Filed: Jul. 12, 2019
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _ No. 18-3800 _ WILLIAM H. CLAUS, IV v. GEORGE K. TRAMMELL, III; STEPHANIE PARKER, Appellants _ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware (D. Del. Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-01125) District Judge: Richard G. Andrews _ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) May 17, 2019 Before: MCKEE, COWEN, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: July 12, 2019) _ OPINION* _ * This disposition is no
Summary: NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _ No. 18-3800 _ WILLIAM H. CLAUS, IV v. GEORGE K. TRAMMELL, III; STEPHANIE PARKER, Appellants _ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware (D. Del. Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-01125) District Judge: Richard G. Andrews _ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) May 17, 2019 Before: MCKEE, COWEN, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: July 12, 2019) _ OPINION* _ * This disposition is not..
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 18-3800
___________
WILLIAM H. CLAUS, IV
v.
GEORGE K. TRAMMELL, III;
STEPHANIE PARKER,
Appellants
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Delaware
(D. Del. Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-01125)
District Judge: Richard G. Andrews
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
May 17, 2019
Before: MCKEE, COWEN, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: July 12, 2019)
___________
OPINION*
___________
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
PER CURIAM
Pro se appellants George K. Trammell III and Stephanie Parker appeal the District
Court’s remand of their state court ejectment action.1 For the reasons that follow, we will
affirm the District Court’s judgment to the extent of our jurisdiction and dismiss this
appeal in all other respects.
In June 2018, appellee filed a complaint for ejectment from a property against
appellants in the Delaware Superior Court for Sussex County. Soon after, appellants
removed the ejectment action to federal court. On appellee’s motion, the District Court
remanded the matter back to state court because it concluded that it lacked subject matter
jurisdiction over appellants’ case. Appellants sought reconsideration, which was denied.
Appellants then filed this appeal while state court proceedings resumed.
Our jurisdiction in reviewing a remand order is limited. As relevant here, 28
U.S.C. § 1447(d) provides that
[a]n order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is
not reviewable on appeal or otherwise, except that an order remanding a
case to the State court from which it was removed pursuant to section . . .
1443 of this title shall be reviewable by appeal or otherwise.
We thus have jurisdiction to review the District Court’s remand order only to the extent
that appellants maintain that removal was proper under § 1443. See Davis v. Glanton,
1
Appellants have also filed a number of motions for “judicial notice” which make
substantive arguments about the merits of the underlying state court action, as well as
motions for a restraining order and for leave to file an additional supplemental appendix.
2
107 F.3d 1044, 1047 (3d Cir. 1997). To the extent that appellants challenge the District
Court’s remand order with respect to any other basis for removal, or the District Court’s
related reconsideration decision, we will dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. See
id.; see also Agostini v. Piper Aircraft Corp.,
729 F.3d 350, 355-56 (3d Cir. 2013).
Removal under § 1443(1) is appropriate when a state court defendant “is being
deprived of rights guaranteed by a federal law ‘providing for . . . equal civil rights’” and
cannot enforce those rights in state court.2 See
Davis, 107 F.3d at 1047. Although
appellants repeatedly claim to have been somehow subjected to racial discrimination in
state court in their filings, they appear to have removed the underlying ejectment action
primarily because they disagree with the state court’s unfavorable decisions in the
removed case and related cases about the underlying property.3 Appellants have not
identified any Delaware law that would preclude them from vindicating their federal
rights or otherwise shown that the Delaware courts could not enforce those rights. See
2
Appellants do not argue that removal could have been proper under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1443(2) and, in any case, that provision is inapplicable here. See 28 U.S.C. § 1443(2)
(permitting removal where a civil action has been initiated against a defendant “[f]or any
act under color of authority derived from any law providing for equal rights, or for
refusing to do any act on the ground that it would be inconsistent with such law.”).
3
To the extent that appellants filed a notice of removal in an attempt to seek review of
decisions that the Delaware state courts have made regarding the underlying property at
issue, we note that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars such action in any event. See
Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp.,
544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005) (explaining
that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies 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”).
3
Johnson v. Mississippi,
421 U.S. 213, 219-22 (1975).
Further, the federal rights invoked in appellants’ filings under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983
and 1985 do not specifically provide for racial equality, as required by § 1443(1), but
rather provide for rights generally applicable to all persons. See, e.g., State of Georgia v.
Rachel,
384 U.S. 780, 792-93 (1966) (contrasting laws specifically targeting racial
equality, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with those that confer equal rights to all,
such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the due process clause, for purposes of removal under
§ 1443). Accordingly, the District Court did not err in remanding appellants’ case, and
we will affirm the District Court’s judgment to the extent of our jurisdiction4
4
Additionally, we deny all of appellants’ pending motions.
4