AMY JOAN SCHNEIDER and WAYNE PATTERSON v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.a.

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 9, 2026*
Decided June 10, 2026
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Chief Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
REBECCA TAIBLESON, Circuit Judge
No. 25-2163
AMY JOAN SCHNEIDER and WAYNE
PATTERSON,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A., et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 1:19-cv-01297-JEH-RLH
Jonathan E. Hawley,
Judge.
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 25-2163 Page 2
O R D E R
Amy Joan Schneider and Wayne Patterson sued the banks involved in
foreclosure proceedings on Schneider’s home. The district court dismissed the
complaint, concluding that the claims were untimely. We affirm.
In 2002, Schneider took out a mortgage loan with Wells Fargo Bank on her home
in Normal, Illinois. Patterson is a tenant of the property. When Schneider’s financial
circumstances changed in 2009, she reached out to the bank seeking a loan modification.
After more than a year of phone calls and written correspondence between
Schneider and Wells Fargo about modifying the mortgage, Wells Fargo offered
Schneider a Trial Period Plan† in November 2010. In a written agreement, Schneider
agreed to make three payments from December 2010 to February 2011, each lower than
her original installments. The agreement stated that after the plan concluded,
Schneider’s loan would not be current, and Wells Fargo would review any outstanding
payments to determine whether to proceed with a loan modification. The agreement
continued that the “lender is under no obligation to enter into any further agreement.”
But Schneider alleges that Wells Fargo orally agreed to permanently modify her loan
once she timely made the three payments.
Schneider never received a modification, and Wells Fargo commenced a
foreclosure action in state court in 2015. The foreclosure action became final in 2024.
Schneider and Patterson sued Wells Fargo and other banks involved in the
foreclosure proceedings in federal court in 2019. The district court stayed proceedings
until the state-court foreclosure action became final. When the federal litigation
resumed, the plaintiffs filed a third amended complaint in January 2025, alleging that,
among other things, Wells Fargo breached the Trial Payment Plan agreement and
violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act by failing to respond to Schneider’s
written requests for an accounting and payment history, see 12 U.S.C § 2605(e)(B),
wrongly charging escrow fees, see id. § 2605(g), and proceeding with the foreclosure
process while also reviewing Schneider’s loan modification application, see id. § 2605(f).
† The parties refer to the agreement as the Trial Period Plan, but the agreement
attached to the plaintiffs’ complaint is titled, “Special Forbearance Agreement.” The
plaintiffs also alleged that Schneider had another Trial Period Plan with Wells Fargo
from September 2009 to January 2010.

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No. 25-2163 Page 3
The district court determined that each of the plaintiffs’ claims was time-barred.
The court first concluded that the breach-of-contract claim was untimely because the
Trial Period Plan was an oral agreement, breached in 2011, and subject to Illinois’s five-
year statute of limitations. The court was unpersuaded by the plaintiffs’ assertion that
the statute of limitations should have been tolled for fraudulent concealment, stating
they did not allege affirmative facts showing how Wells Fargo delayed their ability to
sue. The court then determined that the claims under the Real Estate Settlement
Procedures Act were subject to a three-year statute of limitations. Those claims also
were untimely, the court concluded, because they arose from conduct occurring no later
than 2011.
The court then denied the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file a fourth amended
complaint. It concluded that the plaintiffs unduly delayed and acted in bad faith
because they filed the motion on the same day the defendants moved to dismiss and
attempted to introduce facts they had known since 2023 but had not included in their
third amended complaint filed in January 2025.
Within 28 days of the entry of judgment, the plaintiffs filed a “motion for leave to
file motion to reconsider” and attached a motion to alter or amend a judgment under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59. In the motion, they argued that the district court
erred in dismissing the complaint and sought leave to amend their complaint again. The
district court denied the motion, explaining in a footnote that leave to file a motion
under Rule 59 was not required and construing the documents together as a motion to
alter or amend the judgment. Less than 30 days later, the plaintiffs appealed.
We first address our jurisdiction. Wells Fargo argues that the plaintiffs’ appeal is
untimely because their motion for leave to file a motion to reconsider did not toll their
time to file the notice of appeal. Wells Fargo contends that the district court incorrectly
construed the plaintiffs’ motion as a motion to alter or amend the judgment. But we
agree with the district court’s construction. Labels are largely irrelevant to the
suspending effect of a post-judgment motion: “A motion under Rule 59(e) need not be
labeled as such or use the words ‘alter or amend’ so long as it ‘instead uses a
synonym.’” Carlson v. CSX Transp., Inc., 758 F.3d 819, 825 (7th Cir. 2014) (quoting Borrero
v. City of Chicago, 456 F.3d 698, 699 (7th Cir. 2006)). Although the plaintiffs’ motion was
attached to another filing unnecessarily, it was filed within 28 days of judgment, sought
to alter the judgment, and was explicitly labeled as a motion to reconsider under Rule

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No. 25-2163 Page 4
59(e). Thus, the notice of appeal filed within 30 days of the denial of the post-judgment
motion is timely, and so our jurisdiction is secure.
On the merits, the plaintiffs first argue that the district court erred by concluding
that Wells Fargo’s promise to modify Schneider’s loan after completing the Trial Period
Plan was an oral contract subject to Illinois’s five-year statute of limitations.
See 735 ILCS 5/13-205. The plaintiffs contend that the written agreement Schneider
signed, which stated that she must make three consecutive monthly payments, was the
entire written contract, so the district court should have applied Illinois’s ten-year
statute of limitations. See id. 5/13-206. But they waived this argument because in the
district court, they argued that the contract was made up of both written and oral
agreements. See Bradley v. Vill. of Univ. Park, 59 F.4th 887, 897 (7th Cir. 2023).
Regardless, the written agreement they point to, which they attached to their
original complaint, supports application of a five-year statute of limitations. See Fin.
Fiduciaries, LLC v. Gannett Co., 46 F.4th 654, 663 (7th Cir. 2022) (“[A] court may consider
documents that are (1) referenced in the plaintiff’s complaint, (2) concededly authentic,
and (3) central to the plaintiff’s claim.”). The written agreement states that the parties
were under no obligation to enter into a further agreement, and it does not contain any
information about a permanent loan modification. A promise to enter the loan
modification based on Schneider’s performance on the three consecutive monthly
payments is therefore outside the four corners of the written contract. And under
Illinois law, a contract requiring extrinsic materials to make out the essential terms
(here, the promise to permanently modify the loan) is an oral contract. Portfolio
Acquisitions, LLC v. Feltman, 909 N.E.2d 876, 880 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009). The plaintiffs’
complaint alleges a breach of the contract at the latest in 2011, so we agree with the
district court that this claim, brought in 2019, is untimely under the five-year statute of
limitations.
The plaintiffs respond that even if the claim were untimely, the district court
should have tolled the statute of limitations based on fraudulent concealment. The
plaintiffs assert that years after foreclosure proceedings began, they discovered that
Wells Fargo represented for several months in 2010 that it was willing to engage in a
permanent loan modification when it was not. Illinois law permits tolling of the statute
of limitations if the plaintiff “pleads and proves that fraud prevented discovery of the
cause of action.” Henderson Square Condo. Ass’n v. LAB Townhomes, L.L.C., 46 N.E.3d 706,
716 (Ill. 2015) (citing 735 ILCS 5/13–215). But fraudulent concealment does not toll the
statute of limitations if the plaintiff knew of the cause of action within the statutory time

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frame. Butler v. BRG Sports, LLC, 141 N.E.3d 1104, 1117 (Ill. App. Ct. 2019) (citing Morris
v. Margulis, 754 N.E.2d 314 (Ill. 2001)). The plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that Wells
Fargo’s concealment continued only through February 2011, when the trial program
ended, and Schneider knew Wells Fargo did not offer the permanent loan modification.
The complaint lacks any other allegations of concealment beyond that date. So, even if
Wells Fargo concealed its decision not to offer Schneider a permanent loan modification
until 2011, tolling would not apply to this claim.
The plaintiffs next assert that the district court erred in concluding that their
claim under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act was untimely. On appeal, they
state that Schneider submitted written requests for an accounting and payment history
from 2023 to 2025, which are “qualified written requests” to which Wells Fargo was
required to respond under the Act. But those facts were not before the district court—
the plaintiffs’ complaint alleged violations only up to 2011. A complaint may not be
amended on appeal. See Agnew v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 683 F.3d 328, 348
(7th Cir. 2012). So we agree with the district court that 2011 provided the outer bound of
the alleged violations. Thus, the plaintiffs’ claim filed in 2019 is outside the Act’s three-
year statute of limitations. See 12 U.S.C. § 2614.
Finally, the plaintiffs challenge the district court’s denial of their request to file a
fourth amended complaint. We review the denial for abuse of discretion. Protect Our
Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 97 F.4th 1077, 1088 (7th Cir. 2024). The district court denied the
request because it determined the request was made in bad faith and the plaintiffs
unduly delayed in seeking to amend. The court reasoned that the plaintiffs received the
information that they wished to include in the amended complaint in 2023, yet they did
not include it in the third amended complaint filed in January 2025. Because the
plaintiffs provide no reason for their delay in seeking to amend the complaint for the
fourth time, we see no abuse of discretion. See Johnson v. Cypress Hill, 641 F.3d 867, 871–
72 (7th Cir. 2011).
AFFIRMED

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