Walker v. City of Gainesville

DERRICK L. WALKER, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF GAINESVILLE, et al., Defendants.

CASE NO. 1:19-cv-190-AW-GRJ

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA GAINESVILLE DIVISION

April 15, 2020

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Pending before the Court is Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint, ECF No. 13. Plaintiff is proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis in this matter. Upon careful consideration, it is respectfully RECOMMENDED that the First Amended Complaint should be DISMISSED because the Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over this matter.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Initial Complaint

Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit on October 9, 2019, against the City of Gainesville and four officers employed by the Gainesville Police Department ("GPD"). ECF No. 1. Plaintiff's allegations centered predominantly around an automobile accident that occurred on March 7, 2017. Id. at 7. Plaintiff claimed in the first section of the Complaint labeled "42 U.S.C. Section 1983" that Defendant Officer Megan Bostick violated GPD policies by: failing to document the names of witnesses to the accident in the traffic crash report; impeding Plaintiff's "civil right to an efficient, effective and thorough investigation into the accident involving loss of life"; "enabl[ing] the witness and at-fault party to change their stories"; "initiat[ing] a special relationship which likewise create[d] a standard of care as the defendant [was] responsible for the parties involved and the scene until relieved or the investigation [was] complete[d]"; "participating ... as an officer of the law in a cover up[] to help the at-fault party avoid responsibility and possible criminal charges as a result of the accident"; "failing to ensure that photographs [were] taken immediately to record proximate locations of vehicles, vehicle parts, drivers and occupants, and other scene references"; failing to report "the loss of life to the department so that an investigation into the accident involving a loss of life could begin"; failing to "contain protect and cordon off the area as a crime scene"; and refusing to update details provided in the traffic crash report. Id. at 7-11. Plaintiff also alleged in the same section that "Whitney Stout and Jaret Weiland concluded and delivered a decision into misconduct and the handling of the crash as unsubstantiated." Id. at 10.

Plaintiff repeated these same allegations in the second, third, and fourth sections of the initial Complaint, labeled respectively as "Emotional Distress," "Obstruction of Justice," and "Professional Malpractice." ECF No. 1 at 11-24. Plaintiff further alleged in the Complaint's "Professional Malpractice" section¹ that he was wrongly arrested on March 11, 2018, by Defendant Joseph Register, who "failed to collect evidence and question witnesses that would have exonerated [Plaintiff] from the charges brought against him." Id. at 24. Plaintiff also claimed that on September 23, 2019, Defendant Register "witnessed indirectly and directly [Plaintiff's] life being threatened on multiple occasions and failed to take action" as "retaliation for filing IA complaints on his two partners." Id. at 25-27. Plaintiff identified Defendant Register's supposed partners as Defendants Keith Carlisle and Kelly Gadet, and Plaintiff averred they did the "same thing" to Plaintiff as Defendant Register on an unspecified date. Id. at 27-28.

Plaintiff ultimately complained that "[t]he failure of GPD to take action or protect [him] has lead [sic] to a situation where now people can openly threaten his life in front of officers and no action be taken." ECF No. 1 at 28. The last page of Plaintiff's Complaint was a list of potential causes of action and damages: "intentional infliction of emotional distress[,] PTSD[,] malicious prosecution[,] false light[,] malpractice[,] duty/standard of care[,] fraud[,] conspiracy[,] tortious interference[,] defamation[,] [and] mental anguish[.]" Id. at 29.

On October 15, 2019, the undersigned screened the initial Complaint and entered an order directing Plaintiff to amend his claims to fix multiple deficiencies or face dismissal. ECF No. 4. The undersigned warned Plaintiff that the initial Complaint was an impermissible shotgun pleading because he did not state what each Defendant did, or did not do, in support of each claim. Id. at 5 (citing Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriff's Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1320-23 (11th Cir. 2015)). The Court also cautioned Plaintiff that he failed to state a cognizable constitutional claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against any of the Defendants and that the Court may lack subject-matter jurisdiction without such a claim. Id. at 5-6. Lastly, the Court explained to Plaintiff that the initial Complaint appeared to suffer from a misjoinder of claims and defendants because there was not "an apparent nexus between the automobile accident involving Defendant Bostick, Defendant Register's arrest of Plaintiff on March 11, 2018, and the unspecified actions of Defendants Carlisle and Gadet." Id. at 7.

B. The First Amended Complaint

The First Amended Complaint, filed on January 27, 2020, is a significant departure from the initial Complaint. ECF No. 13. Notably, Plaintiff abandons his claims against the individual officers² and alleges the City of Gainesville, as well as the State of Florida, the University of Florida, and Progressive Select Insurance Company ("Progressive"), have "perpetrated a scheme to defraud Plaintiff willfully and maliciously by misrepresenting the facts surrounding a traffic accident and subsequent loss of life on the night of March 7, 2017[,]" which resulted in "an erroneous finding based upon sympathy as opposed to facts and actual fault, enabling the at-fault to then successfully file a completely fraudulent insurance claim against Plaintiff." Id. at 1-3.

Plaintiff restates the above-mentioned allegations against Officer Bostick concerning her investigation of the March 7 automobile accident, points to purported inaccuracies in reports by the medical examiner's office, and alleges new facts pertaining to an investigation into the accident by Progressive claims specialist Tracey Becker Catron. ECF No. 13 at 4-6. Plaintiff claims that Catron was responsible for investigating the March 7 automobile accident on behalf of Progressive, she failed to act reasonably by relying solely on the traffic crash report and medical examiner's report, she made a false criminal allegation against Plaintiff accusing him of vandalizing the front door of her home, and she wrongfully found Plaintiff to be at fault for the March 7 automobile accident. Id. at 5-6.

Plaintiff attempts to state four causes of action against Defendants. ECF No. 13 at 6-9. First, Plaintiff alleges Defendants engaged in professional malpractice because they owed him "a duty of care ... to adequately prevent a misrepresentation of facts surrounding the accident and subsequent reporting of events" and thereafter breached that duty, causing him to suffer damages. Id. at 6. Second, Plaintiff says that Defendants were negligent in the retention and supervision of their employees, who were "engaging in activities that were improper and harmful to Plaintiff, including but not limited to: (a) knowingly and purposefully misrepresenting the facts of the incident upon which a fraudulent claim was mad [sic]; and (b) enabling and furthering the events of 'The Accident, The Medical Examiner and The Insurance Company.'" Id. at 7. Third, Plaintiff claims that Defendants aided and abetted the fraud of the at-fault party to the March 7 automobile accident because "[b]ut for Defendants' participation in 'The Accident, The Medical Examiner and The Insurance Company,' the fraudulent claim would not have succeeded" and "Defendants did not institute adequate policies and procedures to monitor their employees and prevent the very type of fraudulent omission and commission that occurred here[.]" Id. at 8. Fourth, and finally, Plaintiff asserts that "Defendants conspired with one another ... to perpetrate an unlawful act upon Plaintiff or to perpetrate a lawful act by unlawful means, to wit: Defendants misrepresented the facts of the accident and miscarriage, a collection of these misrepresentations where [sic] then used to file a fraudulent insurance claim against Plaintiff." Id. at 9. As to relief, Plaintiff seeks damages in the "amount of 20 million dollars" for each claim divided equally among the four Defendants. Id. at 6-9.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Where, as here, a plaintiff proceeds in forma pauperis, the Court must dismiss the case at any time if it determines the action "(i) is frivolous or malicious; (ii) fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted; or (iii) seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief." 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2); see also Mitchell v. Farcass, 112 F.3d 1483, 1491 n.1 (Lay, J., concurring) ("Section 1915(e) applies to all [in forma pauperis] litigants—prisoners who pay fees on an installment basis, prisoners who pay nothing, and nonprisoners in both categories."). The Court must liberally construe a pro se plaintiff's allegations, Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007), but the Court does not does not have "license to ... rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading [by a pro se litigant] in order to sustain an action." GJR Invs. v. Cty. of Escambia, Fla., 132 F.3d 1359, 1369 (11th Cir. 1998), overruled on other grounds by, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

Moreover, the Court has the authority and duty to review its subject-matter jurisdiction sua sponte. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3) ("If the court determines at any time that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, the court must dismiss the action." (emphasis added)); Williams v. Chatman, 510 F.3d 1290, 1293 (11th Cir. 2007) ("Federal courts are 'obligated to inquire into subject-matter jurisdiction sua sponte whenever it may be lacking.'" (quoting Cadet v. Bulger, 377 F.3d 1173, 1179 (11th Cir. 2004)))...