Smith v. Batts

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

CASE NO. 23-60823-CIV-ALTMAN

SALINAS FALUN SMITH,

Plaintiff,

v.

CACIA BATTS, et al.,

Defendants.

_____________________________/

ORDER

On May 2, 2023, the Plaintiff filed seventeen civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in

this District. See Smith v. Conte Jail Facility, 2023 WL 3276513, at *2 n.1 (S.D. Fla. May 5, 2023) (Ruiz,

J.) (“A review of this Court’s records on CM/ECF indicates that this Complaint is one of seventeen

complaints that were all filed contemporaneously in this Court.”). Since three of Smith’s seventeen

cases were assigned to us, we consolidated the three actions into this case. See Consolidation Order

[ECF No. 4]. In that order, we “construe[d] all three complaints as a single, combined complaint.” Id.

at 1. But, because Smith has asked to proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”), see IFP Motion [ECF No. 3],

we must screen his Complaint under the strictures of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). After conducting that

screening, we agree with our colleagues that Smith has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be

granted. We thus DISMISS his consolidated Complaint.

THE LAW

A court may authorize a party to proceed in forma pauperis in any suit so long as that party

complies with the prescriptions of 28 U.S.C. § 1915. But the court must screen such cases and must

dismiss a complaint if it concludes that “the action or appeal ... (i) is frivolous or malicious; (ii) fails to

state a claim on 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)(B); see also Mitchell v. Farcass, 112 F.3d 1483, 1486

(11th Cir. 1997) (explaining the grounds for dismissal under § 1915).

To state a claim upon which relief may be granted, a complaint’s factual allegations “must be

enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level”—with “enough facts to state a claim to

relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 570 (2007). Under this

standard, legal conclusions “are not entitled to the assumption of truth” and are insufficient to state a

claim. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009). Moreover, “[w]here a complaint pleads facts that are

merely consistent with a defendant's liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and

plausibility of entitlement to relief.” Id. at 678 (internal quotation marks omitted). In contrast, a claim

is frivolous when “it is without arguable merit either in law or in fact.” Bilal v. Driver, 251 F.3d 1346,

1349 (11th Cir. 2001); see also Carroll v. Gross, 984 F.2d 392, 393 (11th Cir. 1993) (“[A] case is frivolous

. . . when it appears the plaintiff has little or no chance of success. A district court may conclude a case

is [frivolous] when it determines from the face of the complaint that the factual allegations are clearly

baseless or the legal theories are indisputably meritless.” (cleaned up)).

Although “[p]ro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted by

attorneys,” Tannenbaum v. United States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998), that leniency “does not

give courts license to serve as de facto counsel or to rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading in order

to sustain an action,” Shuler v. Ingram & Assocs., 441 F. App’x 712, 716 n.3 (11th Cir. 2011). Pro

se litigants “cannot simply point to some perceived or actual wrongdoing and then have the court fill

in the facts to support their claim. . . . [J]udges cannot and must not ‘fill in the blanks’ for pro se litigants;

they may only cut some ‘linguistic slack’ in what is actually pled.” Hanninen v. Fedoravitch, 2009 WL

10668707, at *3 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 26, 2009) (Altonaga, J.) (cleaned up).

ANALYSIS

Smith’s consolidated Complaint names five defendants: Cacia Batts and Lora Johnson—a

judicial assistant and a courtroom deputy, respectively—who appear to be employed by U.S. Chief

Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware,

Batts Complaint [ECF No. 1] at 1–2; “Dr. Frank Schmidt, Jr., MD,”1 a “physician” at “CVT Solutions”

who has (allegedly) been fired, Schmidt Complaint [ECF No. 1-2] at 1; Dr. Elizabeth Benjamin, a

“trauma medical doctor” at “Grady,” Benjamin Complaint [ECF No. 1-3] at 1; and Karim

Kharbouch,2 whose “official position,” according to Smith, is “Attempted Murder [sic],” ibid. Smith

provides no other factual details about any of these Defendants. See generally Batts Complaint; Schmidt

Complaint; Benjamin Complaint. Instead, he’s included a 29-page appendix, which consists of a

seemingly random assortment of documents: the jail records of a person named “Tony Mathis”; forms

from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office; several “petitions for a subpoena” addressed to the

“Broward County Courthouse”; a photocopy of a Georgia Identification Card for “Salins Acosta

Weaver”; a 1040-X Amended Income Tax Return; a high school transcript from Atlanta Public High

Schools; and several documents from the State of Georgia—all stamped with the word “Perjury.” See

Appendix [ECF No. 1-1] at 1–29. Smith doesn’t explain how any of these documents relate to the five

Defendants he’s named in his Complaint.

Smith’s consolidated Complaint is riddled with many other defects, too, but we’ll stick to its

most glaring deficiency: It doesn’t give us any facts about what the Defendants did wrong. It thus fails

to state a claim under § 1983. “To establish a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must prove (1)

a violation of a constitutional right, and (2) that the alleged violation was committed by a person acting

1 Smith names Dr. Schmidt as a defendant twice in the same Complaint. See Schmidt Complaint [ECF

No. 1-2] at 1.

2 Mr. Kharbouch is better known by his stage name: “French Montana.” See Zach Baron, French

Montana: Homecoming, THE FADER (Sept. 25, 2012), http://www.thefader.com/2012/09/25/french-

montana-homecoming/.

under color of state law.” Holmes v. Crosby, 418 F.3d 1256, 1258 (11th Cir. 2005) (citing West v. Atkins,

487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988)). Nowhere in Smith’s Complaint does he allege that any of the Defendants (or

anybody else) violated his constitutional rights; he, in fact, doesn’t even mention a constitutional

provision that might have been violated. See generally Batts Complaint; Schmidt Complaint; Benjamin

Complaint. What’s worse, three of the five Defendants—two doctors and a rap artist—are private

citizens, not state actors, which means that Smith cannot sue them under § 1983.3 See Am. Mfrs. Mut.

Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 50 (1999) (“Like the state action requirement of the Fourteenth

Amendment, the under-color-of-state-law element of § 1983 excludes from its reach ‘merely private

conduct, not matter how discriminatory or wrongful.’” (quoting Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1002

(1982))).

We’ve alluded to the fact that Smith has filed other complaints in this District. Nearly all of

them are identical to our Complaint—a brief list of the Defendants, followed by the same 29-page

appendix, and an absence of any factual allegations—which is why our colleagues have uniformly

dismissed Smith’s complaints as frivolous and for failure to state a claim. See, e.g., Smith v. Arora, 2023

WL 3248873, at *2 (S.D. Fla. May 4, 2023) (Ruiz, J.) (“Here, Plaintiff may be attempting to allege

claims against a private individual, Dr. Arora, but it is completely unclear from the Complaint.

Moreover, Plaintiff does not provide any factual or explanatory support whatsoever for a plausible

3 Defendants Batts and Johnson work for a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, so they aren’t “state actors” either.

See Mack v. Alexander, 575 F.2d 488, 489 (5th Cir. 1978) (“[Section 1983] provide[s] a remedy for

deprivation of rights under color of state law and do[es] not apply when the defendants are acting

under color of federal law.”). It’s true that, in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of

Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court carved out a limited cause of action that serves as

an analogue to § 1983 for constitutional claims against federal employees, see Abella v. Rubino, 63 F.3d

1063, 1065 (11th Cir. 1995) (“Thus, courts generally apply § 1983 law to Bivens cases.”). But Batts and

Johnson are almost certainly entitled to judicial immunity because they’re “an integral part of chambers

and the judge is the sole and direct supervisor of [their] work. . . . Litigants who are dissatisfied with a

judge’s decisions should not be allowed to circumvent the absolute immunity provided to judges by

forcing his or her staff to testify as to the judge’s decision making process.” In re Lickman, 304 B.R.

897, 904 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2004) (Williamson, Bankr. J.).

claim under § 1983. Not only does Plaintiff wholly fail to allege any facts, he further fails to allege any

deprivations of a right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution or laws of the United

States.” (citing Hale v. Tallapoosa Cnty., 50 F.3d 1579, 1582 (11th Cir. 1995))); Smith v. Albert, 2023 WL

3277774, at *1 (S.D. Fla. May 5, 2023) (Scola, J.) (“Regardless of how charitably the Court construes

Smith’s complaint, the contours of his allegations are nonetheless impossible to discern. . . . [H]e

supplies no facts or legal basis to support his case or any indication whatsoever that he has a viable §

1983 claim or any other cause of action. . . . Even after reviewing [the twenty-nine pages of exhibits]

the Court is unable to discern even a hint of a viable claim for relief.”); Order of Dismissal, Smith v.

Century Ind. Co., No. 23-21654-CIV (S.D. Fla. May 3, 2023) (Bloom, J.), ECF No. 4 at 2 (“Plaintiff’s

Complaint states his name and the names of the Defendants but contains no statement of claim

whatsoever. The Complaint includes 29 pages of exhibits, . . . [but] [e]ven after reviewing those

documents, the Court does not have the faintest idea what this case is about. Wholly devoid of factual

allegations, Plaintiff’s Complaint fails to state a viable claim for relief.” (cleaned up)). We agree and

likewise dismiss Smith’s Complaint as frivolous and for failure to state a claim.

One more thing. Pro se litigants are usually granted leave to amend their complaints if “a more

carefully drafted complaint might state a claim[.]” Bank v. Pitt, 928 F.2d 1108, 1112 (11th Cir. 1991).

But we needn’t extend this courtesy if “there has been undue delay, bad faith, dilatory motive, or a

repeated failure to cure deficiencies,” if the opposing party would suffer “undue prejudice,” or where

“amendment would be futile.” Bryant v. Dupree, 252 F.3d 1161, 1163 (11th Cir. 2001). Smith hasn’t

given us any factual allegations at all, and he doesn’t come close to stating a viable claim under § 1983.

See generally Batts Complaint; Schmidt Complaint; Benjamin Complaint. Given that Smith’s Complaint

“is wholly frivolous” and fails to “even approximate a viable claim,” we find that granting Smith leave

to amend would be futile. Albert, 2023 WL 3277774, at *2; see also Burger King Corp. v. Weaver, 169 F.3d

1310, 1320 (11th Cir. 1999) (“This court has found that denial of leave to amend is justified by futility

when the complaint as amended 1s still subject to dismissal.” (cleaned up)). We also conclude that

Smuth’s “strategy” of filing seventeen incomplete and facially deficient complaints is a malicious abuse

of the judicial process, and we deny him leave to amend on this basis as well. See Nazls v. Franklin, 279

F. App’x 899, 901 (11th Cir. 2008) (affirming the dismissal of a case as “abus[itve] of the judicial

process” where “Plaintiff had filed 22 separate suits pursuant to Section 1915”).

* x K

We therefore ORDER AND ADJUDGE that Smith’s consolidated Complaint [ECF No. 1]

is DISMISSED without prejudice as frivolous and for failure to state a claim. All pending motions

are DENIED as moot. ‘The Clerk shall CLOSE the case.

DONE AND ORDERED in the Southern District of Florida on May 9, 2023.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

CC: Salinas Falun Smith, pro se