3. Analysis: Precedents and Legal Reasoning
A. The procedural framework: plausibility, public records, and appellate review
Accepting allegations without accepting unsupported conclusions
Robbins v. New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC, 854 F.3d 315, 319 (6th Cir. 2017), supplies the starting point: on a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the court assumes the truth of the complaint’s factual allegations. This posture matters because the appeal did not follow a trial establishing what services Jarrett actually performed.
That assumption does not make every asserted entitlement legally sufficient. Under Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678–79 (2009), the complaint must contain enough factual matter to make liability plausible, assessed through judicial experience and common sense. The court used that principle both to reject unsupported tort allegations and to evaluate the gap between the limited services pleaded and the extensive representation promised.
Lipman v. Budish, 974 F.3d 726, 740 (6th Cir. 2020), provided the governing appellate formulation: review is de novo, and facts construed favorably to the plaintiff must support a reasonable inference that the defendant is liable. The Sixth Circuit therefore independently assessed the pleading rather than deferring to the district court’s conclusions.
Judicial notice of related litigation
The court relied on Blackwell v. Nocerini, 123 F.4th 479, 487 (6th Cir. 2024), to explain that certain public-record exhibits outside the complaint may be considered through judicial notice. Both sides had submitted materials from related proceedings, including filings and judicial decrees.
Buck v. Thomas M. Cooley L. Sch., 597 F.3d 812, 816 (6th Cir. 2010), and Jackson v. City of Columbus, 194 F.3d 737, 745–46 (6th Cir. 1999), supported considering the existence of those records and subsequent litigation history without converting the motion into one for summary judgment. The opinion acknowledged that the latter decision was abrogated on other grounds by Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002). That qualification preserves the limited public-record proposition for which the court cited it.
A significant boundary remains: noticing that a pleading or order exists is not the same as treating every disputed factual statement within it as conclusively true. Although the court used earlier allegations and docket materials to assess this complaint, the decision should not be read as broadly authorizing factual adjudication through judicial notice.
Affirmance without deciding claim preclusion
Bright v. Gallia County, 753 F.3d 639, 652 (6th Cir. 2014), permits affirmance on any ground supported by the record. That authority allowed the panel to uphold dismissal for pleading deficiencies without resolving the district court’s separate preclusion ruling. Consequently, the appellate decision does not establish that the earlier litigation barred these claims.
No special pleading relaxation for an attorney representing himself
The panel cited Lonergan v. Gallagher Sharp, LLP, No. 24-CV-02067, 2025 WL 2578155, at *5 n.10 (N.D. Ohio Sept. 5, 2025), and Huffman v. Lindgren, 81 F.4th 1016, 1020–21 (9th Cir. 2023), in applying ordinary plausibility standards to Jarrett. These authorities supported treating his professional legal training as material despite his self-represented status. The court did not impose a heightened pleading standard; it declined to relax the ordinary one.
B. Why Michigan law governed
Because jurisdiction rested on diversity of citizenship, Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496 (1941), required the federal court to apply the forum state’s choice-of-law rules. The relevant forum was Michigan, even though the underlying wrongful-death litigation occurred in California.
Under In re Bibi Guardianship, 890 N.W.2d 387, 391 (Mich. Ct. App. 2016), Michigan contract choice-of-law principles generally direct courts to the law of the place where the agreement was made, absent an applicable exception. Jarrett’s own allegations connected the agreement’s formation and execution to Detroit, and the panel identified no applicable exception. It therefore applied Michigan law.
This step matters practically: the location of the underlying litigation did not itself determine which law governed the attorney-client fee agreement.
C. Contractual recovery required allegations of completed contractual performance
El-Khalil v. Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., 934 N.W.2d 665, 672 (Mich. 2019), identifies the basic elements of breach of contract: a contract, its breach, and resulting injury. The fee agreement established a contractual framework, but its existence alone did not establish that Jarrett had earned the payment he demanded.
The decisive substantive authority was Morris v. City of Detroit, 472 N.W.2d 43, 47 (Mich. Ct. App. 1991). Under that decision, an attorney seeking recovery under a contingent-fee agreement must complete all services contracted for; otherwise, the appropriate avenue is compensation for the reasonable value of services through quantum meruit.
Applying that distinction, the panel compared the agreement’s scope with the services alleged:
- The agreement contemplated representation “for all purposes” relating to the death, not a limited engagement to prepare an initiating pleading.
- The complaint alleged association with local counsel, drafting and arranging the filing of the complaint, and continued attorney-of-record status.
- The underlying case nevertheless proceeded through trial and multiple post-trial matters before settlement.
The missing link was a plausible factual account of completing the promised representation. Attorney-of-record status describes a formal relationship to a case; it does not, by itself, describe the work actually performed.
The panel also observed that Jarrett had previously claimed more than 190 hours of services, including over thirty hours at trial, in a fee motion filed in Archibald v. County of San Bernardino. He withdrew that motion before adjudication and did not renew a claim for those hours in the present complaint. The court additionally noted his apparent absence from significant litigation documents and trial appearances.
These observations reinforced the court’s conclusion that Jarrett possessed relevant information but had not pleaded it. They did not amount to a trial finding that he performed no compensable services. Nor did the court prescribe mandatory time records or a particular factual checklist for every contingent-fee complaint. Its narrower holding was that these allegations did not plausibly show full performance of this comprehensive agreement.
D. Quantum meruit remained conceptually available, but unjust enrichment was not plausibly alleged against this client
Morris Pumps v. Centerline Piping, Inc., 729 N.W.2d 898, 904 (Mich. Ct. App. 2006), requires both a benefit received by the defendant from the plaintiff and inequity resulting from the defendant’s retention of that benefit. The panel also relied on that decision’s treatment of unjust enrichment and quantum meruit as equivalent theories under Michigan law.
Reynolds v. Polen, 564 N.W.2d 467, 469–71 (Mich. Ct. App. 1997), demonstrated why failure of the contract claim did not automatically defeat every compensation claim: a discharged or withdrawn contingent-fee attorney may still be entitled to the reasonable value of services. The panel thus considered Jarrett’s equitable theory separately rather than assuming that incomplete performance eliminated all possible recovery.
The obstacle was the identity of the allegedly enriched party. In an earlier amended complaint in Jarrett v. Terrell et al., Jarrett alleged that Archibald paid the contingent fee to other attorneys who had agreed to divide it with him. On that account, the client had not simply retained the fee money. The alleged nonpayment implicated the attorneys who received it and allegedly undertook to share it.
The court accordingly identified those attorneys as the more appropriate targets of that dispute, while noting that Jarrett had already sued them in Jarrett v. Terrell, No. 19-CV-6234, 2021 WL 2376932 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 13, 2021), and Jarrett v. Galipo, No. 20PSCV00030 (L.A. Cnty. Sup. Ct. Oct. 28, 2021). This was not a determination that either action necessarily entitled him to payment.
The panel also acknowledged potentially valuable work preceding the civil complaint, including investigation and research. It noted that Jarrett was pursuing compensation in Michigan litigation concerning efforts undertaken to secure prosecution of the officer: Jarrett v. Archibald, No. 370025, 2025 WL 3226292 (Mich. Ct. App. Nov. 18, 2025), review denied, 38 N.W.3d 468 (Mich. 2026).
The resulting holding is fact-specific. It does not create an absolute rule that a client’s payment to one lawyer defeats every equitable claim by another. Rather, Jarrett’s own litigation allegations failed to explain why this client’s retention of a benefit was unjust in these circumstances.
E. The remaining theories lacked an independent legal or factual foundation
“Wrongful and unjust deprivation of attorney fees”
The panel found no identified Michigan authority recognizing this label as an independent cause of action. The decision illustrates that requesting equitable relief does not dispense with the need to identify a legally cognizable basis for that relief.
Conspiracy
The allegation that Archibald acted “in concert” with other attorneys to conceal the settlement supplied a conclusion, not supporting facts. The complaint did not develop a factual basis from which concerted wrongdoing could reasonably be inferred. The court therefore rejected this claim under ordinary plausibility principles, rather than resolving whether a properly pleaded conspiracy theory could succeed.
Implied contract
The court distinguished two meanings of “implied contract.” Under City of Detroit v. City of Highland Park, 39 N.W.2d 325, 334 (Mich. 1949), a contract implied in law is an obligation imposed to prevent unjust enrichment. That version merely repeated the already deficient equitable claim.
By contrast, Erickson v. Goodell Oil Co., 180 N.W.2d 798, 800 (Mich. 1970), explains that a contract implied in fact rests on conduct demonstrating a mutual intention to contract. Jarrett alleged no such conduct supporting a separate implied agreement. The court therefore rejected both possible readings of his claim.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress
This claim likewise contained legal conclusions without supporting factual allegations. The panel did not develop a broader rule about whether fee-related conduct could ever support such a tort; it held that this complaint did not plausibly plead one.
F. Why dismissal with prejudice survived review
Ernst v. Rising, 427 F.3d 351, 366 (6th Cir. 2005) (en banc), supplied the abuse-of-discretion standard for reviewing dismissal with prejudice. That standard differs from the de novo review of whether the complaint stated a claim: the panel separately considered whether the district court permissibly ended the action rather than allowing another pleading opportunity.
The court recognized the competing principle favoring amendment. BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman, 605 U.S. 204, 213 (2025), describes the “liberal amendment policy” reflected in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2). Similarly, Crosby v. Twitter, Inc., 921 F.3d 617, 627–28 (6th Cir. 2019), recognizes that dismissal ordinarily should allow an opportunity to cure pleading defects.
But the latter authority also supported affirmance where Jarrett had neither formally sought amendment nor explained what additional allegations he would make. The panel regarded that omission as sufficient. It then identified further reasons supporting finality:
- Jarrett personally possessed the information about the services he performed.
- He had previously raised, then withdrawn, a compensation request in the underlying action.
- He had pursued the same or related disputes in multiple courts over several years.
Ewing v. Carrier, 35 F.4th 592, 594 (7th Cir. 2022), supplied the concluding litigation-management principle: lawyers and litigants must avoid multiplying litigation. The court used that principle to reinforce the discretionary decision to end this action, not to impose sanctions or establish professional misconduct.
Importantly, the panel did not rest its amendment ruling on a categorical determination that no conceivable amended complaint could ever state a claim. The absence of a proposed cure, together with the procedural history, supported affirmance.