Court Opinion

ID: 9931108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-08 16:02:20.359169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:17:00.238867
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-12248     Document: 39-1     Date Filed: 02/08/2024   Page: 1 of 7

                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                 No. 23-12248
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       JEAN DOMINIQUE MORANCY,
       Father,
       L.M.,
       a minor, by and through her father, Jean
       Dominique Morancy,
                                                    Plaintiﬀs-Appellants,
       versus
       SABRINA ALEX SALOMON,
       GERALD FRANCIS ZNOSKO,
       ANGELA LYNN LAMBIASE,
       CARLOS A. OTERO,
       KEITH FRANKLIN WHITE, et al.,
USCA11 Case: 23-12248      Document: 39-1      Date Filed: 02/08/2024     Page: 2 of 7

       2                      Opinion of the Court                  23-12248

                                                      Defendants-Appellees.

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Middle District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 6:23-cv-00714-CEM-RMN
                            ____________________

       Before WILSON, JORDAN, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Appellants-Plaintiﬀs Jean Dominique Morancy and his
       daughter, L.M., proceeding pro se, appeal the district court’s dis-
       missal of their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims of racketeering and consti-
       tutional rights violations. Appellants argue, inter alia, that the dis-
       trict court improperly dismissed their complaint based on the
       Younger abstention doctrine. We REVERSE because the district
       court failed to properly construe Morancy’s “Petition to Add Par-
       ties and Supplement/Pleadings” as a motion rather than as an
       amended complaint.
                              I.         Background
              The facts of this case stem from a child dependency proceed-
       ing in Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit. In addition to the underlying
       dependency proceedings, Morancy had several pending state court
       appeals.
USCA11 Case: 23-12248        Document: 39-1        Date Filed: 02/08/2024        Page: 3 of 7

       23-12248                  Opinion of the Court                              3

               In 2019, Morancy petitioned the Orange County Court re-
       garding timesharing and child support issues involving L.M.’s
       mother. Throughout his state litigation, Morancy fired his attor-
       ney and filed various motions to disqualify judges or transfer the
       case. Most of these motions related to allegations of fraud and rack-
       eteering activities among attorneys and judges working on the
       case. 1
              On April 10, 2023, while state court proceedings continued,
       Morancy filed a pro se federal complaint alleging constitutional vi-
       olations and racketeering against Appellees-Defendants: L.M.’s
       mother and her attorneys; Morancy’s former lawyer and his firm;
       the state court judges; Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit Court; Flor-
       ida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal; and Florida’s Attorney Gen-
       eral. On April 24, 2023, Morancy filed an amended complaint.
       Both versions of the complaint requested monetary damages as
       compensation. On May 26, 2023, Morancy filed a “Petition to Add
       Parties and Supplement/Pleadings.” Morancy used the same form
       complaint document for his “Petition to Add Parties and Supple-
       ment/Pleadings” but he left off the section of the form dedicated
       to relief. All three documents discussed alleged violations of the
       First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Between May 30,

       1 For example, Morancy alleged that a judge aided and abetted an attorney to

       commit perjury “to prevent her from exposing [another judge’s] illegal activi-
       ties.” When one judge later suspended Morancy’s time-sharing because Mo-
       rancy would not attend a required parenting class, Mornacy described the
       judge’s reasoning as “pretextual.”
USCA11 Case: 23-12248      Document: 39-1      Date Filed: 02/08/2024     Page: 4 of 7

       4                        Opinion of the Court                23-12248

       2023, and June 21, 2023, the various defendants moved to dismiss
       the amended complaint entered April 24, 2023.
              On June 22, 2023, the assigned magistrate judge issued a re-
       port and recommendation (R&R) recommending that the district
       court refrain from exercising jurisdiction under the Younger absten-
       tion doctrine and dismiss the complaint. A footnote to the R&R
       notes that it “assumes the form complaint filed at docket number
       33 is the operative complaint.” Docket Number 33 is Morancy’s
       Petition to Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings. Morancy
       timely objected to the R&R. In that objection, Morancy men-
       tioned that “a stay should be provided in order to resolve the dam-
       ages claim later” and provided a chart of his requested damages.
               The district court adopted the R&R and exercised the
       Younger abstention doctrine to dismiss the case, which is permissi-
       ble when plaintiffs seek only injunctive relief. The district court
       order began by stating that the “Cause is before the Court on Plain-
       tiffs’ Petition to Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings (Doc 33),
       which is an amended complaint.” Later, the district court noted
       that it decided to dismiss rather than stay the action in part because
       district courts should grant stays “only to claims for monetary dam-
       ages, not those for declaratory and injunctive relief” and “Plaintiffs’
       Amended Complaint [Doc. 33] only seeks injunctive relief.” After
       the district court’s dismissal, Appellants timely appealed.
                          II.        Standard of Review
              We review a district court’s decision to abstain for abuse of
       discretion. See Leonard v. Ala. State Bd. of Pharmacy, 61 F.4th 902,
USCA11 Case: 23-12248      Document: 39-1      Date Filed: 02/08/2024     Page: 5 of 7

       23-12248               Opinion of the Court                          5

       907 (11th Cir. 2023). We review a district court’s exercise of inher-
       ent authority for abuse of discretion. See Pedraza v. United Guar.
       Corp., 313 F.3d. 1323, 1328 (11th Cir. 2002). We will aﬃrm on abuse
       of discretion review “unless we ﬁnd that the district court has made
       a clear error of judgment or has applied the wrong legal standard.”
       United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en
       banc).
                            III.         Applicable Law
              District courts have inherent authority “‘to manage their
       own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition
       of cases.’” Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43 (1991) (quoting
       Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630–31 (1962)). Nonetheless,
       “[b]ecause of their very potency, inherent powers must be exer-
       cised with restraint and discretion.” Id. at 44. We liberally construe
       pro se filings. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007). Parties may
       amend their pleadings once as a matter of course. Fed. R. Civ. P.
       15(a). “In all other cases, a party may amend its pleading only with
       the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” Id.
                                   IV.      Analysis
               Although we recognize the district court’s inherent author-
       ity to control its docket, Chambers, 501 U.S. at 43, we conclude that
       the district court abused its discretion by treating the Petition to
       Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings as the operative complaint,
       see Pedraza, 313 F.3d. at 1328. Morancy filed his initial complaint
       and an amended complaint using the standard form provided by
       the Middle District of Florida. Both of these form complaints
USCA11 Case: 23-12248       Document: 39-1        Date Filed: 02/08/2024       Page: 6 of 7

       6                        Opinion of the Court                    23-12248

       included a relief section requesting damages. The district court
       properly accepted Morancy’s first amended complaint as his one
       amendment as a matter of course. We do not find Morancy’s use
       of the standard form for his Petition to Add Parties and Supple-
       ment/Pleadings as indicative of this being a fully completed se-
       conded amended complaint. Instead, because he did not include a
       section for relief or requesting damages, we must liberally construe
       to determine that Morancy is seeking to add factual allegations and
       defendants to his case. And because Morancy had filed an amended
       complaint, he had to seek leave to file a second amended com-
       plaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). As a result, the district court
       had to determine explicitly whether or not to grant this motion to
       amend. Further support that the district court erred comes from
       Morancy’s objection to the R&R reiterating in a graph under the
       heading “Clarification” that he was seeking monetary damages.
       We do not have to liberally construe that objection to show that
       Morancy’s Petition was meant to be a motion and not a second
       amended complaint. Thus, we find that the district court abused
       its discretion by construing the document as an amended com-
       plaint. 2

       2 We make no determination on the underlying question of whether the

       Younger Abstention Doctrine applies to the case. We leave that question to
       the district court after it follows the proper procedures for addressing Mo-
       rancy’s Petition to Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings.
USCA11 Case: 23-12248      Document: 39-1     Date Filed: 02/08/2024     Page: 7 of 7

       23-12248               Opinion of the Court                         7

               We reverse the district court’s dismissal with instructions to
       treat the Petition to Add Parties Supplement/Pleadings as a motion
       or grant Morancy leave to file an amended complaint.
             REVERSED AND REMANDED.