Source: http://ca.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20090130_0001606.ECA.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2017-02-22 13:36:45
Document Index: 634937907

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1202', '§ 2254', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

Plaintiff is apparently a former state prisoner proceeding pro se who initially, as a state prisoner, filed this purported civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff's initial complaint was found to be "virtually incoherent." See Order, filed on 5/09/08, p. 2. Following its dismissal with leave to amend within thirty days, with the express instruction that should plaintiff seek to proceed by way of a habeas corpus petition, she would have to file a new action, plaintiff purported to file a habeas petition herein, but no amended complaint. The court at first recommended dismissal for plaintiff's failure to file an amended complaint, but upon plaintiff's objections, vacated the Findings and Recommendations to permit the filing of an amended complaint. See Findings and Recommendations, filed on 7/24/08, vacated by Order filed on 8/21/08. Plaintiff thereafter filed two versions of an amended complaint on 9/17/08, as well as a third amended complaint on 9/18/08. The court will deem the latest amended complaint the superseding amended complaint and will proceed to screen that document.
As plaintiff has been previously informed the court is required to screen complaints brought by prisoners seeking relief against a governmental entity or officer or employee of a governmental entity. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). The court must dismiss a complaint or portion thereof if the prisoner has raised claims that are legally "frivolous or malicious," that fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or that seek monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1),(2).
Plaintiff's amended complaint fails to cure the defects of the original. In this incarnation of her complaint, most if not all of the defendants are located in Chowchilla, California, and the allegations appear to have arisen there. Chowchilla is located in Madera County, part of the Fresno Division of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. See Local Rule 3-120(d). Although, pursuant to Local Rule 3-120(f), a civil action which has not been commenced in the proper division of a court may, on the court's own motion, may be transferred to the proper division of the court, in this instance the court will not do so because the allegations remain so incoherent.
Plaintiff lists a myriad of defendants in her 103-page amended complaint, many of them located at Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) in Chowchilla, including the warden and various correctional officers and counselors; plaintiff has also again named the State of California as a defendant, which she has previously been cautioned not to do. Amended Complaint (AC), Docket # 31, pp. 1, 3-4, 32. She also includes a disorganized list of more than sixty other names that she identifies only as "eyewitnesses an [sic] some defendants," stating that "this is only half." AC, p. 17. Plaintiff goes back to the 1980's to describe herself as both a "soul [sic] owner" of commercial video and other equipment and an employee alongside the defendants, without saying whom she means, asserting that she won a lawsuit seeking payment by defendants. Id., at 5. Plaintiff jumps immediately to claiming that she was falsely imprisoned and repeatedly injected with different medications. Id. Thereafter, she claims to have come into a great deal of money by way of "a will and or inheritance too." Id. She was also "held hostage and forced into prison clothing" and beaten unconscious. Id. She insufficiently links any named defendant to her putative Eighth Amendment claims.
Plaintiff goes on to allege that "most of my past is a cloud...." Id., at 8. Plaintiff randomly references a "fall on 11-18-04 here at V.S.P.W." Id. She jumps to garbled references to investigations for two lawsuits against VSPW, claiming to be "enslaved" and "not heard again and again." Id., at 9. She claims that her son has been falsely imprisoned because of who she is and in the next sentence refers to "the laws of the White House." Id. Plaintiff continues her rambling with references to sitting in a county jail for a crime upon which she has been found not guilty. Id., at 10. She avers that she is in imminent danger because she is in a lockdown unit with a water faucet that does not work properly and no daylight or air. Id. She claims to have been in an ongoing battle with "police and other law officials," asserting that she "was not the driver of this D.U.I." Id., at 11. Plaintiff goes on for page after page with jarring and unconnected ramblings.
Just as was the original complaint, this filing is defective for multiple reasons. The amended complaint, as did the original, violates Fed. R. Civ. P. Rule 8. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 sets forth general rules of notice pleading in the Federal Courts. See Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, 534 U.S. 506, 122 S.Ct. 992 (2002). Complaints are required to set forth (1) the grounds upon which the court's jurisdiction rests, (2) a short and plain statement of the claim showing entitlement to relief; and (3) a demand for the relief plaintiff seeks. Rule 8 requires only "sufficient allegations to put defendants fairly on notice of the claims against them." McKeever v. Block, 932 F.2d 795, 798 (9th Cir. 1991).
Plaintiff strings out a litany of unrelated allegations, one or two of which may possibly be colorable, but all of which are too vague to put defendants (who are insufficiently linked to her claims) fairly on notice of the claims against them in violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. 8. See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed. 2d 80 (1957); Richmond v. Nationwide Cassel L.P., 52 F.3d 640, 645 (7th Cir. 1995) (amended complaint with vague and scanty allegations fails to satisfy the notice requirement of Rule 8); 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1202 (2d ed. 1990). "The propriety of dismissal for failure to comply with Rule 8 does not depend on whether the complaint is wholly without merit." McHenry v. Renne, 84 F.3d 1172, 1179 (9th Cir. 1996). In asserting multiple unrelated claims against different defendants (or against some of whom he has not clearly identified as defendants), plaintiff presents the kind of "mishmash of a complaint" that has been roundly repudiated. George v. Smith, 507 F.3d 605, 607 (7th Cir. 2007)("[u]nrelated claims against different defendants belong in different suits").
As plaintiff was also previously informed, to the extent that plaintiff seeks to challenge a conviction or sentence the appropriate vehicle is a petition for writ of habeas corpus, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, not a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
In addition, as also previously noted, to the extent that plaintiff may seek to sue for money damages for a wrongful conviction, those claims appear to be barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364 (1994). In Heck, an Indiana state prisoner brought a civil rights action under § 1983 for damages. Claiming that state and county officials violated his constitutional rights, he sought damages for improprieties in the investigation leading to his arrest, for the destruction of evidence, and for conduct during his trial ("illegal and unlawful voice identification procedure"). Convicted on voluntary manslaughter charges, and serving a fifteen year term, plaintiff did not seek injunctive relief or release from custody. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal's dismissal of the complaint and held that: in order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by ...