Hahn v. United States Dep't of Commerce

PHILIP E. HAHN, Plaintiff, v. THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No.: 11-6369 (ES)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

Dated: September 10, 2012

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

OPINION

SALAS, District Judge

I. Introduction

The parties involved in this matter are no strangers to litigation. Plaintiff's current Complaint is the newest chapter in the saga of Philip Hahn ("Hahn" or "Plaintiff") and his battle with the New Jersey state court system. Before the Court are eleven motions to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), as well as one motion for sanctions pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants the Defendants' motions to dismiss; however, Defendants' motion for the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions is denied.

II. Jurisdiction

This Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 1343(a)(3), as well as 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

III. Background

Plaintiff's Complaint is a seventy-one page, single-spaced document, rife with conclusory allegations. Although utterly disjointed, Plaintiff's Complaint appears to arise from "[an]instance [when] the plaintiff was thrown into the Bergen Regional Medical Center because he was seeking to take a deposition in 2008 and . . . had Abilify forced on him." (Docket Entry No. 5). Sometime thereafter, Plaintiff commenced a state court action, which, like his other state court complaints, was dismissed.

Plaintiff now seeks relief from the federal courts because Plaintiff believes "that foreign operatives have taken over the courts of the state of New Jersey . . . ." (Docket Entry No. 52). While Plaintiff's Complaint is essentially devoid of factual allegations, the crux of Plaintiff's Complaint can be summarized as follows: "I [] demanded a jury trial . . . . As I have demanded a jury trial I do not believe th[is] . . . action can be dismissed prior to trial. The [Seventh] Amendment is clear in the matter." (Docket Entry No. 27 at 1).

This conclusion has led to the present action, wherein Plaintiff seeks redress from, among others,¹ attorneys who filed—and argued—motions seeking dismissal of Plaintiff's state court complaint; the trial court judge who—upon reviewing the motions and hearing argument— dismissed Plaintiff's complaint; the appellate division judges who affirmed the trial court judge's decision dismissing Plaintiff's claims; and the New Jersey Supreme Court Justices who previously denied Plaintiff's petitions for certification. Hahn avers that the Defendants have violated his "individual and associational rights under the Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution," and seeks relief under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985and 1986. (Compl. at 9, ¶ 1).²

IV. Legal Standards

A. Motion to Dismiss Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)

A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) challenges the existence of a federal court's subject matter jurisdiction. "When subject matter jurisdiction is challenged under Rule 12(b)(1), the plaintiff must bear the burden of persuasion." Symczyk v. Genesis HealthCare Corp., 656 F.3d 189, 191 n.4 (3d Cir. 2011). In considering a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, "the district court may not presume the truthfulness of plaintiff's allegations, but rather must evaluat[e] for itself the merits of [the] jurisdictional claims." Hedges v. United States, 404 F.3d 744, 750 (3d Cir. 2005) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).

B. Motion to Dismiss Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires a complaint to set forth "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that a pleader is entitled to relief." The pleading standard announced by Rule 8 does not require detailed factual allegations; it does, however, demand "more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal citation omitted). In addition, the plaintiff's short and plain statement of the claim must "give the defendant[s] fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).

For a complaint to survive dismissal, it "must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, 'to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). A claim has facial plausibility when "the plaintiff pleads factualcontent that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ibid. (internal citation omitted).

In evaluating the sufficiency of a complaint, a court must accept all well-pleaded factual allegations contained in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party. See Phillips v. Cnty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008). But, "the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions," and "[a] pleading that offers 'labels and conclusions' or a 'formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.'" Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). Furthermore, "[when] deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court must consider only the complaint, exhibits attached [thereto], matters of the public record, as well as undisputedly authentic documents if the complainant's claims are based upon these documents." Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223, 230 (3d Cir. 2011).

"[I]f a complaint is subject to a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, a district court must permit a curative amendment unless such an amendment would be inequitable or futile." Phillips, 515 F.3d at 245; see also Ray v. First Nat'l Bank of Omaha, 413 F. App'x 427, 430 (3d Cir. 2011) ("A district court should not dismiss a pro se complaint without allowing the plaintiff an opportunity to amend his complaint unless an amendment would be inequitable or futile."). Furthermore, in ruling on the present motion, the Court "must construe [Plaintiff's] complaint liberally as he is proceeding pro se." Huertas v. Galaxy Asset Mgmt., 641 F.3d 28, 32 (3d Cir. 2011) (citing Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007)).

V. Analysis³

A. Plaintiff's Claimed Right to a Jury Trial Under the Seventh Amendment, New Jersey Constitution, and New Jersey Rules of Court

Plaintiff maintains that he had a legal right to a trial by jury in his state court proceedings as guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment of the United States Constitution, Article 1 Paragraph 9 of the New Jersey Constitution, and New Jersey Rules of Court because he has requested and paid for a jury trial. (See generally Compl.). Simply put, Plaintiff is incorrect.

First, it is well-settled that "the Seventh Amendment applies only to proceedings in courts of the United States and does not in any manner whatever govern or regulate trials by jury in state courts . . . ." Minneapolis & St. Louis R.R. Co. v. Bombolis, Adm'r of Nanos, 241 U.S. 211, 217 (1916) (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted); see also State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Baasch, 644 F.2d 94, 97 (2d Cir. 1981) ("[T]he Seventh Amendment was ruled not to be applicable to the states . . . and the Supreme Court has not included it among the provisions of the Bill of Rights which it has held to have been made applicable by the FourteenthAmendment."); McFadden v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., No. 96-2296, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 26253, at *3 (6th Cir. 1997) ("[Plaintiff] did not . . . allege a deprivation of a federal right because the Seventh Amendment has not been extended to the states and thus does not guarantee a jury trial in state court."). Therefore, Plaintiff's claim that the New Jersey state court judges "den[ied] . . . his right to a trial by jury as guaranteed by the [Seventh] Amendment to the United States Constitution," (Compl. at 13, ¶¶ 25-29), is misguided because the Seventh Amendment only applies to proceedings in courts of the United States and not state courts.

Second, this Court summarily rejects Plaintiff's argument that he has a right to a trial by jury under the New Jersey Constitution and New Jersey Rules of Court. Plaintiff presented this exact argument during one of his New Jersey State Court proceedings, to which the Appellate Division held:

The gist of plaintiff's argument on appeal, articulated in particular at oral argument, is that he requested and paid for a jury trial, a constitutional right, which trumped the firm defendants' rights to make a motion to dismiss his complaint and the judicial defendants' right to dismiss his case prior to an adjudication on the merits by a jury. Plaintiff's position is not founded in law. As our Supreme Court has recognized, 'in civil matters the constitutional right to a jury trial is not absolute. . . . Even when requested, the failure to present evidence warranting submission of a factual issue to the jury is the functional equivalent of a waiver of the right to have a jury decide the case.' Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520, 537 (1995). Specifically, in the context of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the law is clear that 'a court must dismiss the plaintiff's complaint if it has failed to articulate a legal basis entitling the plaintiff to relief.' (citing cases).

Hahn v. Frascella, No. A-0070-10T3, 2011 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1414, at *4, *5 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. June 3, 2011); see also Hahn v. Bergen Reg'l Med. Ctr., Nos. A-2869-09T1, A-6282-09T1, A-1924-10T4, 2011 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1626, at *16, *17 (N.J.Super. Ct. App. Div. June 23, 2011). This Court declines Plaintiff's invitation to entertain this argument. To do so would be equivalent to an appellate review of the state courts' decisions.

B. The State of New Jersey

In this Complaint, Hahn raises the same conclusory...