Classie Reels Curley v. Adams Creek Associates

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1465
CLASSIE REELS CURLEY,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
ADAMS CREEK ASSOCIATES; BILLIE DEAN BROWN, As General
Partner for Adams Creek Associates; GEORGE H. ELLINWOOD,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Greenville. Malcolm J. Howard,
Senior District Judge. (4:08-cv-00021-H)
Submitted: December 6, 2010 Decided: January 28, 2011
Before DUNCAN, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Larry S. Height, LAW OFFICE OF LARRY S. HEIGHT, Raleigh, North
Carolina, for Appellant. L. Lamar Armstrong, Jr., ARMSTRONG &
ARMSTRONG, P.A., Smithfield, North Carolina, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Classie Reels Curley appeals the district court’s
order dismissing her claims to quiet title on a parcel of
waterfront property in North Carolina and granting summary
judgment in favor of Appellee Adams Creek Associates (“Adams
Creek”) on Curley’s claim that she is the owner of the property
through adverse possession. The district court dismissed
Curley’s first two claims for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction and concluded that with respect to her adverse
possession claim, she had not satisfied the elements pursuant to
North Carolina law. We affirm.
I. Jurisdiction
We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion
to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Philips v. Pitt
Cnty. Mem’l Hosp., 572 F.3d 176, 179-80 (4th Cir. 2009). To
survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a complaint’s “[f]actual
allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the
speculative level” and have enough facts to state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atl. Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56 (2007). Generally, when ruling on
a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a judge must accept as true all of the
factual allegations contained in the complaint. Erickson v.
Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93-94 (2007).

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The Rooker-Feldman*
The doctrine disallows a federal court from reviewing
not only claims actually presented to a state court, but also
constitutional claims that derive from the state court judgment,
“as when success on the federal claim depends upon a
determination that the state court wrongly decided the issues
before it.” Plyler v. Moore, 129 F.3d 728, 731 (4th Cir. 1997)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, “a party losing in
state court is barred from seeking what in substance would be
appellate review of the state judgment in a United States
district court, based on the losing party’s claim that the state
judgment itself violates the loser’s federal rights.”
abstention doctrine establishes
that a federal district court lacks jurisdiction over a
litigant’s challenge to a state court decision, including
allegations that the state court’s action was unconstitutional.
See Feldman, 460 U.S. at 476, 482-83 & n.16; Rooker, 263 U.S. at
415-16. This jurisdictional bar includes claims that are
“inextricably intertwined” with a state court judgment and
precludes a district court from reviewing decisions of any level
of state court. Jordahl v. Democratic Party of Va., 122 F.3d
192, 199 (4th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).
* District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S.
462 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923).

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Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06 (1994). The
doctrine is confined to “cases brought by state-court losers
complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered
before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting
district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon
Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284
(2005).
Here, Curley asked the district court to invalidate a
proceeding brought to register a parcel of disputed property
pursuant to North Carolina’s Torrens Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann.
§ 43-1, et seq. (West 2009). She claimed that both the Torrens
Act and her due process rights were violated when the court
proceeded to dispose of the property without notice to her.
After reviewing the record, we conclude that Curley’s claims
fall squarely within the ambit of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine,
as she is “seeking what in substance would be appellate review
of the state judgment.” See De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1005-06.
II. Adverse Possession
Curley next claims error in the district court’s
decision granting summary judgment to Adams Creek on her adverse
possession claim. We review a district court’s order granting
summary judgment de novo, drawing reasonable inferences in the
light most favorable to the non-moving party. Hooven-Lewis v.

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Caldera, 249 F.3d 259, 265 (4th Cir. 2001). Summary judgment
may be granted only when “there is no genuine issue as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,
477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).
Again, we have reviewed the record and conclude the
district court committed no error. Curley only makes vague,
unsubstantiated, and self-serving allegations that she has
possessed the property continuously for the prescriptive period.
The record is clear that she lives in Pennsylvania, and has done
so for many years. Her claims that she attends reunions at the
disputed property and allows her nephews to live there as
tenants at will lack support in the record, even if they were
legally sufficient to satisfy North Carolina’s elements of
adverse possession.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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