Smart v. Aramark Inc.

SALAHUDDIN F. SMART, Plaintiff, v. ARAMARK INC., et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 14-3007 (RMB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY CAMDEN VICINAGE

August 15, 2014

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

OPINION

BUMB, District Judge:

This matter comes before the Court upon Plaintiff's filing of an application titled "Rule 60B(6) Post Judgment Relief Motion." See Docket Entry No. 5.

On May 13, 2014, the Clerk docketed Plaintiff's complaint that gave rise to this matter. See Docket Entry No. 1. Since he filed his complaint while being a prisoner and submitted a prisoner's in forma pauperis application, this Court, upon granting him in forma pauperis status, screened the complaint for sua sponte dismissal.¹ See Docket Entries Nos. 2 and 3.

Upon finding that the complaint contained no claim upon which relief could be granted, and the deficiencies were not amenable to cure by repleading, this Court dismissed the complaint with prejudice; that decision was entered on May 29, 2014. See id.; see Smart v. Aramark Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73106 (D.N.J. May 29, 2014) (replicating that decision).

Nine weeks passed by.

On July 31, 2014, the Clerk docketed the application at bar, which challenged this Court's dismissal of Plaintiff's complaint with prejudice. See Docket Entry No. 5. While lengthy and hard to follow, the application could be summarized as an expression of Plaintiff's displeasure with: (a) this Court's dismissal of the complaint without leave to amend, which barred him from making further submissions and prevented him from withdrawing his claim prior to final resolution; (b) Plaintiff's accrual of a "strike" for the purposes of the "three strikes" rule; and (c) this Court's notice of Plaintiff's prior actions in this District, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, and of his recreational litigation practices. See Docket Entry No. 5.²

Attempting to eliminate the "strike" accrued in connection with this matter, Plaintiff alleged that: (a) this Court erred in its legal finding that Plaintiff's free exercise rights could not have been implicated by the events alleged in the complaint, see id. at 4-5; (b) this Court screened Plaintiff's complaint applying incorrect legal standards, see id. at 2-3; and (c) this Court erred in reading the complaint as alleging that Plaintiff was a religious Muslim. See id. at 3 (asserting that Plaintiff's faith was Jewish on the day he executed the application at bar).

Plaintiff's application warrants no relief, since it is untimely and a meritless motion for reconsideration that merely bears a Rule 60 designation. Local Civil Rule 7.1(i) governs motions for reconsideration. See Clark v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 940 F. Supp. 2d 186, 189 (D.N.J. 2013); see also L. Civ. R. 7.1(i). The Rule states, in no ambiguous terms, that "a motion for reconsideration shall be served and filed within 14 days after the entry of the order or judgment." L. Civ. R. 7.1(i). Moreover, the Rule sets forth a steep substantive test that the movant may seek reconsideration only if the movant, in good faith, "believes [that] the Judge . . . has overlooked [amaterial factual] matter or controlling [legal] decisions." Clark, 940 F. Supp. 2d at 189. Thus, to succeed on a motion for reconsideration, the movant must demonstrate at least one of the following: "(1) an intervening change in the controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence that was not available when the court [issued its order]; or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or fact or to prevent manifest injustice."³ Max's Seafood Cafe by Lou-Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999). In other words, "[a] motion for reconsideration [is not] an opportunity for a second bite at the apple." Tischio v. Bontex, Inc., 16 F. Supp. 2d 511, 533 (D.N.J. 1998); see also Buffa v. N.J. State Dep't of Judiciary, 56 Fed. App'x 571, 575 (3d Cir. 2003); P. Schoenfeld Asset Mgmt. LLC v. Cendant Corp., 161 F. Supp. 2d 349, 352 (D.N.J. 2001) ("A party seeking reconsideration must show more than a disagreement with the Court's decision") (citations and quotation marks omitted).

Here, Plaintiff's application was filed out of time for the purposes of Rule 7.1(i), and - despite its volume - failed to state a viable basis for reconsideration. As this Court already explained:

Plaintiff's complaint named five Defendants: Aramark Inc. [state prisons' food supplier], one of Aramark's executives, the Department of Corrections, Camden Board of Freeholders and the warden of CCCF. The complaint asserted that the CCCF did not allow the inmates to work at the CCCF's kitchen if the inmates had facial hair since it required, as a prerequisite to such employ, that the inmates would shave their beards. From that requirement, Plaintiff deduced that Defendants must have discriminated against Muslim, Jewish and Christian inmates who had facial hair due to their religious beliefs. . . . Plaintiff invoked his First Amendment rights in order to seek $1 million from Aramark, $1 million from the DOC, $1 million from the Freeholders, $1 million from the Warden and $10,000 from the Aramark's executive. The DOC and Warden, in his official capacity, are not amenable to a § 1983 suit. Plaintiff's respondeatsuperior claims against Aramark, the Aramark executive and Freeholders also fail, as has already been explained to Plaintiff [by the judges who presided over] in his prior suits. Moreover, . . . Plaintiff's reliance on the First Amendment is misplaced. . . . Even if this Court presumes that: (a) Plaintiff's religious beliefs are sincerely held, and (b) he has facial hair because of these beliefs, his ability to practice his religion cannot be affected by his inability to have his beard at the CCCF's kitchen. Correspondingly, if construed liberally, Plaintiff's allegations may suggest only Fourteenth Amendment challenges, e.g., due process and equal protection claims. However, such claims are also meritless. Prisoners have no protected liberty or property interest in retaining prison employment and, certainly, in employment at a particular position, e.g., as a kitchen staff. Therefore, Plaintiff's due process claim necessarily fails: if he has no constitutional right to work, moreover to work as a kitchen staff, he afortiori has no right to work at the CCCF's kitchen while having a beard. Plaintiff's equal protection claim fares no better. Here, he admits that all inmates wishing to work as CCCF's kitchen staff are obligated to shave their facial hair, regardless of whether they were Muslim, Jewish or Christian. . . . Since the regulation challenged by Plaintiff applies equally to all inmates regardless of their religious beliefs, and is rationally related to the CCCF's legitimate penological goal of minimizinghair contamination of the food served at the CCCF, Plaintiff's equal protection claim fails.

Smart, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73106, at *4-11 (citations, brackets quotation marks, footnotes, parentheticals and ellipses omitted).

Plaintiff is now challenging the above-quoted decision by maintaining that this Court failed to screen his complaint under the standards articulated in Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89 (2007); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007); and Grayson v. Mayview State Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 110-11 (3d Cir. 2002). See Docket Entry No. 5, at 1-2. Plaintiff's position is belied by this Court's above-quoted ruling.

Under Erickson, "[a] document filed pro se is to be liberally construed, and a pro se complaint, however inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." 551 U.S. at 94 (citations and quotation marks omitted). Here, this Court did exactly that: even though Plaintiff's free exercise claims (as well as his allegations barred by the Eleventh Amendment immunity and inapplicability of the doctrine of respondeat superior to § 1983 actions for damages) were meritless, this Court did not end its analysis upon addressing the complaint under the First Amendment and, but liberally construing Plaintiff's facts, analyzed those facts under the Due Process and Equal Protection standards.

Having concluded that Plaintiff's claims, no matter how construed, could not amount to a viable claim, this Court dismissed the complaint precisely under the holding of Twombly. Screening any pleading, a district court is obligated to ask "whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claim." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 583 (2007) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 684 (2009) ("Our decision in Twombly expounded the pleading standard for 'all civil actions'"); Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210 (3d Cir. 2009) ("Iqbal [and Twombly] provides the final nail-in-the-coffin for the 'no set of facts' standard that applied . . . before Twombly" and required proceeding any plaintiff's claim to service unless the claim was based on the facts that were facially fanciful or delusional).

In light of Twombly and Iqbal, the Third Circuit directed the district courts to apply a two-part analysis in reviewing all civil complaints, be they represented and submitted pro se. First, a district court must accept all of the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but should disregard any legal conclusions. See Fowler, 578 F.3d at 210. Second, the district court must determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a "plausible claim for relief." Id.; see also Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008).

Here, this Court did exactly that: (a) it presumed that all Plaintiff's well-pled factual allegations were true (i.e., the Court neither questioned that the inmates wishing to work at the CCCF kitchen were required to shave their beards nor doubted that the requirement was applied to all Christian, Jewish and Muslim inmates) and ignored Plaintiff's self-serving bold...