Court Opinion

ID: 9393885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-11 16:00:52.756549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:55.949756
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13865     Document: 10-1      Date Filed: 05/11/2023      Page: 1 of 6

                                                     [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                  No. 22-13865
                            Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       RACHELLE GENDRON,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       GWEN CONNELLY,
       in her oﬃcial capacity as District Attorney of St. Clair County,
       LAMAR WILLIAMSON,
       in his oﬃcial capacity as District Attorney of St. Clair County,
       SHERIFF, ST. CLAIR COUNTY
       PENNEE BARRON,
       THIRTIETH JUDICIAL COURT OF ALABAMA, et al.,

                                                    Defendants-Appellees.
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13865

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Alabama
                      D.C. Docket No. 2:22-cv-01205-ACA
                           ____________________

       Before LAGOA, BRASHER, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Rachelle Gendron, proceeding pro se, appeals from the dis-
       trict court’s final order dismissing with prejudice her amended 42
       U.S.C. § 1983 civil complaint. After Gendron filed her original
       complaint, the district court struck it as a shotgun pleading and di-
       rected Gendron to replead. In the order directing her to replead,
       the court explained how Gendron had violated the shotgun plead-
       ing rule and provided detailed instructions on how Gendron could
       correct the issues in her complaint. Thereafter, Gendron filed an
       amended complaint, but the district court found that the amended
       complaint “ha[d] continued to fail to follow the procedural require-
       ments under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and 10(b),”
       and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. On appeal, Gendron
       argues that the district court’s with-prejudice dismissal was unwar-
       ranted because her failure to comply with the court’s repleading
       order was merely a result of her inexperience in pleading as a pro se
       litigant, not willful and deliberate misconduct. After careful re-
       view, we affirm.
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       22-13865                Opinion of the Court                          3

              We review a district court’s dismissal of a shotgun pleading
       on Rule 8 or 10 grounds for abuse of discretion. Vibe Micro, Inc. v.
       Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1294 (11th Cir. 2018); Weiland v. Palm
       Beach Cnty. Sherriff’s Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1321 (11th Cir. 2015). Un-
       der the abuse-of-discretion standard, we must affirm unless we find
       that the district court made a clear error of judgment or applied the
       wrong legal standard. Rance v. Rocksolid Granit USA, Inc., 583 F.3d
       1284, 1286 (11th Cir. 2009). While we construe pleadings filed by
       pro se parties liberally, pro se litigants still must conform to proce-
       dural rules. Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir. 2007).
              A complaint must contain “a short and plain statement of
       the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ.
       P. 8(a)(2). Further, claims should be stated “in numbered para-
       graphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circum-
       stances.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b).
              Shotgun pleadings generally fall into four categories,
       namely, complaints that: (1) contain multiple counts where each
       count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts; (2) are “replete
       with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously con-
       nected to any particular cause of action”; (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 responsible for which acts or omis-
       sions. Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321–23. The unifying characteristic of
       all types of shotgun pleadings is that they fail to one degree or
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                   22-13865

       another “to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims
       against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.” Id. at
       1323.
               We’ve repeatedly condemned shotgun pleadings. See Davis
       v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consol., 516 F.3d 955, 979 n.54 (11th Cir.
       2008) (collecting cases in which we have rejected shotgun plead-
       ings), abrogated on other grounds by Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.
       544 (2007), as recognized in Estate of Bass v. Regions Bank, Inc., 947
       F.3d 1352, 1356 n.3 (11th Cir. 2020). In so doing, we’ve held that a
       district court can dismiss a complaint on shotgun pleading grounds
       under its “inherent authority to control its docket and ensure the
       prompt resolution of lawsuits.” Vibe Micro, 878 F.3d at 1295 (quo-
       tation omitted). And, if the court permits the plaintiff to amend
       and explains in its repleading order how the offending complaint
       violates the shotgun pleading rule, but the plaintiff still fails to rem-
       edy the shotgun pleading issues, the court does not abuse its dis-
       cretion in dismissing the case with prejudice. Id. at 1295–96.
              In this case, the district court did not abuse its discretion by
       dismissing Gendron’s complaint with prejudice for being a shotgun
       pleading. See id. The dismissal order explained that Gendron
       “ha[d] continued to fail to follow the procedural requirements of
       pleadings under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and 10(b),”
       and concluded that the amended complaint “still fail[ed] at its job
       of notifying the defendants ‘of the claims against them and the
       grounds upon which each claim rest[ed].’” It added that our Court
       repeatedly has condemned shotgun pleadings and that the district
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       22-13865               Opinion of the Court                          5

       court had the authority to dismiss a complaint solely on the basis
       of being a shotgun pleading. Thus, to the extent Gendron suggests
       that the district court dismissed her complaint for any reason other
       than being a shotgun pleading, the record belies this claim.
               Further, although Gendron was proceeding pro se, it was
       well within the district court’s discretion to dismiss the amended
       complaint as a shotgun pleading. See Albra, 490 F.3d at 829. As the
       record reflects, Gendron was given an opportunity to amend her
       complaint according to the court’s specific instructions and with a
       warning that a failure to do so could result in dismissal. In its order
       directing her to replead, the district court explained to Gendron
       that her amended complaint should: (1) contain a separate count
       for each claim with a factual basis for that claim only; (2) include
       headings for each count identifying the specific defendant(s) against
       whom the claim was asserted and the statute or law under which
       the claim was brought; and (3) avoid conclusory statements,
       providing a specific example from Gendron’s complaint about the
       district attorneys she sued, with instructions on how to correct it.
              But despite the court’s warning, Gendron cured only one of
       the three deficiencies identified by the court -- that is, she provided
       a basis for each constitutional violation she alleged. However, the
       amended complaint still did not articulate any specific claims
       against the defendants nor did it include headings for each count.
       Further, it continued to raise conclusory assertions of her inno-
       cence and entitlement to relief and largely reasserted her prior al-
       legations against the originally named parties. Notably, the
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13865

       amended complaint retained the conclusory statement about the
       district attorneys that the court had identified as problematic in its
       repleading order.
               On this record, the district court did not abuse its discretion
       in dismissing Gendron’s complaint with prejudice. Moreover, the
       district court was not required to grant Gendron yet another
       chance to amend the complaint since she does not argue, and the
       record does not show, that she ever sought leave to amend from
       the district court. See Bank v. Pitt, 928 F.2d 1108, 1112 (11th Cir.
       1991) (holding that a pro se plaintiff must generally be given “one
       chance to amend the complaint before the district court dismisses
       the action with prejudice”) (emphasis added), overruled in part by
       Wagner v. Daewoo Heavy Indus. Am. Corp., 314 F.3d 541, 542 & n.1
       (11th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (holding that the rule in Bank does not
       apply to counseled plaintiffs).
              AFFIRMED.