s denial of leave to amend a complaint for abuse of discretion. Marrache v. Bacardi U.S.A., Inc., 17 F.4th 1084, 1092 (11th Cir. 2021).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Rice’s RICO and state fraud claims against the CBRE and Synovus Defendants are time barred.

In Counts Nine and Ten of his complaint, Rice asserted civil RICO and state law fraud claims against the CBRE and Synovus Defendants. The district court dismissed both claims as barred by the statute of limitations. We agree.

The statute of limitations for a civil RICO claim is four years, running from “when the injury was or should have been discov- ered, regardless of whether or when the injury is discovered to be part of a pattern of racketeering.” Lehman v. Lucom, 727 F.3d 1326, 1330 (11th Cir. 2013) (quoting Maiz v. Virani, 253 F.3d 641, 676 (11th Cir. 2001)). And the statute of limitations for Rice’s state fraud claims is only two years, running from discovery “of the fact con- stituting the fraud.” Ala. Code § 6-2-3.

Here, Rice’s alleged injury arises from CBRE’s appraisal re- port, which was issued and provided to Synovus in June 2019. Rice knew about the CBRE appraisal, at the very latest, by September 2019, when he lodged his complaint with the AREAB. So Rice’s RICO and state fraud claims against the CBRE and Synovus De- fendants started accruing in September 2019 and expired in Sep- tember 2023, long before Rice filed suit on January 10, 2024. They are therefore time-barred.

On appeal, Rice does not dispute that he was aware of the appraisal report’s allegedly fraudulent nature in September 2019. Instead, he contends that the subsequent fraudulent actions by the ADEPA and AREAB—effectively covering up the fraudulent re- port—extended the limitations period for his claims against the Synovus and CBRE Defendants. Our precedent forecloses this ar- gument.

In Lehman v. Lucom, we explained that a “plaintiff cannot use an independent, new predicate act as a bootstrap to recover for in- juries caused by other earlier predicate acts that took place outside the limitations period,” 727 F.3d at 1331 (quoting Klehr v. A.O. Smith Corp., 521 U.S. 179, 190 (1997), and that, by extension, when an in- jury is a “continuation of [an] initial injury,” it “is not new and independent,” id. (quoting Pilkington v. United Airlines, 112 F.3d 1532, 1537–38 (11th Cir. 1997) (emphasis in original)). So even assuming (charitably) that Rice adequately alleged a cover-up by the ADEPA and AREAB, those actions are merely a continuation of the only injury he alleges—loss of property value due to the fraudulent ap- praisal. And the statute of limitations for that injury accrued in September 2023. 3 We therefore reject Rice’s attempt to use the ADEPA’s and AREAB’s alleged cover-up of the fraudulent ap- praisal report as a “bootstrap” to salvage his time-barred claims against the CBRE and Synovus Defendants. See Lehman, 727 F.3d at 1331.

B. Rice lacks standing to bring his claims against the

AREAB and ADEPA Defendants.

To have standing, a plaintiff must show: “(1) [he] has suf- fered an injury in fact that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the in- jury is fairly traceable to conduct of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, not just merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Kelly v. Harris, 331 F.3d 817, 819-20 (11th Cir. 2003).

Here, the district court found that Rice’s alleged injury—the loss of his properties’ value due to the appraisal report—was not traceable to the conduct of the AREAB and ADEPA Defendants. We agree with the district court.

Traceability requires “a causal connection between the plaintiff’s injury and the defendant’s legal violation.” Walters v. Fast AC, LLC, 60 F.4th 642, 650 (11th Cir. 2023) (citing Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992)). While this causal connection is less stringent than proximate causation, the plaintiff must at least demonstrate factual causation between his injuries and the defend- ant’s misconduct. Id. We have therefore “held traceability to be lacking if the plaintiff would have been injured in precisely the same way without the defendant’s alleged misconduct.” Id. (quo- tation marks omitted).

All actions committed by the AREAB and the ADEPA that Rice takes issue with—essentially, their non-action in the face of complaints lodged against CBRE—occurred well after CBRE is- sued its appraisal report. Rice’s injury, the depreciation of his prop- erties’ value resulting from CBRE’s appraisal and Synovus’ ac- ceptance of that appraisal, could not have resulted from the AREAB’s and ADEPA’s subsequent failure to investigate and disci- pline CBRE for its allegedly fraudulent report; 4 Rice “would have been injured in precisely the same way without [AREAB’s and ADEPA’s] misconduct.” Id. We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of Rice’s claims against the AREAB and ADEPA Defendants.

C. The Tax Injunction Act bars Rice’s claims against the

JCBOE.

In Counts Two, Three, Six, Eight, Nine, and Ten, Rice al- leged that the JCBOE discriminatorily denied him the right to pro- test his property valuation and failed to lower his valuation con- sistent with the CBRE appraisal. We agree with the district court that we do not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear these claims under the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341 (TIA).

The TIA provides that “[t]he district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy, or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.” 28 U.S.C. § 1341. “The limitation imposed by the act is jurisdictional; it embodies the general princi- ple that the jurisdiction of the federal courts to interfere with so important a local concern as the collection of taxes must be drasti- cally limited.” Turner v. Jordan, 117 F.4th 1289, 1300 n.13 (11th Cir. 2024) (quotation marks and emphasis omitted), cert. denied, No. 24- 765 (U.S. Apr. 21, 2025). The plaintiff has the burden to show facts sufficient to overcome the jurisdictional bar of the Tax Injunction Act. Smith v. Travis County Educ. Dist., 968 F.2d 453, 456 (11th Cir. 1992).

Rice’s grievance with the JCBOE is ultimately that it should have reassessed his property taxes in line with the CBRE appraisal, or at the very least granted him a hearing to explain why. Any de- termination that the JCBOE should have assessed Rice’s taxes dif- ferently or followed the appropriate procedures in assessing his taxes, and attendant award of injunctive relief or damages, contra- venes the TIA’s bar on federal court meddling in the “the assess- ment, levy, or collection of any tax under State law.” 28 U.S.C. § 1341; see A Bonding Co. v. Sunnuck, 629 F.2d 1127, 1133 (5th Cir. 1980) (the TIA bars [a] “federal court suit for damages against a state tax administrator”); 5 see also Kelly v. Alabama Dep't of Revenue, 638 F. App’x 884, 889 (11th Cir. 2016) (“This Court has explicitly relied on both the TIA and comity to conclude that a district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction in a state-tax dispute requesting damages and declaratory relief.”). And because Rice does not ade- quately contend that Alabama does not provide him a sufficient remedy for his grievance,6 we agree with the district court that Rice’s claims against the JCBOE are barred.

D. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Rice’s recusal motion.

Rice moved to recuse Judge Annemarie Carney Axon, the district court judge below, on the grounds that during her time in private practice she represented the State of Alabama, First Com- mercial Bank, and Synovus Bank, and that Synovus’s office is in the same building as Judge Axon’s former firm. Specifically, Rice ar- gued that Judge Axon’s impartiality could be questioned because several defendants are employees of Alabama state entities, Syn- ovus Bank is a defendant in the action, and the current Synovus CEO formerly served as CEO of First Commercial Bank. The dis- trict court denied Rice’s motion to recuse, explaining that none of the identified prior representations concerned the claims at bar.

We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discre- tion because Rice failed to allege facts that could “reasonably [] question” Judge Axon’s impartiality. See 28 U.S.C. §455(a). Neither the State of Alabama nor First Commercial Bank are defendants here; and Judge Axon’s former representation of Synovus had noth- ing to do with this action. See id. § 455(b) (recusal required where judge “in private practice…served as lawyer in the matter in con- troversy.”). Moreover, Judge Axon last worked in private practice in 2018, about 6 years before adjudicating this case—“many judges [ ] sit, usually after a self-imposed cooling off period, on cases in- volving former clients[.]” In re Martinez-Catala, 129 F.3d 213, 221 (1st Cir. 1997). “[C]onsidering that the standard of review is abuse of discretion, we will affirm a district judge’s refusal to recuse him- self unless we conclude that the impropriety is clear and one which would be recognized by all objective, reasonable persons.” United States v. Bailey, 175 F.3d 966, 968 (11th Cir. 1999). Any purported impropriety here is not “clear.” Id. We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Rice’s recusal motion.

E. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Rice leave to amend his claims against the Synovus and CBRE Defendants. 7

On appeal, Rice appears to argue that the district court erred by not providing him another opportunity to amend his com- plaint. 8 We disagree.

“A district court may properly deny leave to amend the com- plaint…when such amendment would be futile.” Hall v. United Ins. Co. of Am., 367 F.3d 1255, 1262-63 (11th Cir. 2004). A proposed amendment is futile if the complaint, as amended, would still be subject to dismissal. Id. at 1263. And while a district court gener- ally must give a pro se plaintiff at least one chance to amend his complaint before dismissing the action with prejudice, it need not grant leave to amend when “a more carefully drafted complaint 7 Given that the district court dismissed Rice’s claims against the AREAB, ADEPA, and JCBOE Defendants without prejudice we construe Rice’s argu- ment here to concern his claims against the Synovus and CBRE Defendants. Rice may refile his claims against the AREAB, ADEPA, and JCBOE Defend- ants, if he so wishes.

Here, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to grant Rice leave to amend his claims against the Synovus and CBRE Defendants, as a more specific pleading could not have remedied the fact that they were time- barred by the applicable statutes of limitations. Id. Accordingly, we affirm as to this issue.

IV. CONCLUSION

For all these reasons, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Rice’s complaint. We also conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Rice’s recusal motion and Rice’s request to amend his complaint.

AFFIRMED.