USCA11 Case: 25-11439 Document: 16-1 Date Filed: 12/23/2025 Page: 1 of 5

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-11439 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

JOHN T. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus

BANK UNITED, MCCALLA RAYMER LEIBERT PIERCE, LLC, ACE HOMES, LLC, CITY OF GWINNETT COUNTY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:24-cv-05940-VMC ____________________ USCA11 Case: 25-11439 Document: 16-1 Date Filed: 12/23/2025 Page: 2 of 5

2 Opinion of the Court 25-11439

Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and KIDD, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: John Williams, proceeding pro se, appeals the dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint for failure to state a plausible claim for relief. We affirm the district court’s dismissal. I. BACKGROUND In December 2024, Williams filed a motion to proceed in forma pauperis in relation to a complaint he wished to file against Bank United; McCalla Raymer Leibert Pierce, LLC; Ace Homes, LLC; the “City of Gwinnett County”; and the United States (the “Defendants”). In his pro se complaint, Williams alleged that his two Georgia properties were subject to federal criminal forfeiture in the Southern District of New York. However, according to Wil- liams, these properties were foreclosed upon in state court during his incarceration. He contended that the Defendants’ actions in re- lation to these state foreclosure proceedings violated the Suprem- acy Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Based on these allegations, Williams listed the following claims for relief: (1) “Declaratory Relief Under 28 U.S.C. § 2201;” (2) “Viola- tion of the Fifth Amendment (Due Process);” and (3) “Injunctive Relief.” A magistrate judge allowed Williams to proceed without paying the filing fee, but, after conducting a frivolity review, recom- mended that the complaint be dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim, as any attempts to correct the complaint’s USCA11 Case: 25-11439 Document: 16-1 Date Filed: 12/23/2025 Page: 3 of 5

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deficiencies would be futile. The district judge overruled Williams’s objections and adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation. The court found no error in the magistrate judge’s determi- nation that Williams’s request for declaratory relief failed, as the Supremacy Clause does not provide a private cause of action. It also concluded that Williams’s Fifth Amendment claim arose under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and was governed by Georgia’s two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. The court found that this pe- riod presumably ended several years prior because Williams’s com- plaint indicated that the foreclosure proceedings occurred in Au- gust 2017. The court further determined that Williams was not en- titled to equitable tolling because he had filed several federal law- suits regarding the foreclosure during and after his incarceration, and he failed to identify any extraordinary circumstances justifying his delay in filing the instant action. Because no other basis for fed- eral jurisdiction existed, the district court dismissed the case with prejudice and determined that the motions Williams had filed while the magistrate judge’s recommendation was pending, which included requests for discovery, sanctions, injunctive relief, and va- catur of the forfeiture sale, were moot. Williams now appeals. II. STANDARD OF REVIEW We review a district court’s sua sponte dismissal of a com- plaint for failure to state a claim de novo, “viewing the allegations in the complaint as true.” Hughes v. Lott, 350 F.3d 1157, 1159–60 (11th Cir. 2003). USCA11 Case: 25-11439 Document: 16-1 Date Filed: 12/23/2025 Page: 4 of 5

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III. DISCUSSION A district court shall dismiss an in forma pauperis complaint if it determines that the action fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). Dismissal is ap- propriate where a complaint fails “to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (cita- tion modified); see Mitchell v. Farcass, 112 F.3d 1483, 1490 (11th Cir. 1997) (explaining that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) standards govern § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) dismissals). Dismissal is also ap- propriate “where it is apparent from the face of the complaint that the claim is time-barred.” United States v. Henco Holding Corp., 985 F.3d 1290, 1296 (11th Cir. 2021) (citation modified). On appeal, Williams maintains that his claims rest upon the Supremacy Clause and that his due process rights were violated by the state foreclosure proceedings. Because the Supremacy Clause neither creates a private right of action nor provides a federal right, see Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Ctr., Inc., 575 U.S. 320, 324–27 (2015), and Williams briefs no challenge to the district court’s de- termination that his Fifth Amendment claim was time-barred, see Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008), we find no error in the district court’s determination that the complaint failed to state a claim where these were the only two alleged bases for relief. Williams suggests that dismissal with prejudice was inappro- priate because that measure should be reserved for when amend- ment is futile. However, the district judge made a futility USCA11 Case: 25-11439 Document: 16-1 Date Filed: 12/23/2025 Page: 5 of 5

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determination when adopting the magistrate judge’s recommen- dation in full. We agree that Williams could not remedy the defi- ciencies in his complaint with an amended pleading, as any chal- lenge to the constitutionality of the August 2017 foreclosure pro- ceedings would be barred by the two-year statute of limitations, and Williams does not offer any alternative bases for federal juris- diction or justify his delay in filing the instant action. See Woldeab v. Dekalb Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 885 F.3d 1289, 1291 (11th Cir. 2018) (ex- plaining that leave to amend need not be granted where “a more carefully drafted complaint would not state a claim” (citation mod- ified)); see also Lovett v. Ray, 327 F.3d 1181, 1182 (11th Cir. 2003); Chappell v. Rich, 340 F.3d 1279, 1283 (11th Cir. 2003). Likewise, be- cause there was no basis upon which to continue the case, the dis- trict court did not err in declining to rule on the merits of Wil- liams’s motions pending at the time of dismissal. See Friends of Ev- erglades v. S. Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 570 F.3d 1210, 1216 (11th Cir. 2009) (“An issue is moot when it no longer presents a live contro- versy with respect to which the court can give meaningful relief.” (citation modified)). IV. CONCLUSION We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Williams’s com- plaint with prejudice.