[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-12426

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

HOWARD A. MATHIS, 

Reverend,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

THE CITY OF LAKELAND,

a Florida municipality, 

MAYOR, CITY OF LAKELAND,

SCOTT FRANKLIN,

Former Commissioner, 

STEPHANIE MADDEN,

Commissioner, Individual Capacity, 

SARA ROBERTS MCCARLEY, 

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Commissioner, Individual Capacity, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees,

THE CITY OF LAKELAND RED LIGHT 

CAMERA ENFORCEMENT AGENCY,

Defendant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 8:21-cv-00235-SDM-SPF

____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and HULL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Howard Mathis, proceeding pro se, appeals the district 

court’s grant of the twelve defendants’ motions to dismiss his pro 

se amended complaint. The subject of Mathis’s amended 

complaint is two traffic violations issued through a red light photo 

enforcement system. Mathis’s amended complaint asserted four 

Counts against the twelve defendants: (1) violation of his due 

process rights brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count 1); 

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(2) conspiracy to interfere with his rights on the basis of race in 

violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (Count 2); (3) discrimination in 

violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000d (Count 3); and (4) unjust enrichment in violation of Fla. 

Stat. §§ 316.0083(1)(b)(4), 318.121, and 560.204 (Count 4). The 

district court dismissed Counts 1–3 on shotgun pleading grounds 

and Count 4 for failure to state a claim. On appeal, Mathis argues 

that the district court erred by dismissing each Count of his 

amended complaint with prejudice. After careful review, we 

affirm.

I. BACKGROUND 

A. Original Complaint, Dismissal, and Leave to Amend 

On February 1, 2021, Mathis, proceeding pro se, sued (1) the 

City of Lakeland (“City”), (2) Mayor William Mutz, (3) Former 

Commissioner Scott Franklin, (4) Commissioners Stephanie 

Madden, Sara McCarley, Chad McLeod, Bill Read, and Phillip 

Walker, (5) the “City of Lakeland Red Light Camera Enforcement 

Agency,”1 (6) “Hearing Officers” Joshua Brown and Matthew 

Vaughn, and (7) American Traffic Solutions, Inc. (“ATS”).

All defendants moved to dismiss. On August 2, 2021, a 

magistrate judge issued a report (“report”), recommending that the 

1 The named “City of Lakeland Red Light Camera Enforcement Agency” does 

not exist. 

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motions to dismiss be granted and Mathis be granted leave to 

amend his complaint to correct the deficiencies in his complaint.

On August 17, 2021, the district court adopted the report, 

granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, and dismissed Mathis’s 

complaint with leave to amend. The district court also “strongly 

advised” Mathis to obtain legal advice and assistance before filing 

his amended complaint and warned that the amended complaint 

would be “subject to final dismissal” if it failed to state a claim.

B. Allegations in the Amended Complaint 

On October 20, 2021, Mathis filed his amended complaint, 

alleging the following events.

On September 7, 2018, the City issued a “Notice of 

Violation” to Judy Nance Mathis (“Judy Mathis”) “for failure to 

comply with a steady red signal.” On September 18, 2018, Judy

Mathis signed an affidavit in which she named Howard Mathis as 

having “care, custody, or control of the vehicle at the time of the 

violation.” So on September 26, 2018, the City reissued the Notice 

of Violation (“NOV1”) to Howard Mathis, the plaintiff here.

On December 12, 2018, defendant Vaughn (a City “hearing 

officer”) held a hearing and upheld the NOV1. Vaughn allegedly 

told Mathis to “redress his disagreements to the Circuit Court or 

the City Council.” Plaintiff Mathis alleges he did both.

With respect to the City Council, Mathis attempted to 

“redress the violation . . . with the City” but “Assistant City 

Attorney Romona Sirianni gave out wrong information trying to 

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streamline the process away from the City Commission.” Attorney 

Sirianni allegedly “conspir[ed] with Police Officer Franz” by 

“summoning him to” a meeting to “give . . . false and misguided 

information to the [City] Commission.”

With respect to the Circuit Court, Mathis appealed his 

NOV1 conviction to the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court, in and for 

Polk County, Florida, which reversed and remanded for a new 

hearing.

On remand, defendant Brown (another City “hearing 

officer”) presided over Mathis’s hearing. According to Mathis, 

even though the “normal[] practice” is to call hearings “in 

alphabetical order,” Vicki Wilson (who is white) “went first” before 

Mathis (who is black). Mathis alleged that defendant Brown 

racially discriminated against him by dismissing the violation 

against Wilson yet upholding the NOV1 against Mathis. 

Completely separate from NOV1 discussed above, it 

appears that Mathis ran another red light and was issued a different 

Notice of Violation (“NOV2”). In Florida, the civil penalty for 

running a red light is $158.00. See Fla. Stat. § 316.0083(1)(b)3.b. 

Mathis paid the penalty for NOV2 electronically with a Visa card

and attached a receipt to the amended complaint. Mathis’s receipt 

shows a total charge of $162.00.

In his amended complaint, Mathis sued (1) the City, 

(2) Mayor Mutz, (3) Former Commissioner Franklin, 

(4) Commissioners Madden, McCarley, McLeod, Read, and 

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Walker, (5) the City’s Police Department, (6) “Hearing Officers” 

Brown and Vaughn, and (7) ATS. Thus, the only change in the 

defendants from the original complaint to the amended complaint 

is that Mathis sued the City’s Police Department instead of “[t]he 

City of Lakeland Red Light Camera Enforcement Agency.”

Mathis’s amended complaint alleged four Counts against the 

defendants: (1) violation of his due process rights brought under 42 

U.S.C. § 1983 (Count 1); (2) conspiracy to interfere with his rights 

on the basis of race in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (Count 2); 

(3) discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 

1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (Count 3); and (4) unjust enrichment in 

violation of Fla. Stat. §§ 316.0083(1)(b)(4), 318.121, and 560.204 

(Count 4).

In Count 1, Mathis alleged that (1) Vaughn and Brown acted 

under color of state law, (2) Vaughn violated his due process rights, 

(3) Attorney Sirianni and Officer Franz conspired to deprive him of 

an unspecified right, (4) Brown conspired with Franz by agreeing 

to dismiss Vicki Wilson’s violation, (5) ATS conspired with the 

City’s Commission “to implement a money grabbing scheme

knowing out right that red light cameras don’t decrease 

accident[s],” and (6) “[t]he unlawful actions of the defendants 

constitute a violation of due process.” 

In Count 2, Mathis alleged that “[t]he unlawful actions of the 

defendants” violated § 1985(3) and Brown “granted a white person 

a dismissal . . . but upheld his [violation] and the obvious reason 

was because he was black.”

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In Count 3, Mathis alleged that (1) the defendants receive 

federal financial assistance, (2) the defendants created a policy, 

practice, or custom of issuing red light camera citations based on 

race or ethnicity, and (3) such “unlawful actions” constituted a 

violation of § 2000(d).

In Count 4, Mathis alleged that (1) ATS conspired with the 

City “in a money grabbing scheme” that they “disguise[d] . . . as a 

safety program regarding traffic accidents,” (2) the convenience fee 

extracted by ATS was an “illegal ‘commission,’” and (3) Mathis 

“conferred a monetary benefit on the Defendant, some or all of 

which was voluntarily retained by Defendant.” 

C. Dismissal of the Amended Complaint 

On November 2, 2021, all the defendants except ATS moved 

to dismiss Mathis’s amended complaint. They argued that 

(1) Mathis had not remedied the defects highlighted in the 

magistrate judge’s report, (2) each Count failed to state a claim, and 

(3) the individual defendants were entitled to immunity.

On November 3, 2021, defendant ATS moved to dismiss 

Mathis’s amended complaint, arguing that it was a shotgun 

pleading and that each Count failed to state a claim. As to Count 

4, defendant ATS argued that the alleged illegality of the 

convenience fee did not make its retention of that fee unjust and 

that Mathis received the convenience he paid for.

On June 29, 2022, the district court granted the defendants’ 

motions to dismiss and dismissed Mathis’s amended complaint. 

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First, the district court found that the amended complaint was a 

shotgun pleading because (1) Counts 1–3 asserted multiple claims 

against multiple defendants without specifying which of the 

defendants was responsible for which acts or omissions and (2) the 

amended complaint contained conclusory, vague, and immaterial 

facts that did not explain how those facts amounted to unlawful 

conduct. Second, the district court determined that Count 4 failed 

to state a claim for relief because this Court has held that the 

retention of a convenience fee for facilitating an online payment 

cannot be the basis of a claim for unjust enrichment. See Pincus v. 

Am. Traffic Sols., Inc., 25 F.4th 1339, 1340–41 (11th Cir. 2022).

The district court entered judgment for each defendant. 

Mathis timely appealed. 

II. COUNTS 1–3 

We begin with an overview on shotgun pleadings and then 

address why the district court did not err in dismissing Counts 1–3.

A. General Rules on Shotgun Pleadings 

A shotgun pleading is a complaint that violates either 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) or 10(b), or both. Weiland 

v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 

2015).

Rule 8(a)(2) requires “a short and plain statement of the 

claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

8(a)(2). Rule 10(b) requires a party to “state its claims or defenses 

in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a 

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single set of circumstances.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). Rule 10(b) also 

mandates that “each claim founded on a separate transaction or 

occurrence . . . be stated in a separate count” if doing so would 

promote clarity. Id.

“The self-evident purpose of these rules is to require the 

pleader to present his claims discretely and succinctly, so that his 

adversary can discern what he is claiming and frame a responsive 

pleading.” Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1324 (11th Cir. 

2021) (cleaned up). In other words, “shotgun pleadings are flatly 

forbidden by the spirit, if not the letter, of these rules because they 

are calculated to confuse the enemy and the court.” Id. (cleaned 

up). Accordingly, we have “little tolerance” for shotgun pleadings. 

Id. (quotation marks omitted).

“[W]e have identified four rough types or categories of 

shotgun pleadings”: (1) “a complaint containing multiple counts 

where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, 

causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the 

last count to be a combination of the entire complaint”; (2) a 

complaint that is “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial 

facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action”; 

(3) a complaint that does not separate “each cause of action or 

claim for relief” into a different count; and (4) a complaint that 

“assert[s] multiple claims against multiple defendants without 

specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which acts 

or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought 

against.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321–23. 

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A district court must give a plaintiff one opportunity to 

remedy his shotgun pleading before dismissing his action. Vibe 

Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1296 (11th Cir. 2018). If he 

files an amended complaint without substantially fixing the 

deficiencies, dismissal with prejudice is warranted. See Jackson v. 

Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1358–59 (11th Cir. 2018) 

(explaining that “[t]he District Court should have dismissed the 

amended complaint with prejudice” where “the [plaintiffs] filed an 

amended complaint afflicted with the same defects, attempting 

halfheartedly to cure only one of the pleading’s many ailments by 

naming which counts pertained to each Defendant”).

We review a dismissal on shotgun pleading grounds for an 

abuse of discretion. Barmapov, 986 F.3d at 1324. Although courts 

afford liberal construction to pro se litigants’ pleadings, pro se 

litigants must adhere to the procedural requirements of the Federal

Rules of Civil Procedure. McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 

113, 113 S. Ct. 1980, 1984 (1993) (“[W]e have never suggested that 

procedural rules in ordinary civil litigation should be interpreted so 

as to excuse mistakes by those who proceed without counsel.”); 

accord Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir. 2007).

B. Mathis’s Amended Complaint Was a Shotgun Pleading 

The district court did not err in dismissing Counts 1–3 

because Mathis’s amended complaint was a shotgun pleading. 

First, Mathis sued twelve defendants, but his amended 

complaint largely failed to identify which of them took which 

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actions and which claims were raised against which defendants. 

Instead, Counts 1–3 lumped the defendants together by alleging 

that “the unlawful actions of the defendants constitute a violation 

of [federal law].” (Emphasis added.) The lumping of defendants 

does not give any defendant fair notice of the allegations brought 

against that defendant. Automotive Alignment & Body Serv., Inc. 

v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 953 F.3d 707, 732 (11th Cir. 

2020); see also Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 

2001) (condemning as a shotgun pleading a complaint that (1) was 

“replete with allegations that ‘the defendants’ engaged in certain 

conduct” and (2) made “no distinction among the fourteen 

defendants charged, though geographic and temporal realities 

make plain that all of the defendants could not have participated in 

every act complained of”).

Second, Counts 1–3 contain conclusory and vague facts. 

Each Count includes a citation to federal law and a conclusory 

assertion that “the unlawful actions of the defendants constitute a 

violation of [federal law].” But Mathis provided no explanation on 

how any of the factual allegations amount to unlawful conduct 

under the cited statutes. Est. of Bass v. Regions Bank, Inc., 947 F.3d 

1352, 1358 (11th Cir. 2020) (“[A shotgun] pleading is never plain 

because it is impossible to comprehend which specific factual 

allegations the plaintiff intends to support which of his causes of 

action, or how they do so. It is not the proper function of courts in 

this Circuit to parse out such incomprehensible allegations[.]”).

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Take Count 2, for example. It consists of five paragraphs. 

The first paragraph “repeat[s] and reallege[s] all of the allegations 

set forth in” previous paragraphs. The second paragraph quotes 

§ 1985(3). The third paragraph states in a conclusory manner that 

“[t]he unlawful actions of the defendants constitute a violation of” 

§ 1985(3). The fourth paragraph alleges that, as a result of 

defendants’ § 1985(3) violation, Mathis (1) lost business income and 

earning capacity and (2) suffered “damage to his Christian and 

professional reputation, embarrassment, humiliation[,] and other 

forms of mental distress.” The last paragraph claims Mathis “came 

to redress the harm done to him during an earlier red light camera 

hearing by the Josh Brown [sic] where he had granted a white 

person a dismissal without a necessary affidavit but upheld his[,] 

and the obvious reason was because he was black.” Count 2 alone 

embodies three types of impermissible shotgun pleadings.

For all these reasons, the amended complaint was a shotgun 

pleading, the district court provided Mathis with an opportunity to 

fix the deficiencies but Mathis failed to do so, and thus the district 

court acted within its discretion in dismissing the amended 

complaint with prejudice. Vibe Micro, Inc., 878 F.3d at 1296; 

Jackson, 898 F.3d at 1358–59.

III. COUNT 4 

In Count 4, Mathis alleged that defendant ATS was unjustly 

enriched by his payment of a convenience fee to ATS. For an 

unjust enrichment claim under Florida law, a plaintiff must show 

that (1) he conferred a benefit on the defendant, (2) the defendant 

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voluntarily accepted and retained the benefit, and (3) the 

circumstances would make it inequitable for the defendant to 

retain the benefit without paying the value thereof. Virgilio v. 

Ryland Grp., Inc., 680 F.3d 1329, 1337 (11th Cir. 2012).

The district court dismissed Count 4 for failure to state a 

claim because Mathis cannot satisfy the third element. “We review 

de novo a district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss 

for failure to state a claim, accepting the complaint’s allegations as 

true and construing them in the light most favorable to the 

plaintiff.” Newbauer v. Carnival Corp., 26 F.4th 931, 934 (11th Cir. 

2022). While a pro se complaint is construed liberally, it will not 

be rewritten. Snow v. DirecTV, Inc., 450 F.3d 1314, 1320 (11th Cir. 

2006).

The district court did not err in dismissing Count 4 for 

failure to state a claim because Count 4 is foreclosed by our binding 

precedent. 

In Pincus v. American Traffic Solutions, Inc., the plaintiff 

received a traffic ticket issued through an ATS red light photo 

enforcement system in Florida. 986 F.3d 1305, 1309 (11th Cir. 

2021). The plaintiff sued ATS alleging three counts of unjust 

enrichment after ATS charged him a fee for processing his credit 

card payment for the traffic ticket. Id. This Court certified several 

questions to the Florida Supreme Court, including the question: 

“Does [the plaintiff’s] unjust enrichment claim fail because he 

received adequate consideration in exchange for the challenged fee 

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when he took advantage of the privilege of using his credit card to 

pay the penalty?” Id. at 1320–21.

In answering that question, the Florida Supreme Court 

explained that, even assuming Florida law bars a defendant from 

charging a convenience fee, it is not inequitable for the defendant 

to retain the fee because it provided the plaintiff value in exchange 

for the fee. Pincus v. Am. Traffic Sols., Inc., 333 So.3d 1095, 1097 

(Fla. 2022). Specifically, the Florida Supreme Court determined 

that the value that the plaintiff received in exchange for the 

convenience fee included: (1) not having to procure postage and a 

check or money order; (2) being able to pay the balance over time;

(3) avoiding the risk of payment being delayed, stolen, or lost en

route; (4) being afforded more time to make the payment because 

it would be received instantaneously; and (5) receiving immediate 

confirmation that the payment was received and the obligation to 

pay the penalty was fulfilled. Id. For these reasons, the Florida 

Supreme Court concluded that “it [was] not inequitable under the 

circumstances for ATS to retain the convenience fee because it first 

paid the value thereof to the plaintiff.” Id. (cleaned up). 

Upon remand to this Court, we concluded that the plaintiff

received adequate consideration for paying a convenience fee to 

ATS and thus had failed to state a claim for unjust enrichment

under Florida law. Pincus, 25 F.4th at 1340–41.

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Mathis’s allegations in Count 4 are nearly identical to the 

circumstances in Pincus.2 Like the Pincus plaintiff, Mathis paid the 

penalty electronically and alleged it was unjust for ATS to retain 

the convenience fee. Mathis received the same benefits the Pincus

plaintiff did in exchange for the convenience fee. Because Mathis’s 

Count 4 is foreclosed by Pincus, we conclude the district court did 

not err in dismissing Count 4 for failure to state a claim.

IV. CONCLUSION 

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Mathis’s amended 

complaint.

AFFIRMED. 

2 Mathis’s attempts to distinguish his claim from those present in Pincus are 

unavailing. Mathis argues that his “claim differ[s] from the Pincus case 

because he married up his allegations as prescribe[d] . . . by the Florida 

Supreme Court.” (Italics added.) Mathis then quotes a paragraph from his

amended complaint that alleged Mathis “conferred a monetary benefit on the 

Defendant, some or all of which was voluntarily retained by Defendant.” That 

argument evidences a misunderstanding of Pincus. The Florida Supreme 

Court’s reasoning did not turn on whether the plaintiff conferred a benefit 

upon the defendant (i.e., the first element for an unjust enrichment claim in 

Florida). Instead, it turned on whether the defendant provided value in 

exchange for the benefit conferred by the plaintiff (i.e., the third element). See

Pincus, 333 So.3d at 1097 (reasoning that “ATS’s retention of the fee [was] not 

inequitable because ATS gave value in exchange” for the convenience fee).

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