Court Opinion

ID: 9930684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 16:02:31.495914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:24:36.193035
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-11875    Document: 18-1      Date Filed: 02/07/2024   Page: 1 of 12

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 23-11875
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        WOLFGANG W. HALBIG,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        LAKE COUNTY, FLORIDA,
        LAKE COUNTY, FLORIDA SHERIFF,
        Individual and Oﬃcial Capacity,
        ELLORY OSTERBERG,
        Individual andOﬃcial Capacity as
        Former Deputy,
        COREY WINGO,
        Individual and Oﬃcial Capacity as Deputy,
        DANIEL CONLEE,
        Individual and Oﬃcial Capacity as Deputy,
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                23-11875

        ERICA RODRIGUEZ,
        Individual and Oﬃcial Capacity as Corporal,

                                                     Defendants-Appellees,

        TODD ENGLISH,
        Individual and Oﬃcial Capacity as Major,
        et al.,

                                                                Defendants.

                             ____________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Middle District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 5:22-cv-00106-JA-PRL
                            ____________________

        Before WILSON, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Wolfgang Halbig, a pro se litigant, appeals the dismissal of
        his second amended 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint against Lake
        County, Florida, the Lake County, Florida, Sheriff, and officers El-
        lory Osterberg, Corey Wingo, Erica Rodriguez, and Dan Conlee in
        their individual and official capacities, alleging that his constitu-
        tional rights were violated when he was arrested and prosecuted
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        23-11875                Opinion of the Court                          3

        for committing a state crime. He argues that the district court
        abused its discretion by dismissing his second amended complaint
        as a “shotgun” pleading because the magistrate judge, in drafting
        the report and recommendation that recommended dismissing the
        filing, had no trouble interpreting the facts and claims contained
        within the complaint and attributing the facts to their respective
        causes of action.
               We review the district court’s dismissal of a complaint on
        “shotgun” pleading grounds for abuse of discretion. Weiland
        v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriﬀ’s Oﬀ., 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015).
                A pleading that states a claim for relief must contain “a short
        and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is enti-
        tled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). This short and plain statement
        must “give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and
        the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.
        544, 555 (2007) (quotation marks omitted, alteration in original).
        An adequate complaint requires more than bare conclusions and
        labels. Id. A plaintiﬀ must also “state its claims or defenses in num-
        bered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set
        of circumstances.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). Moreover, “[i]f doing so
        would promote clarity, each claim founded on a separate transac-
        tion or occurrence . . . must be stated in a separate count or de-
        fense.” Id. “A dismissal under Rules 8(a)(2) and 10(b) is appropriate
        where it is virtually impossible to know which allegations of fact are
        intended to support which claim(s) for relief.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at
        1325 (quotation marks omitted).
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 23-11875

               So-called “shotgun” pleadings do not provide a short and
        plain statement of a claim under Rule 8. Magluta v. Samples, 256
        F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2001). We have “little tolerance for shot-
        gun pleadings,” given that “[t]hey waste scarce judicial resources,
        inexorably broaden[] the scope of discovery, wreak havoc on appel-
        late court dockets, and undermine[] the public’s respect for the
        courts.” Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1295 (11th Cir.
        2018) (quotation marks omitted, second and third alterations in
        original).
                “Shotgun” pleadings include complaints that: (1) contain
        multiple counts where each count adopts the allegations of all pre-
        ceding counts; (2) are “replete with conclusory, vague, and imma-
        terial facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of ac-
        tion”; (3) do not separate each cause of action or claim for relief
        into separate counts; or (4) assert multiple claims against multiple
        defendants without specifying which of the defendants are respon-
        sible for which acts or omissions. Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321-23. All
        these types of “shotgun” pleadings are characterized by their fail-
        ure “to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims against
        them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.” Id. at 1323.
               In Weiland and Pinson, we concluded that the district court
        erred in dismissing a complaint as a “shotgun” pleading. See id. at
        1326; Pinson v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nat’l Ass’n, 942 F.3d 1200, 1208
        (11th Cir. 2019). In Weiland, the plaintiﬀ appealed the district
        court’s dismissal with prejudice of his § 1983 claims after the dis-
        trict court determined that those counts “(1) incorporated all of
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        23-11875               Opinion of the Court                         5

        the factual allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 49 inclu-
        sive; and (2) failed to identify which allegations [were] relevant to
        the elements of which legal theories and which constitutional
        amendments govern which counts.” 792 F.3d at 1324 (quotation
        marks omitted). In beginning our analysis, we noted that the dis-
        trict court dismissed the claims because the plaintiﬀ had failed to
        remedy the violations despite previously having the opportunity to
        amend “even though [the district court] was able to determine
        from the complaint that [the plaintiﬀ] had stated a claim for relief
        against the two deputies under the Fourth Amendment and for
        conspiracy to violate his constitutional rights.” Id. In reversing the
        district court’s order, we determined that although the complaint
        appeared to be a common “shotgun” pleading on its face, the plain-
        tiﬀ did not simply reallege irrelevant factual allegations and legal
        conclusions in each claim. Id.
                We further explained that “this [was] not a situation where
        a failure to more precisely parcel out and identify the facts relevant
        to each claim materially increased the burden of understanding the
        factual allegations underlying each count.” Id.� � Speciﬁcally, we de-
        termined that both the defendants, who did not make a motion for
        a more deﬁnite statement under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(e), did not have
        any trouble understanding the claim against them, and we stated
        that the same could be said for the district court. Id. We undertook
        an analysis of each count and found no issue in relating the factual
        allegations to their claims. Id. at 1324-25. We further noted that
        while the defendant included constitutional amendments in his
        complaints under which he was not entitled to relief, that was not
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        6                       Opinion of the Court                   23-11875

        an appropriate ground for dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) and
        10(b). Id. at 1325. Accordingly, we held that the district court
        abused its discretion by dismissing two counts of the defendant’s
        complaint as a “shotgun” pleading. Id. at 1326.
                In Pinson, reviewing the district court’s grant of a motion to
        dismiss for failure to state a claim de novo, we similarly reversed the
        district court’s dismissal of the plaintiﬀ’s pro se complaint as a “shot-
        gun” pleading. See 942 F.3d at 1206-08. Although the plaintiﬀ’s
        complaint adopted the allegations of the preceding counts and was
        “perhaps longer than it need[ed] to be[,]” we stated that that “it
        d[id] not contain endless irrelevancies.” Id. at 1208. We explained
        that the complaint did what it “must do” by giving the defendant
        adequate notice of the claims against it and the allegations upon
        which those claims rested. Id. We had “no trouble” understanding
        the plaintiﬀ’s allegations and there was no indication that the de-
        fendant had any trouble understanding the complaint, which
        would explain why it failed to move for a more deﬁnite statement
        before the district court. Id. We further emphasized that the de-
        fendant and the district court understood the claims contained in
        the complaint “well enough to address the[] merits” in the motion
        to dismiss and the order granting that motion. Id. We ultimately
        decided to address the plaintiﬀ’s complaint on the merits because,
        although the “shotgun-pleading rule applies to everyone,” we lib-
        erally construe pro se pleadings. Id.
               “Where a more carefully drafted complaint might state a
        claim, a plaintiﬀ must be given at least one chance to amend the
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        23-11875                Opinion of the Court                          7

        complaint before the district court dismisses the action with preju-
        dice.” Woldeab v. Dekalb Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 885 F.3d 1289, 1291 (11th
        Cir. 2018). However, a district court need not allow amendment in
        the event of undue delay, bad faith, repeated failure to cure deﬁ-
        ciencies, undue prejudice to the opposing party, or futility of the
        amendment. Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). A district
        court can dismiss a complaint on “shotgun” pleading grounds un-
        der its “inherent authority to control its docket and ensure the
        prompt resolution of lawsuits.” Vibe Micro Inc., 878 F.3d at 1295
        (quotation marks omitted).
                Pro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than for-
        mal pleadings drafted by lawyers and will be liberally construed.
        Campbell v. Air Jam. Ltd., 760 F.3d 1165, 1168 (11th Cir. 2014). Nev-
        ertheless, pro se litigants are required to comply with applicable pro-
        cedural rules. Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir. 2007).
        The leniency aﬀorded pro se litigants with liberal construction
        “does not give a court license to serve as de facto counsel for a party,
        or to rewrite an otherwise deﬁcient pleading in order to sustain an
        action.” Campbell, 760 F.3d at 1168-69 (quotation marks omitted).
        Moreover, although we liberally construe pro se pleadings, “issues
        not briefed on appeal by a pro se litigant are deemed abandoned.”
        Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008). An appellant
        fails to adequately brief a claim when he does not “plainly and
        prominently raise it,” such as by making only passing references to
        the court’s holding without advancing any arguments or citing any
        authorities to establish that there was error. Sapuppo v. Allstate
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                  23-11875

        Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks
        omitted).
               As a preliminary matter, Halbig has abandoned any chal-
        lenge to the district court’s determination that he failed to state a
        claim for relief in his Count Seven Monell claim because he failed to
        raise such an argument in his brief. Timson, 518 F.3d at 874. Liber-
        ally construed, Halbig only broadly argues that his second
        amended complaint was not a “shotgun” pleading because the
        magistrate judge had no trouble interpreting the facts and claims
        contained within the ﬁling. Accordingly, this Court need not ad-
        dress whether the district court erred in dismissing Count Seven of
        Halbig’s second amended complaint for failure to state a claim.
                Turning to the merits of the remaining counts, the district
        court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing Halbig’s second
        amended complaint as a “shotgun” pleading. Speciﬁcally, this case
        can be distinguished from Weiland and Pinson, the cases primarily
        relied upon by Halbig. First, it is true that none of the Defendants
        here moved for a more deﬁnite statement in the district court, and
        this Court has found the failure to do so is some indication that the
        Defendants understood the claims against them. See Weiland, 792
        F.3d at 1324; Pinson, 942 F.3d at 1208. Further, Halbig is correct that
        the magistrate judge attempted to summarize his second amended
        complaint at the beginning of the Report and Recommendation
        (“R&R”). However, the magistrate judge was unable to conduct as
        thorough of an examination of the facts alleged by Halbig as this
        Court and the district courts appeared to have been able to do in
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        23-11875               Opinion of the Court                         9

        Weiland and Pinson. See Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1324-25; Pinson, 942
        F.3d at 1207-08. The magistrate judge was only able to give a gen-
        eral overview drawn from the second amended complaint’s state-
        ment of facts and was unable to name any speciﬁc Defendants as
        responsible in the allegations. When it came to summarizing the
        causes of action, the magistrate judge simply recited the titles Hal-
        big had given to each count and pointed out the deﬁciencies in the
        context of Count One, showing that the second amended com-
        plaint failed to “present more than labels and bare conclusions.”
        Dist. Ct. Doc. 88 at 3, 5; Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. Additionally, in
        his objections to the R&R, Halbig pointed out that the magistrate
        judge had misstated one of the allegations in his complaint, further
        evidencing the magistrate judge’s diﬃculty in interpreting Halbig’s
        claims.
               Further, Halbig’s second amended complaint had several ad-
        ditional deﬁciencies that made it “virtually impossible” for the De-
        fendants “to know which allegations of fact are intended to support
        which claim(s) for relief.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1325 (quotation
        marks omitted). Although Halbig had corrected his complaint in
        some ways from the previous ﬁlings, the second amended com-
        plaint still did not meet the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a) be-
        cause, despite not speciﬁcally reincorporating each count’s factual
        allegations, it still failed to give the Defendants notice of the
        grounds upon which each claim rests. Id. at 1323. While Halbig
        made speciﬁc allegations against speciﬁc defendants regarding
        some counts, he asserted many of his claims generally and did not
        identify which claims he was bringing against which Defendant or
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 23-11875

        what each speciﬁc Defendant did with respect to that count. First,
        aside from Oﬃcers Osterberg and Wingo, Halbig failed to name
        any of the Defendants who participated in his alleged unlawful ar-
        rest and prosecution in his statement of facts. Moreover, his reci-
        tation of the facts ends with his arrest, and he fails to elaborate in
        the second amended complaint how his constitutional rights were
        particularly infringed upon by the Defendants in the time that fol-
        lowed his arrest.
                Additionally, the causes of action in Halbig’s second
        amended complaint were “replete with conclusory, vague, and im-
        material facts,” as he failed to describe with speciﬁcity what consti-
        tutional violations he suﬀered and only alleged the Defendants gen-
        erally participated in “the actions” described in the second
        amended complaint, whether physically present at the scene of his
        arrest or through “[c]ollusion and [c]onspiracy.” Weiland, 792 F.3d
        at 1322. Halbig further failed to separate each cause of action or
        claim for relief into separate counts and asserted several claims
        against multiple defendants in the same counts without specifying
        which of the Defendants is responsible for the action. Weiland, 792
        F.3d at 1322 23. For instance, as the government argues, Count One
        asserted four diﬀerent causes of action under the Fourth and Four-
        teenth Amendments but failed to specify which facts related to each
        of these claims or name all the Defendants responsible for the al-
        leged excessive force, false imprisonment, false arrest, and abridge-
        ment of privilege. Moreover, in several counts, Halbig speciﬁcally
        named some Defendants but then pointed to unnamed “helpers”
        and nameless “oﬃcers” as jointly responsible for the claimed
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        23-11875               Opinion of the Court                       11

        violations, which, as the magistrate judge identiﬁed, left the reader
        “to guess as to what role, if any” many of the Defendants had in
        each of the allegations.
                Also, despite Halbig’s argument that he should have been
        given the opportunity to amend his second amended complaint
        and was not instructed on how to avoid ﬁling future “shotgun”
        pleadings, the record shows he was given two chances to amend
        before having it dismissed with prejudice. Woldeab, 885 F.3d at
        1291. The instant complaint represented his second attempt to
        cure his defective pleading. In asking the court for leave to amend
        after receiving the Defendants’ motion to dismiss that explained, in
        part, that he had ﬁled a “shotgun” pleading by alleging multiple
        causes of action against all the Defendants without specifying
        which factual allegations related to each party, Halbig recognized
        that his original complaint was procedurally ﬂawed. He told the
        court he would be more precise in future ﬁlings by “nam[ing] the
        individuals and their misdeeds that require[d] answers and possibly
        withdraw[ing] the names of individuals [he] c[ould not] tie to spe-
        ciﬁc allegations.”
               Also, when recommending the dismissal of his amended
        complaint, the magistrate judge provided Halbig with ample guid-
        ance of what deﬁciencies caused his amended complaint to be dis-
        missed as a “shotgun” pleading. As relevant to the deﬁciencies that
        reappeared in the second amended complaint, the magistrate judge
        explained that Halbig improperly brought Counts One through Six
        against all the Defendants without speciﬁcally alleging how each
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                 23-11875

        were individually involved in the claims. The magistrate judge con-
        ducted a step by step analysis of the shortcomings of Count One.
        With this in mind, the district court stated when dismissing the sec-
        ond amended complaint that Halbig had “be[en] on notice from
        early in the case of the pleading deﬁciencies” and “ha[d] not,
        through two amendments, cured those deﬁciencies.” Therefore,
        the district court, exercising its inherent authority to control its
        dockets, did not abuse its discretion by dismissing Halbig’s second
        amended complaint on “shotgun” pleading grounds without giv-
        ing him another opportunity to amend, as he had repeatedly failed
        to cure the procedural defects in his ﬁlings. See Vibe Micro Inc., 878
        F.3d at 1295; Foman, 371 U.S. at 182.
              AFFIRMED.