GARR M. KING, District Judge.
Plaintiff Jason Hill alleges breach of contract and breach of good faith and fair dealing against defendant Bank of America, N.A. Pending before me is the Bank of America's Motion to Dismiss. For the following reasons, I dismiss the complaint.
The following facts are based on plaintiff's allegations, the Bank's unopposed submission of documents to which I may take judicial notice, and the correspondence plaintiff submitted in opposing the Bank's motion to dismiss.
Plaintiff obtained a $201,822 mortgage loan on May 1, 2008, which was later assigned to Bank of America. Plaintiff defaulted on his payment obligations. On April 25, 2012, a Notice of Default and Election to Sell was filed. On August 15, 2012, plaintiff filed a complaint to stop the non-judicial foreclosure.
A sale of the property never took place. A Rescission of the Notice of Default and Election to Sell was filed on October 3, 2012. On October 22, 2012, the parties filed a joint motion requesting that the court stay proceedings for 90 days while plaintiff completed a loan modification application and review process. The notice alerted the court as follows:
2012 Litigation, ECF 22. The court granted the request, making a status report due on January 24, 2013.
On January 24, the parties submitted a joint status report indicating the following: (1) the Bank's counsel had sent plaintiff the modification application materials on October 25, 2012; (2) neither the Bank nor its counsel had received any application materials; and (3) the Bank presumed plaintiff no longer wished to seek a loan modification. As a result, the parties jointly requested the court lift the stay, reinstate the matter, and allow time for the Bank to file its responsive pleading to the complaint. The court granted the request, lifted the stay, and made the responsive pleading due February 21, 2013, with a proposed case schedule due on February 25.
Rather than a responsive pleading, on February 22, 2013, plaintiff filed an unopposed motion to dismiss the 2012 Litigation without prejudice and without costs or attorney fees to any party. The court dismissed the case with prejudice.
In the instant action, plaintiff characterizes these actions as representative of a settlement agreement. According to plaintiff, in the 2012 Litigation, the Bank agreed to stop the nonjudicial foreclosure sale, withdraw a notice of default, and direct the Bank's legal department to "consider" his modification application. Compl. ¶ 7. On January 24, 2013, the Bank's attorney directed that the modification application needed to be in the next day to elevate it for review, and plaintiff filed the application. Then, on April 12, 2013, the litigation department for the Bank informed plaintiff the litigation file had been closed and the modification packet would not be delivered to the department in charge of handling modifications. Instead, plaintiff would probably have to update his application and submit it to a different department.
Plaintiff alleges breach of contract and breach of good faith and fair dealing, with damages of $150,000 (loss of improvement made on the home and the ability to reduce the loan amount to current fair market value). Plaintiff alleges the 2012 Litigation offered him his "one option of having his modification considered." Compl. ¶ 18.
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) will be granted if plaintiff fails to allege the "grounds" of his "entitlement to relief."
The Bank moves to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Specifically, the Bank disputes that plaintiff has alleged a contract, that he complied with any contract, or that any breaching conduct damaged him.
In order to allege a claim for breach of contract, plaintiff must "allege the existence of a contract, its relevant terms, plaintiff's full performance and lack of breach[,] and defendant's breach resulting in damage to plaintiff."
First, the Bank contests that plaintiff has alleged facts to support the existence of a contract. Plaintiff agrees the complaint does not specify the facts necessary to support his cause of action, but he is willing to amend his complaint to allege the Bank "agreed to stop the nonjudicial foreclosure and withdr[a]w their notice of default and agreed to consider the modification application in return for the dismissal of the federal lawsuit alleging problems with the foreclosure." Pl.'s Opp. 4.
The problem with plaintiff's proposal is that the evidence in the 2012 Litigation contradicts his newly proposed allegations. As an initial matter, the parties' joint request for a stay in the underlying litigation indicated any promise by the Bank to review plaintiff for a loan modification was not a settlement in and of itself, but was a means of achieving settlement. The parties jointly informed the court, in support of their motion to stay the litigation, that resolution "
Second, and more importantly, plaintiff has not and cannot plead full performance. In the underlying litigation, the parties advised the court on January 24, 2013 that plaintiff had not submitted a modification application and they jointly requested reinstatement of the case. Plaintiff does not explain why he did not submit his application during the 90 days allotted by the court for the stay and he does not explain why he jointly sought to reinstate the case if his intent was to "settle" for a loan modification review.
Plaintiff attaches to his response a series of emails between plaintiff's counsel and the Bank's counsel, suggesting he could attach them to an amended complaint to support his factual allegations.
In the second series of emails, on April 12, 2013, the Bank's counsel informed plaintiff's counsel that when the underlying lawsuit was dismissed in February, "the loan returned to normal servicing [since] his full packet was not received until March 5, after the litigation file was closed."
Since plaintiff's failure to allege the facts necessary to support the first two elements of a breach of contract claim is dispositive, I do not reach the Bank's challenge to plaintiff's damage allegations.
For the foregoing reasons, I grant the Bank's Request for Judicial Notice [7] and grant the Bank's motion to dismiss [4]. This case is dismissed with prejudice.
IT IS SO ORDERED.