Court Opinion

ID: 9960235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-15 20:01:00.79361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:18.915061
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13891    Document: 35-1      Date Filed: 04/15/2024   Page: 1 of 15

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]

                                    In the

                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13891
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        MARIE JEAN CHARLES,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        GEO GROUP INC.,
        BI INC.,

                                                   Defendants-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 6:21-cv-01364-WWB-EJK
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        2                     Opinion of the Court                22-13891

                            ____________________

        Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                Marie Jean Charles, a Black, Haitian woman, ﬁled a lawsuit
        alleging discrimination and retaliation under Title VII following
        her termination as a case specialist for a government contractor.
        See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2(a), 2000e-3(a). After the defendants an-
        swered, and discovery began, the district court sua spone dismissed
        the operative amended complaint as a shotgun pleading and or-
        dered Jean Charles to replead. When Jean Charles did so, the de-
        fendants moved to dismiss, and the court granted that motion, dis-
        missing the action with prejudice on shotgun-pleading grounds and
        for failure to state a claim. After careful review, we hold that the
        district court abused its discretion by invoking the shotgun-plead-
        ing doctrine, and we vacate and remand for further proceedings.
                                         I.
               Jean Charles, represented by counsel, ﬁled her initial com-
        plaint in August 2021 and an amended complaint in December
        2021. According to the seven-page amended complaint, Jean
        Charles worked as a case specialist for a government contractor in
        Orlando, Florida, which administered a federal immigration pro-
        gram. Jean Charles received raises every year until 2011, when she
        “reached a cap.” After she hit the cap, she received “lump sum pay-
        ments every year but no raises and no promotions.” She was the
        only Black, Haitian employee in her oﬃce, and the “only employee
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        22-13891              Opinion of the Court                        3

        in her group to reach a cap,” which her employer failed to justify
        or explain. In 2016, she was denied a promotion without explana-
        tion. Then, after she ﬁled a charge of discrimination raising these
        allegations with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
        (“EEOC”), she was ﬁred despite being in good standing and having
        “no previous record of discipline.”
               The amended complaint asserted two claims for relief under
        Title VII. First, under the heading, “National Origin-Based Dis-
        crimination (Disparate Impact),” she alleged that the defendants’
        “promotion and compensation policy had an adverse and dispro-
        portionate impact on [her] because of [her] national origin, Hai-
        tian.” Second, she asserted that the defendants “purposefully ﬁred
        plaintiﬀ knowing she had ﬁled a complaint with the EEOC,” which
        “was investigating.”
               The defendants, GEO Group, Inc., and B.I., Inc., answered
        both the complaint and the amended complaint and asserted de-
        fenses. Soon after, the court entered a case management and sched-
        uling order, and the case was referred to mediation while discovery
        went forward.
                Nearly three months after entering its scheduling order, the
        district court, acting sua sponte, dismissed the amended complaint
        without prejudice as an impermissible “shotgun pleading.” Not-
        withstanding that the defendants had ﬁled responsive pleadings, the
        court found that the amended complaint was deﬁcient in that each
        of the two counts incorporated by reference “every allegation of
        the entire pleading,” making it “virtually impossible to discern
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-13891

        which of the many facts alleged supports each claim.” The court
        ordered Jean Charles to ﬁle a second amended complaint correct-
        ing the deﬁciencies noted.
               Jean Charles ﬁled a second amended complaint in early
        March 2022, making minor changes in an attempt to remedy the
        deﬁciency cited in the court’s order. The pleading also added that
        she had been terminated “without progressive discipline,” but the
        factual allegations and claims otherwise remained essentially un-
        changed.
               In response, the defendants, instead of answering as they
        had previously done, ﬁled a motion to dismiss. They argued that
        the second amended complaint failed to state a plausible claim of
        disparate-impact discrimination or retaliation, and that any failure-
        to-promote claim was time barred. The defendants then asserted
        that, even if Jean Charles stated a viable claim, the second amended
        complaint should still be dismissed as a “shotgun” pleading.
               After Jean Charles responded, the district court granted the
        defendants’ motion to dismiss. Despite succinctly describing Jean
        Charles’s factual allegations and claims, the court proceeded to de-
        scribe the second amended complaint as a shotgun pleading. The
        court suggested that the ﬁrst count was deﬁcient because it com-
        mingled “distinct transactions and occurrences,” while the second
        count “purport[ed] to reincorporate paragraphs 1–3, but there are
        two sets of paragraphs numbered 1–3, one of which includes alle-
        gations of discrimination that would need to be separate from
        [Jean Charles’s] retaliation claim.” The court noted that the second
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        22-13891              Opinion of the Court                        5

        amended complaint “also makes allegations against Defendants
        collectively without identifying which Defendant was responsible
        for which acts or omissions.”
               Nonetheless, the district court then considered the merits of
        the claims and granted the motion to dismiss. In the court’s view,
        the allegations failed to show that the defendants’ “promotion and
        compensation” policy had a disparate impact, or that her May 2021
        termination was causally related to her November 2020 EEOC
        charge. The court denied leave to amend and dismissed the action
        with prejudice. Jean Charles appeals.
                                        II.
               We review a district court’s decision to dismiss a complaint
        as an impermissible shotgun pleading for an abuse of discretion.
        Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1294 (11th Cir. 2018).
                Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that
        a pleading must contain a “short and plain statement” of the plain-
        tiﬀ’s claims, among other things. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). The short
        and plain statement of the claim “need only give the defendant fair
        notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.”
        Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93–94 (2007) (quotation marks omit-
        ted). “Pleadings must be construed so as to do justice[,]” Fed. R.
        Civ. P. 8(e), which “excludes requiring technical exactness, or the
        making of reﬁned inferences against the pleader, and requires an
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        6                          Opinion of the Court                        22-13891

        eﬀort fairly to understand what he attempts to set forth.” DeLoach
        v. Crowley’s, Inc., 128 F.2d 378, 380 (5th Cir. 1942). 1
               “Shotgun pleadings” are complaints that violate federal
        pleading rules by “fail[ing] to one degree or another, and in one
        way or another, to give the defendants adequate notice of the
        claims against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.”
        Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriﬀ’s Oﬃce, 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th
        Cir. 2015). We have “little tolerance for shotgun pleadings” because
        they “waste judicial resources, inexorably broaden the scope of dis-
        covery, wreak havoc on appellate court dockets, and undermine the
        public’s respect for the courts.” Vibe Micro, 878 F.3d at 1295 (cleaned
        up). While we have identiﬁed several pleading deﬁciencies indica-
        tive of a “shotgun pleading,” the underlying issue is one of sub-
        stance, not form—that is, whether the complaint gave the defend-
        ants fair “notice of the speciﬁc claims against them and the factual
        allegations that support those claims.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1325.
              Here, the district court abused its discretion by dismissing
        Jean Charles’s ﬁrst and second amended complaints as shotgun
        pleadings. 2 Despite the pleading deﬁciencies identiﬁed by the

        1 In Bonner v. City of Pritchard, we adopted as binding precedent all decisions of

        the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to October 1, 1981. 661 F.2d 1206,
        1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc).
        2 We disagree with the dissent that Jean Charles abandoned any challenge to

        the dismissal of the first amended complaint. In arguing that the district court
        erred in dismissing the second amended complaint as a shotgun pleading, Jean
        Charles maintains that she “put [the defendants] on notice of what the claims
        are,” citing both the first amended complaint and the second amended
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        22-13891                   Opinion of the Court                                7

        court, it is not “virtually impossible” to understand Jean Charles’s
        claims or “which allegations of fact are intended to support which
        claim(s) for relief.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). She believes her
        employer subjected her to discrimination and retaliation prohibited
        by Title VII. And both amended pleadings clearly identify the same
        two claims for relief and the factual grounds on which they were
        based: (1) national origin discrimination, under a disparate-impact
        theory, based on the defendants’ “promotion and compensation”
        policy, which capped her pay in 2011 with no raises or promotions 3;
        and (2) retaliation, based on her termination after ﬁling a charge of
        discrimination with the EEOC.
               The record shows that neither the defendants nor the district
        court had any real diﬃculty understanding Jean Charles’s claims or
        their supporting factual allegations, which were brief and easy to
        comprehend. Notably, the defendants answered the complaint and
        the amended complaint without seeking a more deﬁnite statement

        complaint. In other words, the shotgun pleading issue was presented as inter-
        twined. And for good reason. The second amended complaint was not mean-
        ingfully different from the first amended complaint with regard to the claims
        asserted and their supporting factual allegations. On this record, our conclu-
        sion that the district court improperly dismissed the second amended com-
        plaint as a shotgun pleading necessarily covers the dismissal of the first
        amended complaint as well.
        3 To the extent Jean Charles wishes to present a disparate-treatment claim,

        instead of or in addition to her disparate-impact claim, she must seek leave to
        amend from the district court on remand. See, e.g., E.E.O.C. v. Joe’s Stone Crab,
        Inc., 220 F.3d 1263, 1273–74 (11th Cir. 2000) (discussing the “discrete theories”
        of liability for discrimination under Title VII).
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13891

        or indicating they were unable to understand her claims. And the
        second amended complaint was largely unchanged from the prior
        versions. In addition, the court was able to describe and address
        the merits of each of Jean Charles’s claims in granting the defend-
        ants’ motion to dismiss. While the pleadings were not “model[s]
        of eﬃciency or speciﬁcity,” they “adequately put [the defendants]
        on notice of the speciﬁc claims against them and the factual allega-
        tions that support those claims.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1325.
                The dissent’s arguments in response are unpersuasive. We
        do not dispute that Jean Charles’s pleadings bear some characteris-
        tics of what we call shotgun pleadings. See id. at 1321–23 (listing
        the “four rough types or categories of shotgun pleadings”). But
        even so, dismissal was not appropriate because the defendants still
        had “adequate notice of the claims against them and the factual
        allegations that support those claims.” Id. at 1325. While (the sec-
        ond) paragraph 3 of the second amended complaint includes a
        stray allegation that Jean Charles was “harassed” based on her race,
        no facts are alleged in that paragraph, and the actual claims asserted
        in Counts I and II are clearly stated in terms of (1) national origin
        discrimination based on a disparate impact theory and (2) retalia-
        tion. We do not require “technical exactness” in pleading, and a
        mere reference to being “harassed” does not create any real imped-
        iment to understanding Jean Charles’s claims. See DeLoach, 128 F.2d
        at 380.
               Likewise, the dissent faults Jean Charles for not distinguish-
        ing between defendants, but this is an employment discrimination
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        22-13891              Opinion of the Court                        9

        case where, according to the pleadings, the two defendants oper-
        ated together as the single “government contractor” that employed
        Jean Charles. A plaintiﬀ in Jean Charles’s position may not be able
        to identify in a complaint which defendant was responsible for
        which acts or omissions she experienced as an employee. Nor
        would such allegations add any clarity to the essence of her
        claims—that is, that she experienced discrimination and retaliation
        prohibited by Title VII as an employee of the facility operated by
        the defendants.
                Having concluded that the district court improperly invoked
        the shotgun-pleading doctrine, we vacate and remand for further
        proceedings. But for the district court’s erroneous dismissal of the
        amended complaint as a shotgun pleading, the defendants could
        not have ﬁled a motion to dismiss, since they had already answered
        the amended complaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b) (stating that a mo-
        tion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) “must be made before pleading
        if a responsive pleading is allowed”). Thus, we do not address the
        merits of the motion to dismiss and instead return this case to its
        posture before the sua sponte dismissal of the amended complaint.
              For these reasons, we vacate and remand for further pro-
        ceedings consistent with this opinion.
              VACATED AND REMANDED.
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        22-13891                LAGOA, J., dissenting                        1

        LAGOA, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
               I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to vacate
        the district court’s orders dismissing Marie Jean Charles’s ﬁrst and
        second amended complaints. In my view, the district court did not
        abuse its discretion in dismissing those complaints as impermissible
        shotgun pleadings, and I would aﬃrm the district court’s dismissal
        orders. Let me explain my reasoning.
               Our review of a district court’s dismissal of a complaint as
        an improper shotgun pleading is for an abuse of discretion. Weiland
        v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriﬀ’s Oﬀ., 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015).
               Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires a complaint
        to include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that
        the pleader is entitled to relief.” In turn, Federal Rule of Civil Pro-
        cedure 10(b) provides that a party must state its claims “in num-
        bered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set
        of circumstances,” and that “each claim founded on a separate
        transaction or occurrence . . . must be stated in a separate count.”
                Shotgun pleadings are “[c]omplaints that violate either Rule
        8(a)(2) or Rule 10(b), or both,” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1320, and fail,
        “to one degree or another[,] . . . to give the defendants adequate
        notice of the claims against them and the grounds upon which
        each claim rests,” Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1295
        (11th Cir. 2018) (quoting Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1323). Courts in our
        Circuit “have little tolerance for shotgun pleadings,” which “waste
        scarce judicial resources, ‘inexorably broaden the scope of discov-
        ery,’ ‘wreak havoc on appellate court dockets,’ and ‘undermine the
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        2                        LAGOA, J., dissenting                 22-13891

        public's respect for the courts.’” Id. (alterations adopted) (quoting
        Davis v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consol., 516 F.3d 955, 981–83 (11th Cir.
        2008)). Further, “[a] district court has the ‘inherent authority to
        control its docket and ensure the prompt resolution of lawsuits,’
        which includes the ability to dismiss a complaint on shotgun plead-
        ing grounds.” Id. (quoting Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1320). However, in
        dismissing a complaint on shotgun pleading grounds, the district
        court is required to “allow a litigant one chance to remedy such
        deﬁciencies,” by explaining “how the oﬀending pleading violates
        the shotgun pleading rule so that the party may properly avoid fu-
        ture shotgun pleadings.” Id. at 1295–96. And the district court
        should strike shotgun pleading even where the parties do not re-
        quest it. Id. at 1295; Jackson v. Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1358
        (11th Cir. 2018); Est. of Bass v. Regions Bank, Inc., 947 F.3d 1352, 1358
        (11th Cir. 2020).
               This Court has identiﬁed “four rough types or categories of
        shotgun pleadings.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321. The ﬁrst type is “a
        complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts the
        allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count
        to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination
        of the entire complaint.” Id. The second type is a complaint that
        is “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obvi-
        ously connected to any particular cause of action.” Id. at 1322.
        The third type is a complaint that does not separate “each cause of
        action or claim for relief ” into a diﬀerent count. Id. at 1323. And
        the ﬁnal type is a complaint that “assert[s] multiple claims against
        multiple defendants without specifying which of the defendants
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        22-13891                 LAGOA, J., dissenting                         3

        are responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of the defend-
        ants the claim is brought against.” Id.
                As to the dismissal of Jean Charles’s ﬁrst amended com-
        plaint, Jean Charles does not challenge the district court’s dismissal
        of that complaint. Indeed, the arguments in her brief only address
        the district court’s dismissal of the second amended complaint. As
        this Court has long held, “[a]ny issue that an appellant wants the
        Court to address should be speciﬁcally and clearly identiﬁed in the
        brief,” as otherwise, the issue will be considered abandoned. Access
        Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2004); ac-
        cord Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 680 (11th Cir.
        2014). Therefore, Jean Charles has abandoned any challenge to the
        dismissal of her ﬁrst amended complaint, and I disagree with the
        majority’s sua sponte consideration and vacatur of the district
        court’s order dismissing that complaint.
                But even if Jean Charles had not abandoned the issue on ap-
        peal, I disagree with the majority that the district court abused its
        discretion in dismissing the ﬁrst amended complaint. Reviewing
        that complaint, it falls under the ﬁrst type of shotgun pleading iden-
        tiﬁed by Weiland: “a complaint containing multiple counts where
        each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing
        each successive count to carry all that came before and the last
        count to be a combination of the entire complaint.” 792 F.3d at
        1321. Indeed, the ﬁrst claim in the ﬁrst amended complaint states,
        “Plaintiﬀs incorporate by reference as if fully set forth herein the
        allegations contained in paragraphs 1-16, above,” and the second
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        4                       LAGOA, J., dissenting                 22-13891

        claim states, “Paragraphs 1-18 are realleged and incorporated
        herein.”
                In dismissing the ﬁrst amended complaint as a shotgun
        pleading, the district court set forth all four types of shotgun plead-
        ings. The court then found that, “[a]t the very least, Plaintiﬀ’s
        [First] Amended Complaint falls into the ﬁrst category,” as each
        count “reincorporates by reference every allegation of the entire
        pleading.” It explained that “[t]his circumstance alone makes it vir-
        tually impossible to discern which of the many facts alleged sup-
        ports each claim.” And the court informed Jean Charles that any
        amended complaint “must comply with all applicable rules and or-
        ders” and “cautioned that future failures to comply with all appli-
        cable rules and orders of this Court may result in the striking or
        denial of ﬁlings without notice or leave to reﬁle.” Given this Court
        has repeatedly held that a district court should strike a shotgun
        pleading even where the parties do not request it, see, e.g., Vibe Mi-
        cro, 878 F.3d at 1295; Jackson, 898 F.3d at 1358; Est. of Bass, 947 F.3d
        at 1358, the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing
        Jean Charles’s ﬁrst amended complaint, which clearly falls under
        the ﬁrst type of shotgun pleading identiﬁed by Weiland.
                Turning to Jean Charles’s second amended complaint, the
        district court found that the complaint fell into the third and fourth
        categories identiﬁed by Weiland: a complaint that (1) fails to sepa-
        rate “each cause of action or claim for relief ” into a diﬀerent count
        and (2) “assert[s] multiple claims against multiple defendants with-
        out specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which
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        22-13891                 LAGOA, J., dissenting                         5

        acts or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought
        against.” 792 F.3d at 1323. As to the second amended complaint’s
        ﬁrst claim—for “National Origin-Based Discrimination (Disparate
        Impact) in Violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”—
        the district court noted that Jean Charles asserted a single claim for
        color, race, and nationality discrimination regarding Defendants’
        “failure to promote Plaintiﬀ, failure to provide equal terms and
        conditions of employment including pay or compensation, and ter-
        mination of [Plaintiﬀ’s] employment.” The court found that Jean
        Charles’s “alleged injuries, which include both discrimination and
        harassment, appear to arise from distinct transactions and occur-
        rences, making it nearly impossible for Defendants to respond to”
        the ﬁrst claim. As to the second claim—for “Retaliation”—the dis-
        trict court noted that while Jean Charles purported to reincorpo-
        rate paragraphs 1 to 3, there were two sets of paragraphs num-
        bered 1 to 3 in the complaint, and it determined that one of those
        sets includes allegations of discrimination that would need to be
        separate from her retaliation claim. Finally, the district court found
        that the second amended complaint, as a whole, made “allegations
        against Defendants collectively without identifying which Defend-
        ant was responsible for which acts or omissions,” which “inhibit[ed]
        Defendants from formulating responses.”
               After reviewing the second amended complaint along with
        the district court’s reasoning, the district court did not abuse its dis-
        cretion in dismissing the complaint as a shotgun pleading. Jean
        Charles’s ﬁrst claim incorporated all the allegations contained in
        the complaint’s previous paragraphs, including an allegation that
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        6                       LAGOA, J., dissenting                22-13891

        Defendants “harassed her on the basis of national origin Haitian
        and race – black.” But the ﬁrst claim is premised on national origin-
        based discrimination in violation of Title VII under a theory of dis-
        parate impact, not harassment. In other words, Jean Charles im-
        properly comingled theories under a single claim. The same holds
        true as to her second claim for retaliation, which incorporates par-
        agraph 3 of the second amended complaint. As the district court
        noted, there are two paragraphs numbered as “3” in the complaint,
        with one of those paragraphs referencing both discrimination and
        harassment under Title VII—distinct theories of liability separate
        from retaliation. Thus, Jean Charles again comingled multiple the-
        ories under a single claim. Finally, the district court correctly noted
        that Jean Charles did not identify which Defendant was responsible
        for which acts or omissions at any point in the second amended
        complaint. Instead, the complaint’s allegations are made either col-
        lectively against both Defendants or, at times, against a “Defend-
        ant” without specifying which of the two Defendants. Given these
        deﬁciencies, which fall under two of the shotgun pleading types
        identiﬁed in Weiland, the district court did not abuse its discretion
        in dismissing the second amended complaint as a shotgun pleading.
               For these reasons, I conclude that the district court did not
        abuse its discretion in dismissing either of Jean Charles’s amended
        complaints. I would aﬃrm the district court’s dismissal orders and
        thus respectfully dissent from the majority’s vacatur of those dis-
        missal orders.