Court Opinion

ID: 9411123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-25 20:02:47.898912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:03.960989
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-10618   Document: 43-1    Date Filed: 07/25/2023   Page: 1 of 12

                                                 [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                         ____________________

                               No. 21-10618
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

        WASEEM DAKER,
                                                    Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        MICHAEL W. ALMAND,
        Court Reporter,
        BEVERLY BRIDGES,
        Court Reporter,
        KIMBERLY ELIAS,
        Court Reporter,
        DONNA HASINSKI,
        Court Reporter,
        VICTORIA A. SCHUSTER,
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        2                         Opinion of the Court               21-10618

        Court Reporter, et al.,

                                                         Defendants-Appellees.

                             ____________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Georgia
                      D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cv-02772-WMR
                            ____________________

        Before LUCK, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                Waseem Daker appeals the district court’s orders dismissing
        his initial complaint, denying leaving to amend the initial com-
        plaint, and denying relief from the judgment. After careful review,
        we affirm.
            FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

                Daker is “a Georgia prisoner serving a life sentence for mur-
        der.” Daker v. Jackson, 942 F.3d 1252, 1255 (11th Cir. 2019). He’s
        also a “serial litigant who has clogged the federal courts with frivo-
        lous litigation by submitting over a thousand filings in over a hun-
        dred actions and appeals in at least nine different federal courts.”
        Id. (marks and citation omitted, alterations accepted).
              In 2017, Daker filed a petition for state postconviction relief.
        In connection with that petition, he submitted Georgia Open
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        21-10618               Opinion of the Court                         3

        Records Act requests to the court reporters from his criminal trial
        for the original audio recordings, in order to show by the “tones of
        voice and demeanors” that the state trial court was biased against
        him.
               When the court reporters didn’t respond to his requests,
        Daker filed this case against them in the district court. Daker’s ini-
        tial complaint alleged two bases for jurisdiction: federal question
        jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. section 1331, and diversity jurisdiction
        under 28 U.S.C. section 1332. The complaint contained thirteen
        counts against seven court-reporter defendants. Daker alleged that
        by failing to respond to his records requests, the court reporters
        violated Georgia’s Open Records Act, committed “the torts of vio-
        lation of public duty . . . [and] intentional infliction of emotional
        distress,” and infringed on his First Amendment right to access the
        courts.
               Before any of the defendants were served, the magistrate
        judge screened Daker’s complaint under the Prisoner Litigation
        Reform Act, 28 U.S.C. section 1915A. The magistrate judge rec-
        ommended that: (1) one of Daker’s Georgia Open Records Act
        claims be dismissed because it fell outside the two-year statute of
        limitations; (2) his First Amendment access-to-court claims be dis-
        missed because they failed to state how the lack of audio recordings
        prevented Daker from raising a nonfrivolous claim in his postcon-
        viction proceedings; and (3) the remaining state-law claims be dis-
        missed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because, like the
        court-reporter defendants, Daker was a resident of Georgia and
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 21-10618

        thus couldn’t satisfy 28 U.S.C. section 1332’s diversity require-
        ments.
                Daker objected to the magistrate judge’s recommendation,
        moved for the district court to provide him with copies of any ju-
        dicially noticed materials it cited, and attached a proposed
        amended complaint. The district court overruled his objections
        and adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation.
                The district court concluded that the First Amendment
        court-access claims were frivolous because the initial complaint
        didn’t allege facts showing that the state trial court’s “tone and de-
        meanor” kept Daker from filing a nonfrivolous claim for postcon-
        viction relief. The district court also agreed with the magistrate
        judge that, as to his state-law claims, Daker failed to show that the
        parties were diverse. The district court relied on its order in an-
        other case Daker had filed, Daker v. Redfin Corp., No. 1:20-cv-02561
        (N.D. Ga. Sept. 1, 2020), vacated and remanded, No. 20-13598, 2021
        WL 5235102 (11th Cir. Nov. 10, 2021), to determine that Daker was
        a citizen of Georgia, not Florida. The district court thus dismissed
        Daker’s complaint for failure to state a claim as to his First Amend-
        ment court-access claims and for lack of subject matter jurisdiction
        as to his state-law claims. It also denied Daker’s motion for copies
        of court documents because Daker already had access to the district
        court’s Redfin order.
               Daker moved several times for reconsideration and relief
        from judgment, and also sought leave to file an amended com-
        plaint. The district court denied these motions. As to Daker’s
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        21-10618                Opinion of the Court                           5

        proposed amended complaint, the district court found that it didn’t
        “cure the defects” in the initial complaint because its allegations of
        judicial bias were still conclusory and speculative.
                             STANDARD OF REVIEW

                Where a party argues, for the first time on appeal, that the
        district court should have recused itself, “we review his recusal re-
        quest for plain error.” United States v. Berger, 375 F.3d 1223, 1227
        (11th Cir. 2004). We review de novo the district court’s dismissal
        of a complaint under section 1951A for failure to state a claim. Leal
        v. Ga. Dep’t of Corr., 254 F.3d 1276, 1279 (11th Cir. 2001). We typi-
        cally review the district court’s denial of leave to file an amended
        complaint for abuse of discretion, but we review de novo the dis-
        trict court’s finding that any amendment would have been futile.
        Fla. Evergreen Foliage v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co., 470 F.3d 1036,
        1040 (11th Cir. 2006). At this stage, we accept all well-pleaded facts
        as true and assess whether the complaint “states a plausible claim
        for relief.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009).
                                    DISCUSSION

                Daker raises four issues on appeal. He argues that: (1) the
        district court and the magistrate judge should have recused them-
        selves; (2) the district court erred in dismissing his initial complaint;
        (3) the district court erred in denying him leave to file an amended
        complaint; and (4) the district court should have granted his mo-
        tions for relief from the judgment.
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                 21-10618

                                         A.
               Daker argues that the district court and the magistrate judge
        should have recused themselves because they were biased against
        him. Because Daker didn’t seek recusal before the entry of final
        judgment, we review only under the plain error standard. See Ber-
        ger, 375 F.3d at 1227.
               A judge must recuse if his “impartiality might reasonably be
        questioned.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). “To disqualify a judge under [sec-
        tion] 455(a), the bias ‘must stem from extrajudicial sources, unless
        the judge’s acts demonstrate such pervasive bias and prejudice that
        it unfairly prejudices one of the parties.’” Berger, 375 F.3d at 1227
        (quoting United States v. Bailey, 175 F.3d 966, 968 (11th Cir. 1999)).
        By “extrajudicial sources,” we mean that a litigant cannot seek
        recusal simply because a judge has ruled against him. Id. But “[a]n
        exception to that rule is made when a judge’s remarks in a judicial
        context demonstrate such pervasive bias and prejudice that it con-
        stitutes bias against a party.” Hamm v. Members of the Bd. of Regents,
        708 F.2d 647, 651 (11th Cir. 1983).
               Here, the record shows no objective indication of bias or po-
        tential bias from the district court or the magistrate judge. Daker
        points to the fact that the district court voluntarily recused itself
        from a number of Daker’s cases—over a year after dismissing
        Daker’s complaint in this case—with an order explaining that the
        court had “become fatigued by the sheer volume of Daker’s liti-
        giousness and vexatious filings.” See Order, Daker v. Warren, No.
        1:14-cv-3180-SDG, at 2 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 30, 2022). But this order
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        21-10618               Opinion of the Court                        7

        does not show that the district court plainly erred by failing to
        recuse a year earlier than it did. Rather, the order shows that the
        district court was sufficiently self-aware to know when recusal was
        “prudent,” even if not strictly necessary under section 455(a). Id.
        Also, the district court’s order shows nothing that calls the magis-
        trate judge’s impartiality into question. Daker hasn’t shown plain
        error.
                                         B.
               Next, Daker argues that the district court erred in dismissing
        his initial complaint. As to his First Amendment court-access
        claims, Daker argues that the district court erred by failing to ac-
        cept the complaint’s allegations as true and did not view the allega-
        tions in the light most favorable to him. As to his state-law claims,
        Daker argues that the district court erred by relying on an order
        from another case to find that he wasn’t a Florida resident for pur-
        poses of diversity jurisdiction.
                                         1.
               The First Amendment protects inmates’ “meaningful access
        to the courts.” Bass v. Singletary, 143 F.3d 1442, 1445 (11th Cir.
        1998). But to state a First Amendment court-access claim, the in-
        mate must allege facts showing that a state actor “frustrated or im-
        peded the inmate’s efforts to pursue a nonfrivolous legal claim” for
        postconviction relief. Id. (citing Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 352–
        57 (1996)).
               Under this standard, Daker’s initial complaint didn’t allege a
        plausible court-access claim. He alleged that being denied
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        8                         Opinion of the Court                    21-10618

        recordings of his trial hindered his appeals and habeas proceedings
        because the recordings were necessary to show the state trial
        court’s “tone of voice or demeanor” and bias against him. But this
        allegation wasn’t specific enough to move his claim from the
        “merely possible” to the “plausible.” See Quality Auto Painting Ctr.
        of Roselle, Inc. v. State Farm Indem. Co., 917 F.3d 1249, 1260 (11th Cir.
        2019) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
        Ordinarily, “judicial remarks during the course of a trial that are
        critical or disapproving of, or even hostile to, counsel, the parties,
        or their cases . . . do not support a bias or partiality challenge.”
        Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994). Not even “expres-
        sions of impatience, dissatisfaction, annoyance, [or] anger” require
        a judge to recuse himself, unless the judge “display[s] a deep-seated
        favoritism or antagonism that would make a fair judgment impos-
        sible.” Id. at 555–56.
               Absent allegations that the recordings (independent of the
        transcripts) were necessary to show a deep-seated favoritism or an-
        tagonism, Daker’s complaint didn’t plausibly allege that the lack of
        the recordings hindered his efforts at postconviction relief. Thus,
        the district court did not err in dismissing his First Amendment
                  1
        claims.

        1
         The district court dismissed Daker’s court-access claims as frivolous, which
        Daker argues was unfair because the magistrate judge recommended that they
        be dismissed for failure to state a claim. Because we conclude that Daker’s
        complaint failed to state an access-to-courts claim, we need not address
        whether it was also frivolous. See Fuqua v. Turner, 996 F.3d 1140, 1156 (11th
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        21-10618                 Opinion of the Court                            9

                                            2.
                To establish subject matter jurisdiction on the basis of diver-
        sity, a plaintiﬀ must show that (1) the amount in controversy ex-
        ceeds $75,000 and (2) he is a citizen of a diﬀerent state than every
        defendant. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1); King v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 505
        F.3d 1160, 1171 (11th Cir. 2007). “When a plaintiﬀ ﬁles suit in fed-
        eral court, [he] must allege facts that, if true, show federal subject
        matter jurisdiction over [his] case exists.” Travaglio v. Am. Exp. Co.,
        735 F.3d 1266, 1268 (11th Cir. 2013). Citizenship—or “domicile”—
        means more than just residence in a state: it requires “both resi-
        dence in a state and an intention to remain there indeﬁnitely.” Id.
        (marks and citation omitted). For a prisoner, like Daker, citizenship
        is determined by his domicile prior to incarceration. See Polakoﬀ v.
        Henderson, 488 F.2d 1977 (5th Cir. 1974) (aﬃrming dismissal for lack
        of subject matter jurisdiction “for the reasons stated” in the district
        court’s order, which held that a prisoner’s domicile is the domicile
        he had prior to incarceration (citing Polakoﬀ v. Henderson, 370 F.
        Supp. 690, 693 (N.D. Ga. 1973)).
               Daker argues that the district court erred in ﬁnding he
        wasn’t a citizen of Florida for diversity purposes because the initial
        complaint alleged that he had resided in Florida prior to his incar-
        ceration and intended to return to Florida upon his release. In his
        objections to the magistrate judge’s recommendation, Daker

        Cir. 2021) (explaining that “we may affirm based on any ground supported by
        the record”).
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                 21-10618

        further claimed that his family owned a home and business in Flor-
        ida prior to his incarceration, that he went to school in Florida, that
        he “resided in Florida continuously from 1977 to about 1990,” and
        that he continued to “return periodically” to Florida after moving
        to Georgia in 1990.
               But the district court didn’t err. It adopted factual ﬁndings
        from another of Daker’s cases. See Order, Daker v. Redﬁn Corp., No.
        1:21-cv-2651-WMR (N.D. Ga. Sept. 1, 2020). There, the district
        court found that Daker had lived and worked in Georgia from 1990
        until his arrest in 2010, hadn’t had a job in Florida during that time,
        hadn’t kept a Florida driver’s license, and hadn’t shown any objec-
        tive indicia of intent to return to Florida that predated his incarcer-
        ation. Id. at 5–6. Although we reversed the district court’s order in
        Redﬁn, we didn’t ﬁnd that the district court erred in concluding
        Daker was a Georgia resident. See Daker v. Redﬁn Corp., 2021 WL
        5235102, at *2 (11th Cir. Nov. 10, 2021).
               In Daker v. Holmes, 2022 WL 21929076 (11th Cir. June 14,
        2022), we rejected the same argument that Daker makes here: that
        the district court erred by relying on the Redﬁn ﬁndings that Daker
        was a citizen of Georgia. Id. at *10. Just as in Holmes, the district
        court here did not err in relying on the Redﬁn ﬁndings to conclude
        that Daker was a Georgia citizen, and, thus, the parties were not
        diverse.
                                          C.
              Daker also argues that the district court should have allowed
        him an opportunity to file a first amended complaint. Daker had a
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        21-10618                Opinion of the Court                         11

        right to file the first amended complaint as a matter of course. See
        Williams v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. Sys., 477 F.3d 1282, 1292 (11th Cir.
        2007). But he did not file the first amended complaint. He included
        the first amended complaint as an attachment to his objections to
        the magistrate judge’s recommendation, but he never filed it be-
        fore the district court dismissed the initial complaint. So the first
        amended complaint never became operative.
               Daker later moved to amend his complaint in an alternative
        request for relief in his first motion for reconsideration. “[I]n doing
        so, [Daker] waived the right to amend as a matter of course and
        [he] invited the [d]istrict [c]ourt to review its proposed amend-
        ments.” See Coventry First, LLC v. McCarty, 605 F.3d 865, 870 (11th
        Cir. 2010). Although leave to amend should be “freely give[n] . . .
        when justice so requires,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2), the district court
        does not have to grant leave where the amendment would be fu-
        tile—that is, “when the complaint as amended is still subject to dis-
        missal.” Hall v. United Ins. Co. of Am., 367 F.3d 1255, 1263 (11th Cir.
        2004) (quoting Burger King Corp. v. Weaver, 169 F.3d 1310, 1320 (11th
        Cir. 1999)).
               Here, the district court did not err in finding that Daker’s
        amendments would have been futile. The first amended complaint
        Daker attached to his objections didn’t add any allegations about
        judicial misconduct that weren’t in the initial complaint.
              His proposed second amended complaint, attached to the
        reconsideration motion, had more allegations that the state trial
        court: ruled against him, raised objections that the prosecutors
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        12                        Opinion of the Court                 21-10618

        hadn’t raised, instructed him to stop talking, and admonished him
        in front of the jury. But it contained no allegations that Daker’s
        inability to access a recording of the proceedings hindered his ability
        to bring a nonfrivolous claim for postconviction relief. See Bass,
        143 F.3d at 1445. Without allegations about how not having the
        recordings blocked his ability to raise a nonfrivolous postconvic-
        tion claim, Daker’s amended court-access claims run into the same
        problem that doomed the initial complaint.
                                              D.
               Finally, Daker argues that the district court should have
        granted his motions for relief from the judgment because it erred
        in dismissing his initial complaint and it should have recused itself.
        But, as we’ve already explained, the district court did not err in dis-
        missing the initial complaint and it didn’t plainly err in failing to
        recuse.
                 AFFIRMED.2

        2
            All pending motions are DENIED.