Case ID: f-appx_357/html/0373-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Grace Ruth Rebecca SHARPE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM OF the UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 08-5502-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Dec. 21, 2009.
    
      Grace R.R. Sharpe, pro se, Brooklyn, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney (Margaret M. Kolbe and James R. Cho, Assistant United States Attorneys, of counsel), Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.
    PRESENT: GUIDO CALABRESI, JOSÉ A. CABRANES, and B.D. PARKER, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiff-appellant Grace Ruth Rebecca Sharpe (“plaintiff’ or “Sharpe”), pro se, appeals from the District Court’s sua sponte dismissal of her complaint for lack of standing. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the factual and procedural history of the case.

We review a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for lack of standing de novo, accepting as true the allegations in the complaint and construing the complaint in favor of the complaining party. See Connecticut v. Physicians Health Servs. of Conn., Inc., 287 F.3d 110, 114-15 (2d Cir.2002). To invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts and establish standing a plaintiff must “[1] allege personal injury [2] fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and [3] likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” Fulani v. Bentsen, 35 F.3d 49, 51-52 (2d Cir.1994) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Standing cannot be “predicated on ... generalized grievances about the conduct of government.” Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 482-83, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).

To the extent that Sharpe seeks to challenge the mental health system in the United States, the District Court correctly found that she failed to establish injury-in-fact because she did not allege any personal injury but rather stated a “generalized grievance.” See id. at 483, 102 S.Ct. 752; see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). To the extent Sharpe alleged that “Mental Health officials” had injured her by maintaining control over her as a “client” of the “Mental Health system” or administering medication against her will, she failed to demonstrate how such injuries were “fairly traceable” to the named defendant. See Fulani, 35 F.3d at 51-52. Because Sharpe failed to name an actual entity as a defendant and any injury was thus necessarily “the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court,” Sharpe did not have standing to pursue her claims in federal court. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

Moreover, although the District Court dismissed the complaint without providing Sharpe with an opportunity to amend, a procedure generally disfavored, see McEachin v. McGuinnis, 357 F.3d 197, 200 (2d Cir.2004), remand is not warranted because amendment would have been futile in light of the allegations in the complaint. Even to the extent that the complaint could have been amended to include the correct entity or individual as a defendant, such an amendment would not cure the fact that plaintiff essentially seeks to challenge the mental health system at large. Furthermore, Sharpe did not plead sufficient factual allegations to state a plausible claim that her due process rights were violated or that the involuntary administration of medication was illegal. Instead she seeks to challenge unnamed “Mental Hygiene laws” so that she no longer must be a “client” of the mental health system or involuntarily medicated.

CONCLUSION

We have considered all of plaintiffs arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED.