Court Opinion

ID: 9399175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-02 14:01:10.704439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:44.596751
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12156   Document: 34-1    Date Filed: 06/02/2023   Page: 1 of 7

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                         ____________________

                              No. 22-12156
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       SIERRA N. CASTLE,
                                                   Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA,
       NEIL WARREN,
       in his individual capacity,
       SHERIFF, COBB COUNTY,
       in oﬃcial capacity,
       COL. JANET PRINCE,
       as Division Commander of the Cobb County
       Adult Detention Center, et al.,
USCA11 Case: 22-12156     Document: 34-1     Date Filed: 06/02/2023   Page: 2 of 7

       2                     Opinion of the Court                22-12156

                                                   Defendants-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-01406-JPB
                          ____________________

       Before WILSON, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Sierra Castle appeals the dismissal of her lawsuit brought
       pursuant to § 1983, the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”),
       the Rehabilitation Act (“RA”), and Georgia law, as well as the dis-
       trict court’s denial of her motion to amend her complaint. On ap-
       peal, Castle argues that the district court erred when it ﬁrst dis-
       missed some of her claims because she used ﬁctitious party names
       and did not allow for limited discovery and then denied her motion
       to amend her complaint when she discovered the names of some
       of the defendants. She also argues that the district court erred
       when it dismissed her disability claims against the named defend-
       ants because she was barred under that Act’s transsexual exception
       even though she did not allege she was transsexual in her com-
       plaint.
                                       I.
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       22-12156               Opinion of the Court                        3

               Castle brought this lawsuit after spending the night in the
       Cobb County Adult Detention Center where several of the depu-
       ties allegedly denied her transgender status and harassed her. In
       her initial complaint, Castle did not know the identities of the sev-
       eral deputies so she listed them as John and Jane Does. The district
       court, in its February 2020 order, dismissed without prejudice the
       claims against the ﬁctitious-named parties, allowing Castle to reﬁle
       those counts with proper identiﬁcation of the Doe defendants. In
       February 2022, Castle ﬁled a motion for leave to amend her com-
       plaint and add parties, having discovered the identities of two of
       the deputies. The district court denied the motion, holding that
       the amendment would be futile because the statute of limitations
       for the actions had passed and the relation-back doctrine did not
       apply.
                This court has recognized an exception to the general prohi-
       bition on ﬁctitious party pleading when the plaintiﬀ’s description
       of an unnamed defendant is very speciﬁc. Richardson v. Johnson, 598
       F.3d 734, 738 (11th Cir. 2010). Indeed, we have stated that the de-
       scription must be “so speciﬁc as to be ‘at the very worst, surplus-
       age.’” Id. (quoting Dean v. Barber, 951 F.2d 1210, 1215–16 (11th Cir.
       1992). The description of a defendant is suﬃciently speciﬁc when
       it is clear enough to allow service of process on a defendant. Dean,
       951 F.2d at 1216.
              This Court has acknowledged that whether “it [i]s clear that
       discovery would uncover [a] defendant’s identity” is a relevant con-
       sideration when determining whether a plaintiﬀ can pursue a claim
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12156

       against an unnamed defendant. Id. In Dean, the pro se plaintiﬀ
       “brought to the attention of the court that [he] had yet to receive
       Sheriﬀ Bailey’s report, which would have provided [him] with the
       information needed to speciﬁcally name the ‘Chief,’” his ﬁctitiously
       named defendant. Id. We have required an unambiguous descrip-
       tion of a defendant that enables service of process. Id.
               Here, Castle argues that the district erred when it dismissed
       her claims against the ﬁctitious defendants. But our law is clear that
       the unnamed defendant must be clearly described so as to be sub-
       ject to service of process even without a name. Here, even consid-
       ering the further descriptions of the unnamed defendants in the
       body of the complaint, the descriptions are insuﬃcient to meet that
       burden. The complaint provided each unnamed defendant’s rank
       and gender. The complaint further recounted the behavior of each
       of the unnamed defendants but those actions do not give descrip-
       tions of the defendants that are speciﬁc enough to enable service
       of process.
               Next, Castle argues the district court should have provided
       her with discovery to learn the identities of the unnamed defend-
       ants. However, Castle never explained below what eﬀorts she took
       to identify the unnamed defendants before the motion to dismiss
       was ﬁled and the eﬀorts she ultimately undertook were after the
       defendants were dismissed. Without any showing that “discovery
       would uncover [a] defendant’s identity,” id., we cannot say that the
       district court abused its discretion when it did not order discovery
       at the time of the claims’ dismissal without prejudice.
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       22-12156               Opinion of the Court                         5

               Finally, Castle argues that the district court should have al-
       lowed her to amend her complaint when she discovered the identi-
       ties of two of the unnamed defendants because the interests of jus-
       tice weighed in her favor. The district court denied her motion on
       the grounds of futility because the statute of limitations had run
       on all of her claims against the unnamed defendants. The court
       further held that the claims could not be revived under the relation-
       back doctrine, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1).
       Castle, however, does not argue that the district court’s relation-
       back analysis was deﬁcient; rather, she argues that the district
       court’s error in dismissing the claims and not allowing for discovery
       caused the futility and thus the interests of justice should allow the
       complaint’s amendment.
              As discussed above, we do not think that the district court
       erred or abused its discretion. Further, the relation-back doctrine
       would not allow substitution of parties in this case: under either
       Rule 15(c)(1)(A) or (c)(1)(C), the now-named defendants needed to
       have notice of the lawsuit or should have known of the lawsuit. See
       Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c)(1)(A), Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c)(1)(C), O.C.G.A. § 9-11-
       15(c). Below Castle did not argue that the newly discovered de-
       fendants had notice and in fact, they ﬁled aﬃdavits attesting to their
       lack of knowledge of the suit or Castle. Because the putative de-
       fendants never received notice of the lawsuit there was no relation-
       back for the purposes of the statute of limitations and the district
       court did not err.
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                    22-12156

                                          II.
               Having rejected Castle’s claims against the ﬁctitious parties,
       we turn to her disability claims against the named defendants. Cas-
       tle argues that the district court erred when it dismissed her disa-
       bility claims against the named supervisory defendants for failure
       to state a claim because it fell under the transsexual exception.
       However, the district court granted the Defendants’ motion to dis-
       miss these claims on two separate and independent bases: (1) the
       aforementioned exception; and (2) that she failed to allege that the
       named defendants had intentionally discriminated against her or
       knew of the alleged discrimination and failed to act. See Liese v.
       Indian River Cnty. Hosp. Dist., 701 F.3d 334, 349 (11th Cir. 2012). Cas-
       tle does not challenge the second reason on appeal.
              To obtain reversal of a district court judgment that is
              based on multiple, independent grounds, an appellant
              must convince us that every stated ground for the
              judgment against him is incorrect. When an appellant
              fails to challenge properly on appeal one of the
              grounds on which the district court based its judg-
              ment, he is deemed to have abandoned any challenge
              of that ground, and it follows that the judgment is
              due to be aﬃrmed.
       Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 680 (11th Cir. 2014)
       (citing Little v. T–Mobile USA, Inc., 691 F.3d 1302, 1306 (11th Cir.
       2012)). Because Castle failed to challenge the separate and inde-
       pendent alternate holding, we can aﬃrm on the basis thereof.
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       22-12156                  Opinion of the Court                                7

       Accordingly, we need not address the issue of the transsexual ex-
       ception.
              For the foregoing reasons,1 the judgment of the district
       court is
       AFFIRMED.

       1Castle has not challenged the other rulings of the district court—e.g. its dis-
       missal of Cobb County—and therefore has abandoned same.