Boniecki v. City of Warren

TED BONIECKI, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF WARREN, Defendant.

CIVIL No. 22-11578

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

February 21, 2023

OPINION AND ORDER ON PENDING MOTIONS AND SHOW CAUSE ORDER

LINDA V. PARKER, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE.

On July 12, 2022, Plaintiff Ted Boniecki (“Boniecki”) filed this pro se action against the City of Warren (“Warren”). In his Complaint, Boniecki alleges several constitutional violations arising from Warren's purported threat of warrantless searches and criminal prosecution if rental inspections and permits are not obtained for three Warren properties: 28127 Wexford, 4335 Burssens, and 28041 Walker. Boniecki has filed two motions for injunctive relief. (ECF Nos. 7, 24.) Warren has filed two motions to dismiss (ECF Nos. 9, 28), a motion to compel discovery responses from Boniecki (ECF No. 25), and a motion for substitute service to serve subpoenas on two non-parties (ECF No. 26).

Warren's Motions to Dismiss

The primary arguments raised in Warren's dispositive motions are premised on its assertion that the three properties at issue are owned by the Boniecki Family Trust 28041 (hereafter “Trust”), not Boniecki. (ECF No. 28 at Pg ID 224.) Boniecki acknowledges that this is correct but asserts that he is the trustee for the Trust. (See, e.g. ECF No. 13 at Pg ID 74.) In its first motion, Warren argues that the action therefore should be dismissed because Boniecki fails to name an indispensable entity, that being “the owners of the property[.]” (ECF No. 9.) In its second motion, Warren argues that Boniecki therefore lacks standing and the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. (ECF No. 28.) Warren also argues that there has been no Fourth Amendment violation. (Id.)

Warren does little to aid the Court in addressing its arguments. As an initial matter, its first-filed motion violates several of the District's local rules. For example, the filing lacks a statement regarding concurrence, is not accompanied by a separate brief, and fails to provide a concise statement of the issues presented or the controlling authority. See E.D. Mich. LR 7.1. Warren indicates that the motion is filed pursuant to two Michigan Court Rules-albeit rules that do not exist-presumably intending to cite the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which are the correct rules governing this federal court action. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 1. In this two-page filing (which includes the case caption, a block quotation from Rule 19, and the signature block), Warren does not cite a single case to support that a necessary party has not been joined. “Issues adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, are deemed waived. It is not sufficient for a party to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving the court to put flesh on its bones.” McPherson v. Kelsey, 125 F.3d 989, 995-96 (6th Cir. 1997) (quotation marks, citations, and ellipsis removed). For these reasons, the Court is denying Warren's first dispositive motion.

Warren's second motion fares only slightly better. Warren provides a statement of concurrence, a separate brief, and cites to the correct jurisdiction's procedural rules. (ECF No. 28.) However, Warren does not cite a single case to support its argument that Boniecki lacks standing. The case law cited stands only for general principles, such as the elements to establish standing and the standard for reviewing Rule 12(b)(1) motions. (See id. at Pg ID 228.) Warren maintains that Boniecki “has shown no proof of ownership or any real estate in Warren” but fails to elaborate on how that connects with the injury in fact required to satisfy Article III. Again, it is not the Court's responsibility “to put flesh on [the] bones” of a party's legal arguments. See McPherson.

Nevertheless because standing is a necessary component of subject matter jurisdiction, to move forward, this Court must satisfy itself that this requirement is satisfied. See Loren v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mich., 505 F.3d 598, 607 (6th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). “To satisfy Article III's standing requirements, a plaintiff must show ‘(1) it has suffered an “injury in fact” that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.'” Id. (quoting Cleveland Branch NAACP v. City of Parma, 263 F.3d 513, 523-24 (6th Cir. 2001) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs., 528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000))). “[S]tanding in no way depends upon the merits of the plaintiff's contention that the particular conduct is illegal.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500 (1975); see also Kanuszewski v. Mich. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., 927 F.3d 396, 407 (6th Cir. 2019) (quoting Warth, 422 U.S. at 502) (“Our standing analysis does not consider the merits of Plaintiffs' claims; instead, we must assume that ‘if proved in a proper case,' Defendants' alleged practices ‘would be adjudged violative of the Plaintiffs' constitutional rights.'”).

Construing Boniecki's filings liberally, as this Court must, Spotts v. United States, 429 F.3d 248, 250 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972)), he appears to be bringing this suit on behalf of himself, personally, and as trustee of the Trust. Boniecki does lack standing to bring this pro se action on behalf of the Trust, although for slightly different reasons than Warren asserts. However, the Court finds that he has personal standing.

Federal law provides that federal court cases may be conducted only by the parties personally or through counsel. 28 U.S.C. § 1654. Section 1654 states: “In all courts of the United States, the parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel as, by the rules of such courts, respectively are permitted to manage and conduct causes therein.” The federal courts have long held that the statute preserves a party's right to proceed pro se, but only on the party's own claims; only a licensed attorney may represent other persons or artificial entities. See Rowland v. Calif. Men's Colony, 506 U.S. 194, 202 (1993); Shepherd v. Wellman, 313 F.3d 963, 970-71 (6th Cir. 2003).

In other words, artificial entities may appear in federal court only through licensed counsel and not through pro se representation of an officer, agent, or shareholder. Rowland, 506 U.S. at 202; Taylor Steel, Inc. v. Keeton, 417 F.3d 598, 603 (6th Cir. 2005); Doherty v. Am. Motors Corp., 728 F.2d 334, 340 (6th Cir. 1984). Circuit courts, including the Sixth Circuit, consider this issue to be one of standing. See, e.g., Adams ex rel. D.J.W. v. Astrue, 659 F.3d 1297, 1299 (10th Cir. 2011) (collecting cases); Oliver v. Pogats, No. 91-1717, 1992 WL 76951, at *1 (6th Cir. 1992) (unpublished). This rule is applicable to trusts, which are also artificial entities. Knoefler v. United Bank of Bismarck, 20 F.3d 347, 348 (8th Cir. 1994) (holding that the plaintiff-trustee lacked standing as a pro se litigant to prosecute claims on behalf of the trust); C.E. Pope Equity Tr. v. United States, 818 F.2d 696, 697 (9th Cir. 1987) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1654) (concluding that “[b]ecause [the plaintiff] is not the actual beneficial owner of the claims being asserted by the Trusts . . ., he cannot be viewed as a ‘party' conducting his ‘own case personally' within the meaning of Section 1654. He may not claim that his status as trustee includes the right to present arguments pro se in federal court”) (emphasis in original); Marin v. Leslie, 337 Fed.Appx. 217, 219-20 (3d Cir. 2009) (unpublished) (upholding the dismissal of a pro se plaintiff's claims on behalf of a trust, as he could not pursue the claims pro se); DiMercurio v. CIR, No. 08-1378, 2008 WL 5784519 (6th Cir. 2008) (unpublished) (holding that the plaintiff-trustee, a non-attorney, “has no right to represent a trust in federal court”); William Huron Gardens 397 Tr. v. Twp. of Waterford, No. 18-12319, 2019 WL 2051967, at *3 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 28, 2019) (unpublished) (collecting cases holding that a trustee, proceeding pro se, cannot represent a trust in federal court), adopted in 2019 WL 1324242 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 25, 2019).

Boniecki, however, also alleges injuries to himself, personally. Specifically, Boniecki claims that by preventing the Trust from renting the properties, Warren's actions deprive him of rental proceeds, presumably as a beneficiary of the Trust. (See, e.g., ECF No. 13 at Pg ID 74-75.) The Court finds this sufficient to confer standing on Boniecki. See Anderson v. Old Nat'l Bancorp, No. 5:02-cv-324, 2009 WL 2422324, at *3 (W.D. Ky. 2009) (unpublished) (explaining that the plaintiffs' assertion that the defendants' actions damaged the plaintiffs through income payments they would have received as beneficiaries under the trusts alleged a “concrete and particularized” harm to the plaintiffs directly traceable to the defendants' alleged misconduct).

In addition to its standing argument, Warren also makes a “lack of Fourth Amendment search requirement” argument in its second motion to dismiss. (See ECF No. 28 at Pg ID 229 (capitalization removed).) However, in support of this argument, Warren asserts facts and offers materials outside the pleadings (see, e.g., ECF No 28 at Pg ID 229), which cannot be considered in evaluating Plaintiff's claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), see Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (indicating that the court must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true when deciding a Rule 12 motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim); Weiner v. Klais & Co., 108 F.3d 86, 88 (6th...