Opinion ID: 2801017
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Plausibility of Drimal’s Complaint

Text: To survive a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal quotation marks omitted). Courts “are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). While this standard “does not require detailed factual allegations . . . it demands more than an unadorned, the‐defendant‐unlawfully‐harmed‐me accusation.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Drimal’s complaint fails to plausibly allege a violation of law because she recites only legal conclusions. Conspicuously absent from the complaint is the concept of minimization. Drimal simply alleges that each defendant “unlawfully intercepted and listened to privileged, confidential marital communications,” identifying the allegedly unlawfully monitored calls only by date. J.A. 50. These 11 allegations lack specificity. As drafted, they give no indication of the circumstances that support the conclusory allegation of unlawfulness. Although 18 U.S.C. § 2517(4) specifies that “[n]o otherwise privileged wire, oral, or electronic communication intercepted in accordance with, or in violation of, the provisions of this chapter shall lose its privileged character,” nothing in Title III prohibits outright the interception or monitoring of privileged conversations. To be sure, § 2518(5) requires that such calls be “minimized” but that requirement cannot be gleaned from the complaint. The court order that authorized this wiretap included specific instructions governing how conversations between husband and wife should be treated.3 These instructions provided: You are to discontinue monitoring if you discover that you are intercepting a personal communication solely between husband and wife. If it appears that a third person is present during this communication, however, 3 We take judicial notice of the court order, which is discussed in Goffer, 756 F. Supp. 2d at 590‐91, because Drimal’s complaint cites frequently to Goffer. See Roth v. Jennings, 489 F.3d 499, 509 (2d Cir. 2007) (“Documents that are attached to the complaint or incorporated in it by reference are deemed part of the pleading and may be considered.”). 12 the communication is not privileged. So too, if the communication deals not with private matters between husband and wife, but instead with ongoing as opposed to past violations of law, it is not a privileged conversation. Goffer, 756 F. Supp. 2d at 591. These instructions do not prohibit the interception and monitoring of marital calls, but they do require their minimization. This is entirely logical: agents obviously must intercept and listen to a call before they can determine whether a conversation is privileged and subject to minimization and, if so, to what degree. Accordingly, to survive a motion to dismiss, Drimal’s complaint must include facts alleging how each defendant failed to comply with his or her duty to minimize specified telephone calls as required by § 2518(5) and the authorization order. In assessing the complaint, the district court read the minimization requirement into the plaintiff’s allegations that defendants “unlawfully” listened to her calls and required no greater specificity as to the facts alleged. However, a simple allegation that defendants behaved “unlawfully,” unsupported by any factual detail, is precisely the type of legal conclusion that a 13 court is not bound to accept as true on a motion to dismiss, and the district court erred in doing so here.