Court Opinion

ID: 9498738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:26:44.159686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:02.566812
License: Public Domain

SYKES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I agree that Loubser’s suit is not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine or the “domestic relations exception” to federal jurisdiction. I also agree that the state court judges have absolute immunity and the dismissal of the claims against them should be affirmed on that alternative basis. I cannot agree, however, with the majority’s decision to reverse the judgment dismissing the claims against the remaining defendants, and to that extent must respectfully dissent.
Annare Loubser received an unfavorable judgment in what apparently were highly protracted and contentious divorce proceedings in Indiana state court. She appealed the decision, but the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed and the Indiana Supreme Court denied review. Loubser then brought this federal suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against more than k0 defendants— her former husband; various and sundry people involved in the state divorce court *444proceedings, including two trial judges, two court reporters, several attorneys and a paralegal, numerous witnesses, and some of their friends and relatives; and the staff counsel to the Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission.1 Loubser alleged that the defendants conspired to violate her due process and equal protection rights in her divorce case because of her South African heritage and for other corrupt reasons.
Loubser’s 71-page amended complaint is a rambling and often incoherent statement of grievances related to her divorce case, presented in a stream-of-consciousness narrative. It has the paranoid and borderline fantastic quality described in the majority opinion. Among other injuries, Loubser claims the defendants’ actions have deprived her of property; kept her in a state of “involuntary servitude”; impeded her “pursuit of happiness”; and interfered with her “liberty to live where she chose [sic] to,” her liberty to have children, and her “liberty to work where she wanted to and to chose [sic] how much she wants to work.” She made an unusually precise damages demand, seeking $1,169,850.70 in compensatory damages and $3,509,552 in punitive damages.
The district court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction under both the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction. The court held that Loubser was essentially attempting to undo the results of her state court divorce case.
Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine the lower federal courts lack jurisdiction to review or modify state court civil judgments. Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 416, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923); D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Schmitt v. Schmitt, 324 F.3d 484, 486 (7th Cir.2003). As the Supreme Court recently clarified, the doctrine applies to “cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 1521-22, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005).
There is no question that Loubser’s amended complaint is an attack on the proceedings in her state court divorce case, alleging due process and equal protection violations; the district court’s conclusion that Rooker-Feldman blocked federal jurisdiction was thus quite understandable, But this court has held that Rooker-Feldman does not prevent litigants from seeking a federal remedy for alleged violations of their constitutional rights where “the violator so far succeeded in corrupting the state judicial process as to obtain a favorable judgment.” Nesses v. Shepard, 68 F.3d 1003, 1005 (7th Cir.1995). To the extent that Loub-ser is contending she was denied the right to be judged by an uncorrupted tribunal and seeks damages for the resulting harm, Nesses holds that Rooker-Feld-man does not apply. It seems to me that the Nesses exception could consume the Rooker-Feldman rule if interpreted too broadly, but I do not quarrel with its applicability here.
Nor do I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the domestic relations exception does not apply. The exception prohibits federal courts from hearing custody, divorce, and alimony disputes or any related claims that arise from these domestic relations matters. Friedlander v. Friedlander, 149 F.3d 739, 740 (7th Cir. *4451998); Allen v. Allen, 48 F.3d 259, 262 (1995). I agree that Loubser’s claims of conspiracy are not domestic relations matters.
This common ground brings up the alternative arguments to affirm the judgment, and here I part company with the majority in certain significant respects. The amended complaint targets several categories of defendants. The first includes the judges, Robert Thacker and Rex Kepner, who are immune from suit. See Dawson v. Newman, 419 F.3d 656, 660 (7th Cir.2005). I agree with the majority’s decision to affirm the dismissal of the case against them.
The next category includes the court reporters who, unlike the judges, do not enjoy absolute immunity from suit. Antoine v. Byers & Anderson, Inc., 508 U.S. 429, 436-37, 113 S.Ct. 2167, 124 L.Ed.2d 391 (1993). Loubser alleges that the reporters altered portions of the transcript in her divorce case. But a “plaintiff does not have a constitutional right to a totally accurate transcript of his ... trial.” Tedford v. Hepting, 990 F.2d 745, 747 (3d Cir.1993). A plaintiffs constitutional rights are violated only if the “inaccuracies in the transcript adversely affected the outcome” of the proceeding. Id. See also Colyer v. Ryles, 827 F.2d 315, 316 (8th Cir.1987) (explaining that a civil complaint for damages was frivolous where the plaintiff was not prejudiced by an allegedly altered transcript). Loubser does not claim that the alleged alterations in the transcript adversely affected the outcome of her divorce case; there are no further allegations against the court reporters. Loubser has not alleged an actionable constitutional violation by the court reporters, and I would affirm the dismissal of the claims against them.
The allegations against the staff counsel for the Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission are wholly insufficient to state a constitutional claim. The amended complaint alleges that the attorney, Meg Bab-cock, was “informed ... by mail” that Thacker “used his knowledge from outside of the court room to decide the division of assets in the court room” and “turned a blind eye to it.” Loubser has not alleged that Babcock personally participated in a constitutional violation, nor has she alleged any proper alternative basis for liability on the part of the attorney. See Sanville v. McCaughtry, 266 F.3d 724, 740 (7th Cir. 2001); Chavez v. Ill. State Police, 251 F.3d 612, 651 (7th Cir.2001). I would affirm the dismissal of the claim against Babcock.
Finally, the largest category of defendants consists of the numerous private actors: Loubser’s ex-husband; the attorneys and the paralegal; the witnesses in the divorce case; some of their friends and relatives. The allegations about the conduct of these defendants comprise almost the entire amended complaint. Section 1983 can reach private citizens only where a plaintiff adequately alleges that they conspired with a state actor to deprive that plaintiff of a constitutional right. See Brokaw v. Mercer County, 235 F.3d 1000, 1016 (7th Cir.2000). Specifically, a plaintiff must allege in her complaint that: “(1) a state official and private individual(s) reached an understanding to deprive the plaintiff of his constitutional rights, and (2) those individual(s) were willful participants in joint activity with the State or its agents.” Id. (internal quotations and citation omitted). A generalized allegation of conspiracy that fails to identify the timing, scope, and terms of the agreement between the private person and one or more state actors will not satisfy even the minimal requirements of notice pleading under FED. R. CIV. P. 8. See Ryan v. Mary Immaculate Queen Ctr., 188 F.3d 857, 860 (7th Cir.1999).
*446For all its length and meandering density, the amended complaint contains only generalized allegations of conspiracy. Although Loubser has identified a basic time frame and conspiratorial purpose, she has not alleged that each of the private citizen defendants entered into an agreement with one or more state actors to deprive her of her constitutional rights, nor has she clearly alleged their individual participation in joint activity with state agents. To be sure, the amended complaint purports to describe some of the activities of some, of these defendants during the course of the divorce case, but it does so mostly incoherently. The more readily decipherable allegations do not assert the existence of an agreement or understanding as between each of the individual private citizen defendants and a state actor. Instead, Loubser has pleaded a jumbled collection of alleged misdeeds by some of the private citizen defendants during the state court divorce proceedings, together with a generalized allegation of conspiracy. This is insufficient to state a § 1983 claim against the private citizen defendants.
As noted by the majority, the purpose of federal pleading requirements is to provide notice to the defendant to facilitate the preparation of a response. But another equally important purpose is “to allow the court to determine at the outset of the litigation, before costly discovery is undertaken, whether the plaintiff has any tenable theory or basis of suit, so that if he does not the case can be got rid of immediately without clogging the court’s docket and imposing needless expense on the defendant.” Ryan, 188 F.3d at 860. Loub-ser’s amended complaint does not adequately allege a tenable basis for a § 1983 civil rights conspiracy claim against the private citizen defendants.2 We should not put them to the needless expense of continuing to defend against it, nor should we burden the lower court by returning a meritless case to its docket. I would affirm the judgment dismissing the case in its entirety.

. She also sued the United States but voluntarily dismissed that claim.

. Leave to replead is not warranted here. The amended complaint is Loubser’s second try at pleading a civil rights conspiracy by the defendants; she has not succeeded in filing a short, plain, and actionable claim.