United States District Court

for the

Southern District of Florida

Michael D. Johnson, Plaintiff,

v.

Ashley Moody, Office of the Attorney 

General State of Florida, and 

others, Defendants.

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

Civil Action No. 22-22873 -Civ-Scola

Order Granting Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis

and Striking Complaint

This matter is before the Court upon Michael D. Johnson’s application to 

proceed in forma pauperis. (ECF No. 3.) Johnson, has sued multiple public and 

government figures, seeking mostly declaratory and injunctive relief. (Compl., 

ECF No. 1.) Having reviewed the motion, the record, and the relevant legal 

authorities, the Court grants Johnson’s motion to proceed without prepaying his 

fees or costs (ECF No. 3); however, at the same time, the Court strikes his 

complaint (ECF No. 1), with leave to amend, finding it to be a shotgun 

pleading.

“Courts in the Eleventh Circuit have little tolerance for shotgun pleadings.” 

Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1294-95 (11th Cir. 2018). They 

violate Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and 10(b), “waste scarce judicial 

resources, inexorably broaden the scope of discovery, wreak havoc on appellate 

court dockets, and undermine the public’s respect for the courts.” Id. (cleaned 

up). Although “the pleading party is not required to ‘allege a specific fact to cover 

every element or allege with precision each element of a claim, it is still 

necessary that a complaint contain either direct or inferential allegations 

respecting all the material elements necessary to sustain a recovery under some 

viable legal theory.’” Frazile v. EMC Mortg. Corp., 382 F. App’x 833, 836 (11th Cir. 

2010) (cleaned up). When presented with a shotgun pleading, a district court 

“should strike the pleading and instruct counsel to replead the case—if counsel 

could in good faith make the representations required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b).” 

Jackson v. Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1357-58 (11th Cir. 2018) (“This is 

so even when the other party does not move to strike the pleading”).

Here, Johnson’s complaint sprawls across forty-seven pages, typed in font 

that, at times, verges on the microscopic. Much of what Johnson sets forth

appears to be a stream of consciousness that has very little to do with the named 

Defendants: Ashley Moody, the Florida Attorney General; Matthew Graves, the 

Case 1:22-cv-22873-RNS Document 4 Entered on FLSD Docket 09/22/2022 Page 1 of 3
United States Attorney for the District of Columbia; Antonio Gutierrez, the 

Secretary-General of the United Nations; Merrick B. Garland, the United States 

Attorney General; and George W. Bush, former president of the United States.

For example, Johnson references a war-crimes tribunal in former Yugoslavia; an 

improperly conducted employment investigation in the 1990’s; interference with 

a religious project he was working on, also in the 1990’s; a delegation that was 

sent to Israel; the adulteration of pseudoephedrine, apparently while Johnson 

was in Belgium and Jordan; and incidents occurring when Johnson was in 

college, in 1983, involving, among others, Ann Coulter and Dorothy Bush. The 

list goes on. Among the causes of actions and violations he identifies are 

conversion; violations of his First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights; 

Americans with Disabilities Act violations; Civil Rights violations; and habeas 

corpus claims.

In short, Johnson’s dense, confusing, and winding exposition renders it 

nearly impossible for the Court to discern which allegations apply to which 

claims or to which Defendants. In other words, the complaint fails to supply, in a 

clear manner, “direct or inferential allegations respecting all the material 

elements necessary to sustain a recovery under some viable legal theory.” 

Frazile, 382 F. App’x at 836 (cleaned up). Instead, the complaint supplies only a 

loose association of events, some of them involving Johnson, some not, and none 

implicating any wrongdoing on the part of the Defendants.

Accordingly, the Court strikes Johnson’s complaint (ECF No. 1) and 

instructs him to replead his case—if he can, in good faith, allege facts directly 

supporting a viable claim for relief against the Defendants. Johnson is cautioned 

to plead only facts that are tethered to a viable cause of action against the 

Defendants and to identify which facts relate to which cause of action. Further, 

in compliance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 10(b), Johnson must state his

claims in numbered paragraphs, “each limited as far as practicable to a single 

set of circumstances.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). The Court also directs Johnson to 

avoid conclusory or vague allegations and to make sure that he endeavors to 

separate different causes of actions, to the extent there is more than one, into 

distinct, numbered counts. 

Johnson must file his amended complaint, compliant with the above and 

the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on or before October 12, 2022. Johnson is 

forewarned that if he fails to timely comply with this order, his complaint will be 

dismissed, without further leave to amend.

In the meantime, while there is no operative complaint, the Court directs 

the Clerk to administratively close this case. Any pending motions, not including 

Case 1:22-cv-22873-RNS Document 4 Entered on FLSD Docket 09/22/2022 Page 2 of 3
Johnson’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis, are denied as moot.

Done and ordered, in Miami, Florida, on September 22, 2022.

______________________________

Robert N. Scola, Jr.

United States District Judge

Copy, via U.S. mail, to: 

Michael D. Johnson

17130 NW 47 AV

Miami Gardens, FL 33055

Case 1:22-cv-22873-RNS Document 4 Entered on FLSD Docket 09/22/2022 Page 3 of 3