Ayalew Mergia v. Anne Marie Adams

MEMORANDUM

Ayalew Mergia appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of his former wife, Anne Marie Adams. Mergia sued Adams, among other reasons, to enforce an Affidavit of Support (Form 1-864) that she filed pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1183a. The district court applied judicial estoppel and granted Adams’s motion because Mergia did not schedule the Affidavit of Support as an asset or list it as exempt in his Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding. We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council, 851 F.2d 1208, 1210 (9th Cir.1988). We review a district court’s application of judicial estoppel for an abuse of discretion. Broussard v. Univ. of Cal., 192 F.3d 1252, 1255 (9th Cir.1999). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

The facts of this case are known to the parties. We do not repeat them.

When a party attempts to assert a cause of action “not raised in a reorganization plan or otherwise mentioned in the debt- or’s schedules or disclosure statements,” judicial estoppel prevents that party from asserting that claim. Hamilton v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 270 F.3d…