Court Opinion

ID: 9840566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-19 14:01:16.232032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:35:46.706518
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13184   Document: 30-1    Date Filed: 09/18/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                         ____________________

                              No. 22-13184
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       CHRISTIAN DOSCHER,
                                                   Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       JAMES PATRICK HOLDING, et al.,

                                                          Defendants,

       APOLOGETICS AFIELD, INC.,
       a Florida Corporation,

                                                 Defendant-Appellee.
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13184

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 6:19-cv-01322-WWB-EJK
                           ____________________

       Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and ABUDU, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Christian Doscher, pro se, appeals the district court’s dismis-
       sal without prejudice of his fourth amended complaint and the dis-
       trict court’s dismissal with prejudice of his fifth amended complaint
       based on the court’s conclusion that both filings were shotgun
       pleadings. For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm the dismissal
       of Doscher’s lawsuit.
       I.     FACTUAL BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY
              Doscher ﬁled his ﬁrst complaint in the district court against
       James Holding, alleging 27 counts of libel per se based on Holding’s
       online posts on a website entitled “DoscherLeaks” about Doscher’s
       prior lawsuits, mental stability, and litigious nature. The magis-
       trate judge allowed Doscher to amend his complaint, ﬁnding that
       he had failed to state a claim of libel per se. The magistrate judge
       warned that failure to ﬁle an amended complaint addressing the
       deﬁciency could result in dismissal of the case.
             Doscher then ﬁled an amended complaint against Holdings,
       adding Apologetics Aﬁeld, Inc. (“Apologetics”) as a defendant. In
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       22-13184               Opinion of the Court                         3

       the 148-page complaint, Doscher brought 32 allegations of libel per
       se and libel per quod. The magistrate judge found that the second
       amended complaint also failed to clearly state a claim for libel per
       quod and granted Doscher leave a second time to amend the com-
       plaint with another warning regarding the consequences of violat-
       ing the pleading rules.
               Doscher’s second amended complaint was dismissed as
       moot after he ﬁled a third amended complaint. The magistrate
       judge found that the third amended complaint also violated the
       pleading requirements in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, but the judge allowed
       Doscher to ﬁle yet another amended complaint, warning him again
       that if the same problems appeared in another amended complaint,
       his case could be dismissed.
               In his fourth amended complaint, Doscher brought 187
       counts of libel per se against Apologetics and a new defendant,
       Jiaoshi Ministries, Inc. (“Jiaoshi Ministries”). Spanning 134 pages,
       Doscher included quotations of allegedly libelous online posts
       from “DoscherLeaks,” which had been reposted to several other
       blogs and websites, YouTube videos on a channel called “tektontv,”
       and replies to comments on other websites. The comments re-
       ferred to court ﬁlings or attorney statements from Doscher’s prior
       lawsuits regarding his abuse of the judicial process, his vexatious or
       frivolous litigation, his personality disorder, his emotional ma-
       turity, and accusations of criminal activity. Allegedly libelous com-
       ments cited in previous counts were often treated as a predicate for
       other libel counts. The fourth amended complaint was replete
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                22-13184

       with citations to case law, and Doscher failed to specify which de-
       fendant made which allegedly libelous statement.
              Upon Apologetics’s motion to dismiss, the magistrate judge
       issued a report and recommendation (“R&R”), recommending that
       Doscher’s fourth amended complaint be dismissed with prejudice
       pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a) and 10(b), and
       this Court’s prohibition against shotgun pleadings.
              Following Doscher’s objections, the district court reviewed
       the R&R and concluded that Doscher’s fourth amended complaint
       should be dismissed, but without prejudice. The district court
       found that Doscher’s fourth amended complaint was vague and re-
       petitive, with unsupported legal conclusions, immaterial facts, and
       unnecessary citations to legal authorities. It warned Doscher that
       his next amended complaint should be limited to the alleged facts
       supporting his causes of action, without citing to legal authority,
       and should specify which defendants were responsible for which
       actions. It gave Doscher one last attempt to amend his complaint
       and warned Doscher that failure to ﬁle an amended complaint
       complying with its order would result in a dismissal with prejudice.
              Doscher ﬁled his ﬁfth and ﬁnal amended complaint only
       against Apologetics. The complaint, spanning 213 pages, contained
       187 counts of libel per se. Notably, his factual allegations appeared
       to be the same as those from his fourth amended complaint, but
       with additional allegations related to damages. Doscher’s allega-
       tions were repetitive, with most of the counts predicated upon the
       count preceding it. Moreover, without connection to any speciﬁc
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       22-13184                Opinion of the Court                            5

       count, he alleged that Apologetics intended to harm him and
       showed express malice, while also citing to actions Holding—a
       non-party—took against him.
              The district court sua sponte dismissed Doscher’s ﬁfth
       amended complaint with prejudice, determining that the com-
       plaint was an impermissible shotgun pleading. It found that, de-
       spite some modest changes, the amended complaint—now 80
       pages longer than the previous one—still contained vague and re-
       petitive allegations and unnecessary references to legal sources,
       rendering it diﬃcult if not impossible for the sole remaining de-
       fendant—Apologetics—to respond. Ultimately, the district court
       highlighted that Doscher had received multiple opportunities to
       comply with pleadings rules but had shown an unwillingness to
       abide by the court’s orders. Thus, the court concluded that dis-
       missing the case with prejudice was appropriate. Doscher’s appeal
       followed.
       II.    STANDARD OF REVIEW
              We review the dismissal of a shotgun pleading
       on Rule 8 or Rule 10 grounds for abuse of discretion. Weiland v.
       Palm Beach Cnty. Sherriﬀ’s Oﬀ., 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015).
       Under the abuse-of-discretion standard, we must aﬃrm unless we
       ﬁnd that the district court made a clear error of judgment or ap-
       plied the wrong legal standard. Rance v. Rocksolid Granit USA, Inc.,
       583 F.3d 1284, 1286 (11th Cir. 2009). Although we construe plead-
       ings ﬁled by pro se parties liberally, pro se litigants must still conform
       to procedural rules. Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir.
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13184

       2007). Our duty to liberally construe a pro se plaintiﬀ’s complaint
       “is not the equivalent of a duty to re-write it for the plaintiﬀ.” Snow
       v. DirecTV, Inc., 450 F.3d 1314, 1320 (11th Cir. 2006).
              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). Lengthy complaints that incorporate
       dozens of paragraphs of allegations into each count are neither
       “short” nor “plain.” Jackson v. Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1356
       (11th Cir. 2018) (holding that a 28-page complaint with 123 para-
       graphs that were each incorporated into all 16 counts “patently vi-
       olate[d]” Rule 8); see also Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d 1282, 1284
       (11th Cir. 2001) (identifying a complaint as a shotgun pleading
       when each count incorporated by reference the claims made in a
       section of 146 numbered paragraphs of general factual allegations,
       while also incorporating the allegations of the count or counts pre-
       ceding it).
              We have identiﬁed four categories of shotgun pleadings—
       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 connected
       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 omissions, or against
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       22-13184                Opinion of the Court                          7

       whom particular causes of action are being brought. Weiland, 792
       F.3d at 1321-23. The unifying characteristic of all types of shotgun
       pleadings is that they fail to one degree or another “to give the de-
       fendants adequate notice of the claims against them and the
       grounds upon which each claim rests.” Id. at 1323. This Circuit
       has “little tolerance for shotgun pleadings” as “[t]hey waste scarce
       judicial resources, inexorably broaden the scope of discovery,
       wreak havoc on appellate court dockets, and undermine the pub-
       lic’s respect for the courts.” Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d
       1291, 1295 (11th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks and brackets omitted)
       (quoting Davis v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consol., 516 F.3d 955, 981-83
       (11th Cir. 2008), abrogated on other grounds by Bell Atl. Corp. v.
       Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007)).
                A district court may dismiss a complaint on shotgun plead-
       ing grounds under its “inherent authority to control its docket and
       ensure the prompt resolution of lawsuits[.]” Weiland, 792 F.3d at
       1320. In such cases, the district court must allow the litigant at least
       one chance to remedy the deﬁciency before dismissing the case
       with prejudice. Vibe Micro, Inc., 878 F.3d at 1296. If the court per-
       mits the plaintiﬀ to amend and explains in its repleading order how
       the complaint violates the shotgun pleading rule, but the plaintiﬀ
       still fails to remedy the shotgun pleading issues, the court does not
       abuse its discretion in dismissing the case with prejudice. Id. at
       1295-96.
               As an initial matter, although the district court did not ex-
       plicitly cite what rule it relied upon in dismissing Doscher’s fourth
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       8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13184

       amended complaint, the order clearly referenced shotgun pleading
       principles as the basis. Accordingly, we will review the dismissal of
       the fourth amended complaint for an abuse of discretion. Under
       this standard, the district court did not abuse its discretion because
       Doscher’s fourth amended complaint was the quintessential exam-
       ple of a shotgun pleading. Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321-23. The dis-
       trict court gave Doscher appropriate and specific instructions on
       how to adequately plead his claims in a way that complied with
       federal pleading standards. Yet, Doscher’s amended pleading was
       still replete with vague or immaterial facts not connected to any
       cause of action, relied on preceding counts as factual support for
       his claims, failed to identify which defendant should be liable for
       which alleged conduct, and contained multiple unnecessary legal
       citations.
              The district court also did not abuse its discretion in dismiss-
       ing Doscher’s fifth amended complaint with prejudice. The final
       amended complaint contained deficiencies similar to his original
       and other amended complaints despite the multiple opportunities
       and instructions Doscher received to correct those problems. Do-
       scher also received several warnings, and was therefore on notice,
       that his failure to comply with federal pleading rules could result in
       the dismissal of his case.
       III.   CONCLUSION
              For the reasons set forth herein, the district court’s dismis-
       sals of the Appellant’s fourth and fifth amended complaints are
       AFFIRMED.