Court Opinion

ID: 9380649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-20 20:00:34.866864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:26.537437
License: Public Domain

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                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-12426
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        HOWARD A. MATHIS,
        Reverend,
                                                       Plaintiff-Appellant,
        versus
        THE CITY OF LAKELAND,
        a Florida municipality,
        MAYOR, CITY OF LAKELAND,
        SCOTT FRANKLIN,
        Former Commissioner,
        STEPHANIE MADDEN,
        Commissioner, Individual Capacity,
        SARA ROBERTS MCCARLEY,
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        2                      Opinion of the Court               22-12426

        Commissioner, Individual Capacity, et al.,

                                                      Defendants-Appellees,

        THE CITY OF LAKELAND RED LIGHT
        CAMERA ENFORCEMENT AGENCY,

                                                                Defendant.

                            ____________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Middle District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 8:21-cv-00235-SDM-SPF
                            ____________________

        Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and HULL, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Howard Mathis, proceeding pro se, appeals the district
        court’s grant of the twelve defendants’ motions to dismiss his pro
        se amended complaint. The subject of Mathis’s amended
        complaint is two traffic violations issued through a red light photo
        enforcement system. Mathis’s amended complaint asserted four
        Counts against the twelve defendants: (1) violation of his due
        process rights brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count 1);
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        22-12426                Opinion of the Court                         3

        (2) conspiracy to interfere with his rights on the basis of race in
        violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (Count 2); (3) discrimination in
        violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.
        § 2000d (Count 3); and (4) unjust enrichment in violation of Fla.
        Stat. §§ 316.0083(1)(b)(4), 318.121, and 560.204 (Count 4). The
        district court dismissed Counts 1–3 on shotgun pleading grounds
        and Count 4 for failure to state a claim. On appeal, Mathis argues
        that the district court erred by dismissing each Count of his
        amended complaint with prejudice. After careful review, we
        affirm.
                              I.     BACKGROUND
        A.      Original Complaint, Dismissal, and Leave to Amend
              On February 1, 2021, Mathis, proceeding pro se, sued (1) the
        City of Lakeland (“City”), (2) Mayor William Mutz, (3) Former
        Commissioner Scott Franklin, (4) Commissioners Stephanie
        Madden, Sara McCarley, Chad McLeod, Bill Read, and Phillip
        Walker, (5) the “City of Lakeland Red Light Camera Enforcement
        Agency,”1 (6) “Hearing Officers” Joshua Brown and Matthew
        Vaughn, and (7) American Traffic Solutions, Inc. (“ATS”).
              All defendants moved to dismiss. On August 2, 2021, a
        magistrate judge issued a report (“report”), recommending that the

        1 The named “City of Lakeland Red Light Camera Enforcement Agency” does

        not exist.
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        4                      Opinion of the Court               22-12426

        motions to dismiss be granted and Mathis be granted leave to
        amend his complaint to correct the deficiencies in his complaint.
              On August 17, 2021, the district court adopted the report,
        granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, and dismissed Mathis’s
        complaint with leave to amend. The district court also “strongly
        advised” Mathis to obtain legal advice and assistance before filing
        his amended complaint and warned that the amended complaint
        would be “subject to final dismissal” if it failed to state a claim.
        B.    Allegations in the Amended Complaint
               On October 20, 2021, Mathis filed his amended complaint,
        alleging the following events.
               On September 7, 2018, the City issued a “Notice of
        Violation” to Judy Nance Mathis (“Judy Mathis”) “for failure to
        comply with a steady red signal.” On September 18, 2018, Judy
        Mathis signed an affidavit in which she named Howard Mathis as
        having “care, custody, or control of the vehicle at the time of the
        violation.” So on September 26, 2018, the City reissued the Notice
        of Violation (“NOV1”) to Howard Mathis, the plaintiff here.
               On December 12, 2018, defendant Vaughn (a City “hearing
        officer”) held a hearing and upheld the NOV1. Vaughn allegedly
        told Mathis to “redress his disagreements to the Circuit Court or
        the City Council.” Plaintiff Mathis alleges he did both.
              With respect to the City Council, Mathis attempted to
        “redress the violation . . . with the City” but “Assistant City
        Attorney Romona Sirianni gave out wrong information trying to
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        22-12426               Opinion of the Court                       5

        streamline the process away from the City Commission.” Attorney
        Sirianni allegedly “conspir[ed] with Police Officer Franz” by
        “summoning him to” a meeting to “give . . . false and misguided
        information to the [City] Commission.”
              With respect to the Circuit Court, Mathis appealed his
        NOV1 conviction to the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court, in and for
        Polk County, Florida, which reversed and remanded for a new
        hearing.
                On remand, defendant Brown (another City “hearing
        officer”) presided over Mathis’s hearing. According to Mathis,
        even though the “normal[] practice” is to call hearings “in
        alphabetical order,” Vicki Wilson (who is white) “went first” before
        Mathis (who is black). Mathis alleged that defendant Brown
        racially discriminated against him by dismissing the violation
        against Wilson yet upholding the NOV1 against Mathis.
               Completely separate from NOV1 discussed above, it
        appears that Mathis ran another red light and was issued a different
        Notice of Violation (“NOV2”). In Florida, the civil penalty for
        running a red light is $158.00. See Fla. Stat. § 316.0083(1)(b)3.b.
        Mathis paid the penalty for NOV2 electronically with a Visa card
        and attached a receipt to the amended complaint. Mathis’s receipt
        shows a total charge of $162.00.
              In his amended complaint, Mathis sued (1) the City,
        (2) Mayor   Mutz,   (3) Former  Commissioner     Franklin,
        (4) Commissioners Madden, McCarley, McLeod, Read, and
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12426

        Walker, (5) the City’s Police Department, (6) “Hearing Officers”
        Brown and Vaughn, and (7) ATS. Thus, the only change in the
        defendants from the original complaint to the amended complaint
        is that Mathis sued the City’s Police Department instead of “[t]he
        City of Lakeland Red Light Camera Enforcement Agency.”
                Mathis’s amended complaint alleged four Counts against the
        defendants: (1) violation of his due process rights brought under 42
        U.S.C. § 1983 (Count 1); (2) conspiracy to interfere with his rights
        on the basis of race in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (Count 2);
        (3) discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
        1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (Count 3); and (4) unjust enrichment in
        violation of Fla. Stat. §§ 316.0083(1)(b)(4), 318.121, and 560.204
        (Count 4).
               In Count 1, Mathis alleged that (1) Vaughn and Brown acted
        under color of state law, (2) Vaughn violated his due process rights,
        (3) Attorney Sirianni and Officer Franz conspired to deprive him of
        an unspecified right, (4) Brown conspired with Franz by agreeing
        to dismiss Vicki Wilson’s violation, (5) ATS conspired with the
        City’s Commission “to implement a money grabbing scheme
        knowing out right that red light cameras don’t decrease
        accident[s],” and (6) “[t]he unlawful actions of the defendants
        constitute a violation of due process.”
              In Count 2, Mathis alleged that “[t]he unlawful actions of the
        defendants” violated § 1985(3) and Brown “granted a white person
        a dismissal . . . but upheld his [violation] and the obvious reason
        was because he was black.”
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        22-12426               Opinion of the Court                         7

               In Count 3, Mathis alleged that (1) the defendants receive
        federal financial assistance, (2) the defendants created a policy,
        practice, or custom of issuing red light camera citations based on
        race or ethnicity, and (3) such “unlawful actions” constituted a
        violation of § 2000(d).
               In Count 4, Mathis alleged that (1) ATS conspired with the
        City “in a money grabbing scheme” that they “disguise[d] . . . as a
        safety program regarding traffic accidents,” (2) the convenience fee
        extracted by ATS was an “illegal ‘commission,’” and (3) Mathis
        “conferred a monetary benefit on the Defendant, some or all of
        which was voluntarily retained by Defendant.”
        C.    Dismissal of the Amended Complaint
               On November 2, 2021, all the defendants except ATS moved
        to dismiss Mathis’s amended complaint. They argued that
        (1) Mathis had not remedied the defects highlighted in the
        magistrate judge’s report, (2) each Count failed to state a claim, and
        (3) the individual defendants were entitled to immunity.
              On November 3, 2021, defendant ATS moved to dismiss
        Mathis’s amended complaint, arguing that it was a shotgun
        pleading and that each Count failed to state a claim. As to Count
        4, defendant ATS argued that the alleged illegality of the
        convenience fee did not make its retention of that fee unjust and
        that Mathis received the convenience he paid for.
             On June 29, 2022, the district court granted the defendants’
        motions to dismiss and dismissed Mathis’s amended complaint.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12426

        First, the district court found that the amended complaint was a
        shotgun pleading because (1) Counts 1–3 asserted multiple claims
        against multiple defendants without specifying which of the
        defendants was responsible for which acts or omissions and (2) the
        amended complaint contained conclusory, vague, and immaterial
        facts that did not explain how those facts amounted to unlawful
        conduct. Second, the district court determined that Count 4 failed
        to state a claim for relief because this Court has held that the
        retention of a convenience fee for facilitating an online payment
        cannot be the basis of a claim for unjust enrichment. See Pincus v.
        Am. Traffic Sols., Inc., 25 F.4th 1339, 1340–41 (11th Cir. 2022).
              The district court entered judgment for each defendant.
        Mathis timely appealed.
                                II.    COUNTS 1–3
              We begin with an overview on shotgun pleadings and then
        address why the district court did not err in dismissing Counts 1–3.
        A.    General Rules on Shotgun Pleadings
               A shotgun pleading is a complaint that violates either
        Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) or 10(b), or both. Weiland
        v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir.
        2015).
               Rule 8(a)(2) requires “a short and plain statement of the
        claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
        8(a)(2). Rule 10(b) requires a party to “state its claims or defenses
        in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a
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        22-12426                Opinion of the Court                         9

        single set of circumstances.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). Rule 10(b) also
        mandates that “each claim founded on a separate transaction or
        occurrence . . . be stated in a separate count” if doing so would
        promote clarity. Id.
               “The self-evident purpose of these rules is to require the
        pleader to present his claims discretely and succinctly, so that his
        adversary can discern what he is claiming and frame a responsive
        pleading.” Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1324 (11th Cir.
        2021) (cleaned up). In other words, “shotgun pleadings are flatly
        forbidden by the spirit, if not the letter, of these rules because they
        are calculated to confuse the enemy and the court.” Id. (cleaned
        up). Accordingly, we have “little tolerance” for shotgun pleadings.
        Id. (quotation marks omitted).
               “[W]e have identified four rough types or categories of
        shotgun pleadings”: (1) “a complaint containing multiple counts
        where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts,
        causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the
        last count to be a combination of the entire complaint”; (2) a
        complaint that is “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial
        facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action”;
        (3) a complaint that does not separate “each cause of action or
        claim for relief” into a different count; and (4) a complaint that
        “assert[s] multiple claims against multiple defendants without
        specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which acts
        or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought
        against.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321–23.
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12426

               A district court must give a plaintiff one opportunity to
        remedy his shotgun pleading before dismissing his action. Vibe
        Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1296 (11th Cir. 2018). If he
        files an amended complaint without substantially fixing the
        deficiencies, dismissal with prejudice is warranted. See Jackson v.
        Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1358–59 (11th Cir. 2018)
        (explaining that “[t]he District Court should have dismissed the
        amended complaint with prejudice” where “the [plaintiffs] filed an
        amended complaint afflicted with the same defects, attempting
        halfheartedly to cure only one of the pleading’s many ailments by
        naming which counts pertained to each Defendant”).
               We review a dismissal on shotgun pleading grounds for an
        abuse of discretion. Barmapov, 986 F.3d at 1324. Although courts
        afford liberal construction to pro se litigants’ pleadings, pro se
        litigants must adhere to the procedural requirements of the Federal
        Rules of Civil Procedure. McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106,
        113, 113 S. Ct. 1980, 1984 (1993) (“[W]e have never suggested that
        procedural rules in ordinary civil litigation should be interpreted so
        as to excuse mistakes by those who proceed without counsel.”);
        accord Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir. 2007).
        B.    Mathis’s Amended Complaint Was a Shotgun Pleading
              The district court did not err in dismissing Counts 1–3
        because Mathis’s amended complaint was a shotgun pleading.
             First, Mathis sued twelve defendants, but his amended
        complaint largely failed to identify which of them took which
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        22-12426               Opinion of the Court                        11

        actions and which claims were raised against which defendants.
        Instead, Counts 1–3 lumped the defendants together by alleging
        that “the unlawful actions of the defendants constitute a violation
        of [federal law].” (Emphasis added.) The lumping of defendants
        does not give any defendant fair notice of the allegations brought
        against that defendant. Automotive Alignment & Body Serv., Inc.
        v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 953 F.3d 707, 732 (11th Cir.
        2020); see also Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir.
        2001) (condemning as a shotgun pleading a complaint that (1) was
        “replete with allegations that ‘the defendants’ engaged in certain
        conduct” and (2) made “no distinction among the fourteen
        defendants charged, though geographic and temporal realities
        make plain that all of the defendants could not have participated in
        every act complained of”).
               Second, Counts 1–3 contain conclusory and vague facts.
        Each Count includes a citation to federal law and a conclusory
        assertion that “the unlawful actions of the defendants constitute a
        violation of [federal law].” But Mathis provided no explanation on
        how any of the factual allegations amount to unlawful conduct
        under the cited statutes. Est. of Bass v. Regions Bank, Inc., 947 F.3d
        1352, 1358 (11th Cir. 2020) (“[A shotgun] pleading is never plain
        because it is impossible to comprehend which specific factual
        allegations the plaintiff intends to support which of his causes of
        action, or how they do so. It is not the proper function of courts in
        this Circuit to parse out such incomprehensible allegations[.]”).
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12426

               Take Count 2, for example. It consists of five paragraphs.
        The first paragraph “repeat[s] and reallege[s] all of the allegations
        set forth in” previous paragraphs. The second paragraph quotes
        § 1985(3). The third paragraph states in a conclusory manner that
        “[t]he unlawful actions of the defendants constitute a violation of”
        § 1985(3). The fourth paragraph alleges that, as a result of
        defendants’ § 1985(3) violation, Mathis (1) lost business income and
        earning capacity and (2) suffered “damage to his Christian and
        professional reputation, embarrassment, humiliation[,] and other
        forms of mental distress.” The last paragraph claims Mathis “came
        to redress the harm done to him during an earlier red light camera
        hearing by the Josh Brown [sic] where he had granted a white
        person a dismissal without a necessary affidavit but upheld his[,]
        and the obvious reason was because he was black.” Count 2 alone
        embodies three types of impermissible shotgun pleadings.
               For all these reasons, the amended complaint was a shotgun
        pleading, the district court provided Mathis with an opportunity to
        fix the deficiencies but Mathis failed to do so, and thus the district
        court acted within its discretion in dismissing the amended
        complaint with prejudice. Vibe Micro, Inc., 878 F.3d at 1296;
        Jackson, 898 F.3d at 1358–59.
                                 III.   COUNT 4
               In Count 4, Mathis alleged that defendant ATS was unjustly
        enriched by his payment of a convenience fee to ATS. For an
        unjust enrichment claim under Florida law, a plaintiff must show
        that (1) he conferred a benefit on the defendant, (2) the defendant
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        22-12426               Opinion of the Court                        13

        voluntarily accepted and retained the benefit, and (3) the
        circumstances would make it inequitable for the defendant to
        retain the benefit without paying the value thereof. Virgilio v.
        Ryland Grp., Inc., 680 F.3d 1329, 1337 (11th Cir. 2012).
                The district court dismissed Count 4 for failure to state a
        claim because Mathis cannot satisfy the third element. “We review
        de novo a district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss
        for failure to state a claim, accepting the complaint’s allegations as
        true and construing them in the light most favorable to the
        plaintiff.” Newbauer v. Carnival Corp., 26 F.4th 931, 934 (11th Cir.
        2022). While a pro se complaint is construed liberally, it will not
        be rewritten. Snow v. DirecTV, Inc., 450 F.3d 1314, 1320 (11th Cir.
        2006).
               The district court did not err in dismissing Count 4 for
        failure to state a claim because Count 4 is foreclosed by our binding
        precedent.
               In Pincus v. American Traffic Solutions, Inc., the plaintiff
        received a traffic ticket issued through an ATS red light photo
        enforcement system in Florida. 986 F.3d 1305, 1309 (11th Cir.
        2021). The plaintiff sued ATS alleging three counts of unjust
        enrichment after ATS charged him a fee for processing his credit
        card payment for the traffic ticket. Id. This Court certified several
        questions to the Florida Supreme Court, including the question:
        “Does [the plaintiff’s] unjust enrichment claim fail because he
        received adequate consideration in exchange for the challenged fee
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        14                     Opinion of the Court                22-12426

        when he took advantage of the privilege of using his credit card to
        pay the penalty?” Id. at 1320–21.
               In answering that question, the Florida Supreme Court
        explained that, even assuming Florida law bars a defendant from
        charging a convenience fee, it is not inequitable for the defendant
        to retain the fee because it provided the plaintiff value in exchange
        for the fee. Pincus v. Am. Traffic Sols., Inc., 333 So.3d 1095, 1097
        (Fla. 2022). Specifically, the Florida Supreme Court determined
        that the value that the plaintiff received in exchange for the
        convenience fee included: (1) not having to procure postage and a
        check or money order; (2) being able to pay the balance over time;
        (3) avoiding the risk of payment being delayed, stolen, or lost en
        route; (4) being afforded more time to make the payment because
        it would be received instantaneously; and (5) receiving immediate
        confirmation that the payment was received and the obligation to
        pay the penalty was fulfilled. Id. For these reasons, the Florida
        Supreme Court concluded that “it [was] not inequitable under the
        circumstances for ATS to retain the convenience fee because it first
        paid the value thereof to the plaintiff.” Id. (cleaned up).
               Upon remand to this Court, we concluded that the plaintiff
        received adequate consideration for paying a convenience fee to
        ATS and thus had failed to state a claim for unjust enrichment
        under Florida law. Pincus, 25 F.4th at 1340–41.
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        22-12426                   Opinion of the Court                                15

               Mathis’s allegations in Count 4 are nearly identical to the
        circumstances in Pincus. 2 Like the Pincus plaintiff, Mathis paid the
        penalty electronically and alleged it was unjust for ATS to retain
        the convenience fee. Mathis received the same benefits the Pincus
        plaintiff did in exchange for the convenience fee. Because Mathis’s
        Count 4 is foreclosed by Pincus, we conclude the district court did
        not err in dismissing Count 4 for failure to state a claim.
                                   IV.     CONCLUSION
             We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Mathis’s amended
        complaint.
                AFFIRMED.

        2 Mathis’s attempts to distinguish his claim from those present in Pincus are
        unavailing. Mathis argues that his “claim differ[s] from the Pincus case
        because he married up his allegations as prescribe[d] . . . by the Florida
        Supreme Court.” (Italics added.) Mathis then quotes a paragraph from his
        amended complaint that alleged Mathis “conferred a monetary benefit on the
        Defendant, some or all of which was voluntarily retained by Defendant.” That
        argument evidences a misunderstanding of Pincus. The Florida Supreme
        Court’s reasoning did not turn on whether the plaintiff conferred a benefit
        upon the defendant (i.e., the first element for an unjust enrichment claim in
        Florida). Instead, it turned on whether the defendant provided value in
        exchange for the benefit conferred by the plaintiff (i.e., the third element). See
        Pincus, 333 So.3d at 1097 (reasoning that “ATS’s retention of the fee [was] not
        inequitable because ATS gave value in exchange” for the convenience fee).