Opinion ID: 3061306
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant Borders’ Motion to Dismiss

Text: On June 10, 2009, Defendant Gary Borders, in his capacity as Sheriff of Lake County, Florida, filed a motion to dismiss the case against all Defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction due to insufficient service of process. Defendant Borders stated that the U.S. Marshal’s Office had purported to serve process on Defendants by delivering documents to Stella Ringwald at the Lake Correctional Institution, over which neither Defendant Borders nor any of his employees has 5 any control or discretion. Defendant Borders also argued that Stella Ringwald is not authorized to accept service of process for any of the named Defendants. Defendant Borders attached a personal affidavit in which he attested that neither he nor his employees has control over the Lake Correctional Institution, that Ringwald is not authorized to accept service on behalf of the Defendants, and that Defendant Borders himself has not been served with process. Plaintiff responded by filing a motion to strike Borders’s motion to dismiss, arguing that, because Plaintiff was granted IFP status, the court was responsible for ordering service of process pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4. D. District Court’s Show Cause Order Regarding Prior Lawsuits On July 9, 2009, the district court issued an order denying Plaintiff’s second motion for appointment of counsel and directing Plaintiff to show cause why the case should not be dismissed for abuse of judicial process. The district court stated that, in his Amended Complaint, Plaintiff had failed to disclose previous lawsuits he filed in federal court while he was a prisoner. As an example, the district court cited a case filed in the District of Colorado by Plaintiff while he was a prisoner. The district court concluded that this omission constituted an abuse of the judicial process, the appropriate sanction for which is dismissal of the Amended Complaint. 6 Plaintiff filed a response to the district court’s order, conceding that he had filed a previous lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado and attaching updated pages of the complaint form to reflect the information regarding the Colorado suit. Plaintiff indicated that the Colorado suit involved overcrowding in a Colorado jail during the time that Plaintiff was held there in 2007. According to Plaintiff, that lawsuit was dismissed for failure to comply with the pleading requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8. Plaintiff’s response further contended that he originally misunderstood the requirements of the complaint form as requesting only information about previous lawsuits that involved the same facts as the instant suit. Plaintiff stated that other than the instant suit, he has filed no other actions in relation to his imprisonment in Florida. He also argued that he filed the lawsuit in Colorado after he filed his initial Complaint in the instant case, but prior to the filing of the Amended Complaint. Plaintiff moved for leave to amend or supplement his Amended Complaint to reflect the information regarding the Colorado lawsuit and attached updated pages of the complaint form, which included the requested information about his Colorado lawsuit.1 1 On September 21, 2009, Plaintiff also filed a “Motion to Revisit Plaintiff’s Motion to Appoint Counsel” in connection with the district court’s denial of his second motion for the appointment of counsel, arguing that the factual and legal complexity of the case, Plaintiff’s 7 E. District Court’s Dismissal Order On February 12, 2010, the district court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint without prejudice. The district court based its dismissal on a number of grounds, the first being lack of personal jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(5) on the grounds that there was no proper service as to the Defendants.2 The district court also noted that 28 U.S.C. § 1915, which governs proceedings IFP, allows a court to dismiss a case at any time if the court determines that the allegation of poverty is untrue, if the action is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or if the action seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). The district court concluded that Plaintiff had “abuse[d] . . . the judicial process” by failing to disclose his previous civil actions as directed on current incarceration in Colorado, and Plaintiff’s inability to conduct discovery supported granting counsel. The district court subsequently denied this motion as part of its order dismissing Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint and terminating all pending motions. 2 Prior to the district court’s order dismissing Plaintiff’s case, Plaintiff filed an additional “Motion to Amend or Supplement the Complaint” with a proposed Second Amended Complaint attached. The district court never addressed this motion or his previous motion to amend the complaint filed with his response to the district court’s order to show cause, other than to direct that all pending motions be terminated in its order dismissing the case. There is no evidence that Plaintiff obtained Defendants’ written consent or the court’s leave to file a Second Amended Complaint prior to the district court’s dismissal of the case, and the district court’s order addressed only the Amended Complaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2)(after amending a pleading once under Rule 15(a)(1), “a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave”). 8 the complaint form and that the proper sanction for his abuse of process is to dismiss the case without prejudice. In the same order, the district court noted several other grounds for the dismissal of Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint, including (1) to the extent Plaintiff was suing “John and Jane Does,” such a practice is not allowed in federal court; (2) Plaintiff’s summary allegations that there was no grievance process at the jail were insufficient to satisfy the exhaustion requirement under § 1997e; and (3) Plaintiff had failed to address any factors to warrant the issuance of an injunction.3 The district court ordered that the case be dismissed without prejudice, and that the district court clerk terminate “all pending motions.”