Thomas Duff (Associate-Chicago, IL), in a bank fraud claim against our client bank, convinced the Seventh Circuit to affirm the Southern District of Illinois’ grant of our motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The plaintiff and her late husband signed a series of promissory notes to support businesses and properties they owned. We represented one of the banks holding the notes. The plaintiff and her husband filed for bankruptcy in 2014 and did not list any legal claim as an asset. Five years after the closing of the bankruptcy estate, the plaintiff sued the banks and several employees, asserting claims of breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, conspiracy, false statements, embezzlement, and obstruction of justice. The plaintiff’s complaint alleged that the defendants altered some of the promissory notes after they were signed, causing her and her husband to file for bankruptcy. Notably, she relied on numerous federal criminal statutes as the basis for her claims. The district court granted our motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, holding the plaintiff lacked standing to pursue these claims since they were not disclosed in the plaintiff’s bankruptcy proceedings and therefore belonged to the bankruptcy estate, and that none of the criminal statutes cited authorized a private right of action. The plaintiff appealed to the Seventh Circuit, where we argued the district court’s dismissal with prejudice was proper since the plaintiff was afforded two opportunities to plead her claims, and any additional amendment of her complaint would be futile given her failure to meet the heightened pleading standard for fraud claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). The Seventh Circuit affirmed, agreeing with Thomas that the criminal statutes relied on by the plaintiff did not support a private right of action and that any claims belonged to the bankruptcy estate rather than the plaintiff. In light of these legal conclusions, the Court agreed with us that the district court’s dismissal with prejudice was proper.