Court Opinion

ID: 9881393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-02 14:00:48.74942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:08:44.430787
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13155   Document: 42-1    Date Filed: 10/02/2023   Page: 1 of 7

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                         ____________________

                              No. 22-13155
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       STEPHEN LYNCH MURRAY,
                                                   Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       PHIL ARCHER,
       a natural person,
       CHRIS SPROWLS,
       a natural person,
       OKEECHOBEE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE,
       an entity,
       GOVERNOR, STATE OF FLORIDA,
       PINELLAS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE,
       an entity,
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13155

                                                    Defendants-Appellees.

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cv-14355-JEM
                           ____________________

       Before NEWSOM, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Stephen Lynch Murray, proceeding pro se, appeals the dis-
       trict court’s order dismissing his complaint as an impermissible
       “shotgun” pleading. The district court permitted Murray to rem-
       edy the complaint’s deficiencies in an amended complaint, but
       Murray filed this appeal instead. After careful review, we affirm.
                                      I.

               Murray filed a pro se complaint against several Florida state
       officials and two Sheriff’s Offices. The complaint spans 74 pages,
       including 180 numbered paragraphs and 11 exhibits. It did not cite
       any law or allege any separate claims against defendants. All de-
       fendants moved to dismiss. A magistrate judge recommended the
       court dismiss the complaint as a shotgun pleading, and the district
       court adopted the recommendation in full.
             The complaint begins by telling the story of Murray’s ac-
       quaintance, who was convicted for the murder of a strip club
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       22-13155               Opinion of the Court                        3

       manager in 2016. Murray alleges that State Attorney Phil Archer
       and his employees committed perjury and tampered with evidence
       to secure the conviction. Murray then sent “thousands of emails”
       about the case and other general grievances to Archer, every Re-
       publican candidate for public office listed on Florida’s Department
       of State website, and a handful of congresspeople in D.C. He cre-
       ated the website cops2prison.org, a YouTube channel, and other
       social media accounts to “make a permanent home for these policy
       observations and arguments.”
               In early January, while viewing Florida Speaker Chris
       Sprowls’s Twitter feed, he found Speaker Sprowls’ wife’s account
       and a picture of Sprowls’s wife with former President Donald
       Trump on Air Force One. Murray, who “thought it was vain,”
       tweeted the picture of Sprowls’ wife with Bible verses about vanity.
       Murray admits he then emailed the picture of Speaker Sprowls’s
       wife to State Attorney Archer with the message: “omg, is pimping
       legal in Florida? Because I am going to make this bitch my whore.”
       Later that month, Murray drove to Pinellas County—the county
       where Speaker Sprowls and his wife live—as he alleges, to pass out
       flyers at Stetson University College of Law “to educate law stu-
       dents” and “drive traffic to his website.” A warrant was issued for
       Murray’s arrest based on his threat about Speaker Sprowls’s wife, a
       list of other threatening emails and Twitter posts, and his travel to
       the Sprowls’s county of residence. Murray was then arrested for
       cyberstalking, which he alleges was a wrongful arrest in retaliation
       for his online activity.
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  22-13155

              Seven months later, Murray submitted a complaint to the
       Florida Inspector General that State Attorney Archer and Speaker
       Sprowls were sending sheriffs to harass him. The next day, Murray
       alleges officers confronted him at a gas station as ordered by Gov-
       ernor Ron DeSantis. A week later, Murray was stopped for speed-
       ing and subjected to a sobriety test. Murray believes both stops oc-
       curred in retaliation for his exercise of free speech in emails, his
       website, and various social media platforms. The complaint seeks
       $2 million for the deprivation of his right “to have unabridged
       speech and publish and address grievances” and for his loss of
       productivity and peace of mind.
                                       II.

              We review the dismissal of a shotgun pleading for failure to
       comply with Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and 10(b) for
       abuse of discretion. See Weiland v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff's Off., 792
       F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015). Although we construe pro se com-
       plaints liberally, we nevertheless require that pro se litigants adhere
       to the same governing rules and procedures as litigants represented
       by attorneys. See Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir.
       2007).
               The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require “a short and
       plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
       relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), and that such claims are “in num-
       bered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set
       of circumstances,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). A shotgun pleading
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       22-13155               Opinion of the Court                          5

       “violates either Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) or Rule
       10(b), or both.” Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1324 (11th Cir.
       2021).
               We have identified four categories of shotgun pleadings: (1)
       “a complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts
       the allegations of all preceding counts”; (2) a complaint that is “re-
       plete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously
       connected to any particular cause of action”; (3) a complaint that
       fails to “separate into a different count each cause of action or claim
       for relief”; and (4) a complaint that “assert[s] multiple claims
       against multiple defendants without specifying which of the de-
       fendants are responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of
       the defendants the claim is brought against.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at
       1321−23. The unifying trait among the categories is that each com-
       plaint fails “to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims
       against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.” Id.
       at 1323.
              Murray’s complaint commits at least three of the fatal pitfalls
       of shotgun pleadings.
             First, Murray’s complaint is “replete with conclusory, vague,
       and immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular
       cause of action,” because it was written in sprawling, narrative
       form in which his political musings and opinions were intermin-
       gled with accusations against the defendants, making it difficult to
       follow. Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321−23. For example, five pages of
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13155

       the complaint tell the story of Murray’s acquaintance convicted of
       murder under the heading “Pimping in Florida.”
              Second, Murray did not separate each cause of action into
       separate counts. In fact, Murray did not cite any law or allege any
       separate claims against defendants. Instead, the complaint is bro-
       ken into the headings including the following: “Grievances on
       Checks And Balances, Compound Jurisdiction, Anarchy, And The
       Bill Of Rights”; “Cops2Prison.Org”; “Culture, Morals, Equality of
       Men, And The First Amendment.”
              Third, any claims that Murray made against the defendants
       were intermingled with each other and scattered throughout his
       factual narrative. As the magistrate judge explained, “The allega-
       tions are sometimes connected to a particular Defendant or set of
       Defendants but sometimes not, making it virtually impossible to
       understand who did what and when.”
              There is no question Murray’s complaint is a shotgun plead-
       ing. The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing it
       in violation of Rules 8 and 10.
              When a complaint fails as a shotgun pleading, we generally
       require that the district court allow the litigant at least one chance
       to remedy its deficiencies. See Wagner v. First Horizon Pharm. Corp.,
       464 F.3d 1273, 1280 (11th Cir. 2006). The district court did just that:
       it advised Murray to file an amended complaint within twenty
       days, cautioning him that “even though he is a pro se litigant, he
       must follow the Local Rules and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
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       22-13155            Opinion of the Court                    7

       Murray declined the opportunity, allowing the twenty days to
       lapse and filing this appeal instead.
             We AFFIRM.