Opinion ID: 218770
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Sufficiency of Plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint

Text: Having addressed the legal elements that a plaintiff must plead to state a legally cognizable claim, we turn to the remaining steps identified by Iqbal : (1) identifying those allegations that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to any assumption of truth; and (2) then determining whether the well-pleaded factual allegations plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief. See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950; Santiago, 629 F.3d at 129-30. We acknowledge that Plaintiffs filed an extensive and carefully drafted pleading, which certainly contained a number of troubling allegations especially with respect to alleged unconstitutional behavior on the part of lower-ranking ICE agents. Plaintiffs are also correct that, even after Iqbal, we must continue to accept all factual allegations as true, construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and then determine whether a reasonable inference may be drawn that the defendant is liable for the alleged misconduct. See, e.g., Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210 (3d Cir.2009). We also recognize that Iqbal made it clear that courts must determine whether the complaint as a whole contains sufficient factual matter to state a facially plausible claim and that such a plausibility requirement is not akin to a `probability requirement.' Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949; see also, e.g., Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1309, 1322-25, 179 L.Ed.2d 398 (2011). Nevertheless, we ultimately conclude that, like Iqbal, Plaintiffs failed to allege a plausible Bivens claim against the four Appellants. Initially, certain allegations in the Second Amended Complaint were conclusory in nature and merely provided, at best, a framework for the otherwise appropriate factual allegations. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. For instance, the broad allegations regarding the existence of a culture of lawlessness are accorded little if any weight in our analysis. ( See JA532, JA561.) We further note that the relevant counts in the pleading contained boilerplate allegations mimicking the purported legal standards for liability, which we do not assume to be true. We also must reject certain broad characterizations made by the District Court, which were not supported by either the actual factual allegations in the Second Amended Complaint or reasonable inferences from such allegations. Most significantly, the District Court went too far by stating that Myers and Torres worked on these issues everyday. Argueta, 2010 WL 398839, at . Turning to the non-conclusory factual allegations in the Second Amended Complaint, we begin with the critical issue of notice. Plaintiffs did reference an impressive amount of documentation that allegedly provided notice to Appellants of their subordinates' unconstitutional conduct. However, these alleged sources of notice were fatally flawed in one way or another. Broadly speaking, we must point out the typical notice case seems to involve a prior incident or incidents of misconduct by a specific employee or group of employees, specific notice of such misconduct to their superiors, and then continued instances of misconduct by the same employee or employees. The typical case accordingly does not involve a knowledge and acquiescence claim premised, for instance, on reports of subordinate misconduct in one state followed by misconduct by totally different subordinates in a completely different state. Although there were some New Jersey-specific allegations in the Second Amended Complaint, we are generally confronted here with an attack on the alleged misconduct of numerous ICE agents at different raids executed across the country over a period of years. As Appellants further point out, the court cases specifically cited in Plaintiffs' pleading either did not involve individual capacity claims against Myers and Torres, were filed after at least some of the New Jersey raids specifically alleged in the Second Amended Complaint took place, or did not even involve Operation Return to Sender. All of these cases were also filed outside of New Jersey, and certain other alleged sources of notice implicated raids that took place in other states, especially in New Haven, Connecticut. Likewise, some alleged sources (like the February 2008 hearing and the March 2008 UN report) post-dated most of the specific New Jersey raids that allegedly harmed Plaintiffs themselves. In the end, we conclude that Plaintiffs did not plausibly allege that the Appellants had legally sufficient notice of the underlying unconstitutional conduct of their subordinates. Second, we observe that allegations specifically directed against Appellants themselves (unlike the allegations directed at the agents who actually carried out the raids) described conduct consistent with otherwise lawful behavior. See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. In other words, a federal official specifically charged with enforcing federal immigration law appears to be acting lawfully when he or she increases arrest goals, praises a particular enforcement operation as a success, or characterizes a home entry and search as an attempt to locate someone (i.e., a fugitive alien). In fact, the qualified immunity doctrine exists to encourage vigorous and unflinching enforcement of the law. See, e.g., id. at 1953-54. We add that, far from adopting a facially unconstitutional policy or expressly ordering ICE agents to engage in unconstitutional home entries and searches, Myers clearly stated in her response to the National Immigration Forum correspondence that agents were required to obtain consent before entering private residences and that all allegations of misconduct were taken seriously and fully investigated (and that, among other things, similar statements were made by Weber in connection with his `[w]e see it as trying to locate someone comment to the press). We also agree with Appellants' assertion that Plaintiffs themselves did not really identify in their pleading what exactly Appellants should have done differently, whether with respect to specific training programs or other matters, that would have prevented the unconstitutional conduct. See, e.g., Beers-Capitol v. Whetzel, 256 F.3d 120, 134 (3d Cir.2001); Sample v. Diecks, 885 F.2d 1099, 1118 (3d Cir.1989). For instance, the Inspector General's report, emphasized in the Second Amended Complaint, actually stated that all FOT members were required to complete a special three-week basic training course within two years of their assignment, most officers had completed the requisite training, and, in any case, all team members had previously undergone some form of basic law enforcement training (which presumably would have covered basic principles governing, among other things, the entry into a private residence without a judicial warrant). Far from recommending a complete training overhaul, the Inspector General ultimately recommended a refresher course, and ICE accepted this recommendation. (JA277.) We also cannot overlook the fact that Appellants themselves occupied relatively high-ranking positions in the federal hierarchy. Following the example set by the District Court, Plaintiffs assert that Appellants cannot be compared with Attorney General Ashcroft, who held the highest position in the federal law enforcement hierarchy. They add that the Iqbal Court emphasized that both Ashcroft and Mueller had to make quick policy decisions to respond to an unprecedented national emergency, while, on the other hand, Appellants oversaw Operation Return to Sender over a number of years. We certainly acknowledge that it is crucial to consider context and the particular circumstances of each and every case. See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. However, the context here involved, at the very least, two very high-ranking federal officials based in Washington D.C. who were charged with supervising the enforcement of federal immigration law throughout the country (as well as two other officials responsible for supervising such enforcement throughout an entire state). Appellants accordingly note that Myers and FBI Director Mueller reported directly to their respective agency heads (the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General), were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and were responsible for setting national and international polices. In fact, it appears uncontested that Myers and Torres oversaw an agency with more than 15,000 employees and a budget of more than $3.1 billion. In Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195 (3d Cir.1988), a civilian employee of the Pennsylvania State Police filed a civil rights action under § 1983 and 42 U.S.C. § 1985 against several defendants, including Pennsylvania Governor Thornburgh and Attorney General Zimmerman, id. at 1197-98. Among other things, she alleged that she was a victim of unlawful retaliation in the form of an unlawful work suspension and impermissible changes in her duties and working conditions. Id. Affirming the district court's dismissal of her claims against these two state officials, this Court specifically determined that she failed to allege knowledge and acquiescence with the required particularity as to her claim against the Governor. Id. at 1208. We observed that  Rode 's assertion that the Governor had `responsibility for supervising' the other defendants is irrelevant. Id. We then expressly rejected her hypothesis that the Governor had personal knowledge of the retaliation directed against Hileman [Rode 's co-plaintiff] because of numerous articles that appeared in newspapers throughout the state and through the introduction of a legislative resolution seeking an investigation into racially motivated retaliation against [Pennsylvania State Police] employees, the filing of grievances with the Governor's office of administration, and telephone calls and correspondence with the office of the Lieutenant Governor. Id. In the end, we concluded that, [i]n a large state employing many thousands of employees, a contrary holding would subject the Governor to potential liability in any case in which an aggrieved employee merely transmitted a complaint to the Governor's office of administration or to the Lieutenant Governor's office. Id. We add that the Ninth Circuit reached the same result in a recent post- Iqbal decision. In al -Kidd v. Ashcroft, 580 F.3d 949 (9th Cir.2009), rev'd on other grounds, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, ___, L.Ed.2d ___ (2011), the Ninth Circuit expressly rejected a conditions of confinement claim against Ashcroft brought by an individual detained under the material witness statute following September 11 because the complaint does not allege any specific factssuch as statements from Ashcroft or from high-ranking officials in the DOJestablishing that Ashcroft had personal involvement in setting the conditions of confinement. Id. at 978. The Ninth Circuit acknowledged that al-Kidd made several allegations regarding media reports and other sources of information describing the conditions of confinement, but it then explained that the non-specific allegations in the complaint regarding Ashcroft's involvement fail to nudge the possible to the plausible, as required by Twombly.  Id. at 978-79; see also, e.g., Santiago, 629 F.3d at 134 (concluding that allegation that Lt. Springfield was placed in charge of the operation, coupled with what happened during the operation, [failed to make it] plausible that Lt. Springfield knew of and acquiesced in the use of excessive force against Santiago.). We acknowledge that the specific circumstances presented in this prior case law may be distinguishable in one way or another. For instance, the appointed head of a federal agency, charged with enforcing the law and specifically implementing a particular enforcement operation, clearly possessed different responsibilities than the elected governor of a state. See, e.g., Atkinson, 316 F.3d at 270-71 (distinguishing state correctional commissioner and lower-ranking officials from governor and state attorney general). However, we cannot overlook the marked similarities between the allegations at issue here and the allegations deemed to be insufficient in Rode and al-Kidd. Furthermore, we again note that Myers and Torres, in particular, had national and even international policymaking and supervisory responsibilities. In the end, we believe that this prior case law supports our conclusion that Plaintiffs failed to meet the plausibility requirement. [6] Finally, we wish to emphasize that our ruling here does not leave Plaintiffs without any legal remedy for the alleged violation of the United States Constitution. Chavez, Galindo, and W.C. are still free to pursue their official capacity claims for injunctive relief against any further intimidation or unlawful entry into their home. Also, we do not address Plaintiffs' individual capacity claims for damages against the lower-ranking ICE agents named in the Second Amended Complaint. See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1952 (It is important to note, however, that we express no opinion concerning the sufficiency of respondent's complaint against the defendants who are not before us. Respondent's account of his prison ordeal alleges serious official misconduct that we need not address here. Our decision is limited to the determination that respondent's complaint does not entitle him to relief from petitioners [Ashcroft and Mueller].).