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Parties Involved:
Auto Knight Motor Club, Inc.
Appellee
EGV Companies, Inc
Appellee
Ensurety Ventures, LLC
Appellee
Ensurety, Inc
Appellee
Aaron Hirsch
Appellant
Insurance Company of the South
Appellee
LOTSolutions, Inc.
Appellee
Lyndon Southern Insurance Company
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 19-13527

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 3:17-cv-01215-BJD-JBT

AARON HIRSCH,

individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

ENSURETY VENTURES, LLC, 

d.b.a. Omega Autocare, 

LYNDON SOUTHERN INSURANCE COMPANY, et al.,

 Defendants-Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

________________________

(March 18, 2020)

Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

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Plaintiff Aaron Hirsch (“Hirsch”) appeals the dismissal with prejudice of his 

Revised Second Amended Complaint (“RSAC”). The District Court dismissed the 

RSAC as an impermissible shotgun pleading that fails to comply with the 

requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a). We affirm the District 

Court’s order. 

I.

Before we can discuss the pleading at issue, we first must recount the history 

of this litigation. On October 30, 2017, Hirsch filed his first Complaint against 

Ensurety Ventures, LLC (“Ensurety”) and Fortegra Financing Corporation 

(“Fortegra”), alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act 

(“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq. The gist of his allegations was, and is, that 

Ensurety, under the trade name Omega Autocare (“Omega”), and Fortegra, which 

provides underwriting services to Omega, have been responsible for unlawful 

telemarketing calls that Hirsch has received which advertise Omega Autocare 

automobile warranty policies. Specifically, Hirsch alleged that the defendants 

made “unsolicited and unauthorized calls using an [automated telephone dialing 

system] or pre-recorded/artificial voice” to residential and cellular telephones “for 

the purpose of marketing [their] products and/or services.” The Complaint 

contained six counts: Counts I and II allege violations by the defendants of 47 

U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A), Counts III and IV allege violations by the defendants of § 

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227(b)(1)(B), and Counts V and VI allege violations by the defendants of § 

227(c).1

 Hirsch requested that his Complaint be certified as a class action, and

sought an injunction requiring the defendants to cease all telemarketing calls, as 

well as an award of statutory damages under the TCPA for members of the class. 

The District Court struck the Complaint sua sponte, finding that it 

constituted an impermissible shotgun pleading because all six counts of the 

Complaint incorporated the allegations of each of the previous counts by reference. 

Hirsch then filed an Amended Complaint containing the same six counts and 

theories of liability, asserted against the same two defendants. Both defendants

independently moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint, and the motion was 

referred to a Magistrate Judge to prepare a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”). 

In evaluating Omega’s motion to dismiss, the Magistrate Judge concluded that the 

Amended Complaint failed to state a claim under Counts I and II because Hirsch 

did not allege that his voice-over-Internet protocol (“VoIP”) telephone service was 

“a service for which the called party is charged for the call,” as required by §

227(b)(1)(A). Additionally, the Magistrate Judge recommended that Fortegra’s 

motion to dismiss be granted because, while the Amended Complaint indicated 

that the telemarketing calls were advertising Omega automobile warranty policies, 

1 Counts II, IV, and VI allege that the violations alleged in Counts I, III, and V were 

knowing and/or willful, as a basis for treble damages under the TCPA.

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it did not sufficiently allege a relationship between Fortegra and Omega and did 

not indicate “which defendant is responsible for which actions.”2

 The Magistrate 

Judge indicated that he was “persua[ded]” by the reasoning of TCPA cases that 

“required repleader . . . where, because multiple defendants are lumped together, it 

is unclear what theory of liability Plaintiff is pursuing.” Thus, the R&R 

recommended that the Amended Complaint be dismissed in its entirety without 

prejudice, and the recommendation was adopted by the District Court.

Hirsch then filed a Second Amended Complaint and a Corrected Second 

Amended Complaint, which were both stricken by the District Court without 

prejudice because they sought to add new defendants without receiving leave of 

Court.3

 Hirsch then filed a Revised Second Amended Complaint (“RSAC”) 

naming seven defendants: Lyndon Southern Insurance Company, Insurance 

Company of the South, LOTSolutions, Inc., Auto Knight Motor Club, Inc., EGV 

Companies, Inc., Ensurety, Inc., and Ensurety Ventures, LLC, d/b/a Omega 

Autocare.4

 The RSAC contains various general factual allegations regarding the 

interrelationship between each of the defendant parties, alleging that certain of the 

2 Hirsch did not allege that either Fortegra or Omega had made any of the subject calls, as 

each allegation simply “lumped” the multiple defendants together by indicating that the conduct 

was undertaken by “Defendants, either directly or through their agents,” or “by or on behalf of 

Defendants.”

3 Hirsch was instructed to file a new motion to amend, and a new proposed amended 

complaint, after fully conferring with defendants as required by the local rules.

4 The RSAC, unlike Hirsch’s previous complaints, did not name Fortegra as a defendant, 

but three of the named defendants in the RSAC are allegedly “subsidiar[ies] of Fortegra.”

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defendants “directly or indirectly market[]” automotive policies on behalf of 

Omega, and that some insure Omega’s vehicle warranty contracts or assist in the 

process of doing so. Three of the defendants, Hirsch alleges, are “alter-egos of one 

another” and collectively form the Omega Autocare business. According to 

Hirsch, while the defendants themselves do not make the unlawful telemarketing

robocalls, they find and hire non-party call centers, and instruct those entities to

make the calls to consumers. Hirsch alleges that all of the defendants play a role in 

enlisting the services of call centers to send unlawful calls, and that all defendants 

“are vicariously liable for the illegal telemarketing practices.”

The RSAC contains nine counts, with the first six counts being identical to 

those alleged in the Amended Complaint, and the final three counts alleging 

violations of identical provisions of Maryland law.5

 Md. Code Ann., Com. Law § 

14-3201(2). Like the Amended Complaint, the RSAC alleges under each count 

that all “Defendants, either directly or through their agents,” made the 

unauthorized calls that violated three different provisions of the TCPA, and that the 

defendants’ violations were “knowing and/or willful.” All defendants moved to 

dismiss the RSAC, making similar arguments that it “fails to improve on the 

pleading deficiencies” leading to dismissal of the first Amended Complaint by 

5 Hirsch alleges violations of Maryland law because he is a resident of Maryland.

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“continu[ing] to improperly lump various Defendants together,” particularly 

because the RSAC now names seven defendants instead of two.

The Magistrate Judge entered a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) on 

the defendants’ motions to dismiss the RSAC. Similar to the first R&R, the 

Magistrate Judge concluded that Hirsch had not cured the defects in his pleading, 

and that dismissal continues to be appropriate. The R&R found that the RSAC is 

still “a shotgun pleading” that makes it “unclear what theory of liability Plaintiff is 

pursuing and/or which Defendants or non-parties are responsible for which 

actions.” Similarly, the Magistrate Judge found that the RSAC does not qualify as 

a “short and plain statement” as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, because it: (1) spans 

25 pages, only 3 of which address the phone calls that are the subject of the action; 

(2) includes two separate sections entitled “Legal Basis for [the] Claims” that 

includes only unnecessary, boilerplate legal information and “improper citations to 

legal authority regarding the TCPA;” and (3) “contains only sparse, largely 

conclusory allegations” supported only by Hirsch’s “wholesale incorporation of the 

80 introductory paragraphs into each count.” In sum, the R&R recommended that

the RSAC be dismissed but also recommended that Hirsch be “provided with one 

final opportunity to replead,” though it recognized that “the Court could arguably 

dismiss the [RSAC] with prejudice for failing to cure the subject defects.” The 

District Court overruled Hirsch’s objections to the R&R and adopted it, agreeing 

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that it was an impermissible shotgun pleading, but chose not to give Hirsch another 

opportunity to replead, instead dismissing the RSAC with prejudice. Hirsch 

appealed from the District Court’s order.

II.

A.

Hirsch contends that his RSAC was not a shotgun pleading and that 

dismissal was improper. In this Circuit, we describe a shotgun pleading as a 

complaint that has several counts where each count incorporates the allegations of 

all the previous counts. See Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriff’s Office, 792 F.3d 

1313, 1321 (11th Cir. 2015). In a shotgun pleading, we are essentially left with 

one count that “amounts to an amalgamation of all counts of the complaint.” PVC 

Windoors, Inc. v. Babbitbay Beach Const., N.V., 598 F.3d 802, 806 (11th Cir. 

2010). This Court has gone to great lengths to explain the problems that shotgun 

pleadings cause:

Shotgun pleadings, whether filed by plaintiffs or defendants, exact an 

intolerable toll on the trial court’s docket, lead to unnecessary and 

unchannelled discovery, and impose unwarranted expense on the 

litigants, the court and the court’s parajudicial personnel and resources. 

Moreover, justice is delayed for the litigants who are standing in line, 

waiting for their cases to be heard. The courts of appeals and the 

litigants appearing before them suffer as well.

Cramer v. Florida, 117 F.3d 1258, 1263 (11th Cir. 1997). We have instructed that

a district court “must intervene . . . and order a replead[ing]” of a shotgun 

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complaint, even if the defendant does not move for a more definite statement. 

Byrne v. Nezhat, 261 F.3d 1075, 1133 (11th Cir. 2001) (emphasis added). And lest 

it need still be said, shotgun pleadings do not comport with the pleading 

requirements of Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Supreme 

Court’s instructions laid out in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly6 and Ashcroft v. 

Iqbal.7

 A shotgun pleading is not “a short and plain statement of the claim,” Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), and does not “allow[] the court to draw the reasonable inference 

that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 

129 S. Ct. at 1949; see also id. (noting that a complaint is insufficient when its 

claims are “supported by mere conclusory statements”).

Hirsch’s RSAC is a shotgun pleading. Each of the nine counts “re-alleges 

and incorporates” the allegations of the entire rest of the complaint and all previous 

counts. Like in Hirsch’s Complaint and Amended Complaint, each count alleges 

that the TCPA was violated by “Defendants, either directly or through their 

agents,” without explaining which defendant was responsible for the calls. 

Similarly, without any clarification provided, Hirsch alleges that “the foregoing 

acts and omissions of Defendants constitute numerous and multiple violations of 

the TCPA,” but in no count or claim does he state which act or omission was 

6 550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007).

7 556 U.S. 662, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009).

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committed by which defendant. Hirsch’s complaint tasks the reader with parsing 

the slew of general factual allegations about the business structure of the 

defendants, and their relationships with non-party call centers, in order to decipher 

which defendant’s conduct applies to each count of the RSAC. This is not an 

appropriate task for the district courts. See Jackson v. Bank of Am., 898 F.3d 1348, 

1357 (11th Cir. 2018) (stating that we do not place district judges “in the position 

of serving as the [plaintiff’s] lawyer in rewriting the complaint”).

Hirsch’s RSAC is a shotgun pleading under our precedent and is not a “short 

and plain statement of the claim showing that [Hirsch] is entitled to relief.” Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Thus, the District Court did not err in granting the defendants’ 

motion to dismiss.8

B.

8 Hirsch contends that dismissal of Counts III and IV as to the Omega defendants is 

improper because the “law of the case” doctrine precludes it. Specifically, Hirsch argues that the 

Magistrate Judge’s first R&R concluded Hirsch had sufficiently pled, as required by these two 

counts, that the telemarketing calls had been made using a prerecorded voice, and he further 

argues that because District Court adopted the first R&R in its entirety, these two counts were 

actually “sustained” and “not dismissed.” The Magistrate Judge’s R&R, however, explicitly 

states that it is recommending that “the Amended Complaint be dismissed in its entirety without 

prejudice” because it is “unclear . . . which defendant is responsible for which actions.” The fact 

that the Magistrate Judge rejected Omega’s argument, in its motion to dismiss, that Hirsch had 

not pled a prima facie violation of the TCPA in Counts III and IV does not change the fact that 

the R&R found an independent basis, stemming from the other defendant’s motion to dismiss, to 

recommend dismissal of the entire Amended Complaint. Thus, Hirsch’s argument on appeal 

about the “law of the case” doctrine is unpersuasive because it relies on the presumption that the 

entire Amended Complaint was not dismissed, which is not true.

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We now turn to Hirsch’s argument that it was inappropriate for the District 

Court to dismiss the RSAC with prejudice. We review a dismissal with prejudice 

on Rule 8 shotgun pleading grounds for an abuse of discretion. Vibe Micro, Inc. v. 

Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1294 (11th Cir. 2018). A dismissal with prejudice is 

appropriate where “(1) a party engages in a clear pattern of delay or willful 

contempt (contumacious conduct); and (2) the district court specifically finds that 

lesser sanctions would not suffice.” Betty K Agencies, Ltd. v. M/V Monada, 432 

F.3d 1333, 1338 (11th Cir. 2005) (internal quotations omitted). 

As a basis for its dismissal with prejudice, the District Court relied on our 

opinion in Jackson v. Bank of Am., 898 F.3d 1348 (11th Cir. 2018). In that case, 

we affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of an amended complaint with prejudice 

because it was an impermissible shotgun pleading that was incomprehensible as 

pled, which in this Circuit we do not allow. Id. at 1360. We noted that toleration 

of these types of pleadings, for all the reasons noted supra, constitutes “toleration 

of obstruction of justice.” Id. at 1357. We explained that a district court must give 

a party “one chance to remedy such deficiencies,” with a “fair notice of the defects 

and a meaningful chance to fix them” – but assuming that this chance is given, 

continued impermissible pleadings warrant dismissal with prejudice. Id. at 1358 

(internal quotations omitted). Here, where Hirsch has had two years to put 

together a viable complaint, including ample opportunity for discovery, he still is 

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not able to produce anything better than a pleading that requires the District Court 

to guess who is responsible for his claims. In this Circuit, we do not task district 

courts with such guesswork.

Hirsch first argues that dismissal of the RSAC with prejudice was 

inappropriate because it was not a shotgun pleading, which, as discussed supra, is 

not a persuasive argument. Next, Hirsch contends that dismissal with prejudice 

was inappropriate because the RSAC added additional defendants that were not 

present in the first Amended Complaint, and that, as a result, he had not received 

“prior warning” about the deficiency of his allegations as pertains to the newlyadded defendants. However, Hirsch cannot get around a dismissal with prejudice 

by merely adding new defendants without altering his impermissible style of 

pleading. The fact remains that Hirsch’s RSAC is still an impermissible shotgun 

pleading, whether against two defendants or seven, and Hirsch had already been 

put on notice by the District Court that his pleadings were insufficient. And as the 

District Court lamented, Hirsch “compounded the difficulty associated with 

reviewing the [RSAC] where the number of defendants grew from 2 to 7.” The 

District Court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the RSAC with prejudice 

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because the Court provided Hirsch with multiple warnings that his pleadings were

inadequate, inappropriate shotgun pleadings, and those warnings went unheeded.9

AFFIRMED.

9 As an alternative basis for denying Hirsch the opportunity to file another amended 

complaint, the District Court noted that Hirsch had not properly requested leave to amend. 

Hirsch does not challenge this conclusion on appeal, so he has waived any argument that it was 

error for the District Court to deny him leave to amend. See Access Now v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385

F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2004).

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