Wade v. Department of Veteran Affairs

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

CASE NO. 23-cv-20186-ALTMAN/Reid

JOSEPH EMANUEL WADE,

Plaintiff,

v.

DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS,

et al.,

Defendants.

_______________________________________/

ORDER

The Plaintiff, Joseph Emanuel Wade,1 has filed a Motion for Leave to Proceed in Forma

Pauperis (the “Motion”) [ECF No. 6], which we referred to U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid, who

recommended that we DENY the Motion and DISMISS Wade’s Complaint, see Report and

Recommendation (“R&R”) [ECF No. 8]. Magistrate Judge Reid also warned the parties as follows:

A party shall serve and file written objections, if any, to this Report and

Recommendation with the District Judge within FOURTEEN DAYS of being

served with a copy of this Report and Recommendation. Failure to timely file

objections will bar a de novo determination by the District Judge of anything in this

recommendation and shall constitute a waiver of a party’s “right to challenge on appeal

the district court’s order based on unobjected-to factual and legal conclusions.” 11th

Cir. R. 3-1 (2016); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); see also Harrigan v. Metro-Dade Police Dep’t

Station #4, 977 F.3d 1185, 1191–92 (11th Cir. 2020).

Id. at 4. The Plaintiff timely objected to the R&R. See Plaintiff’s Objection to the R&R (“Objection”)

[ECF No. 9]. And this Order follows.

1 Although some of the filings in our case have listed the Plaintiff’s name as “Wade Emanuel,” our

review of the Plaintiff’s signature on his Objection leads us to believe that his name is actually Joseph

Emanuel Wade.

THE LAW

District courts must review de novo any part of a magistrate judge’s disposition that has been

properly objected to. See FED. R. CIV. P. 72(b)(3). Although Rule 72 itself is silent on the standard of

review, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that Congress’s intent was to require a de novo review

only where objections have been properly filed—and not when neither party objects. See Thomas v.

Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 150 (1985) (“It does not appear that Congress intended to require district court

review of a magistrate [judge]’s factual or legal conclusions, under a de novo or any other standard, when

neither party objects to those findings.”).

When a party timely objects to a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, the district

judge must make a de novo determination “of those portions of the report or specified proposed

findings or recommendations to which objection is made.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); see also Leonard v.

Polk Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 2019 WL 11641375, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 16, 2019). “Parties filing objections

to a magistrate’s report and recommendation must specifically identify those findings objected to.

Frivolous, conclusive, or general objections need not be considered by the district court.” United States

v. Tardon, 493 F. Supp. 3d 1188, 1209 (S.D. Fla. 2020) (Lenard, J.) (quoting Marsden v. Moore, 847 F.2d

1536, 1548 (11th Cir. 1988)). “Those portions of a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation to

which no objection has been made are reviewed for clear error.” Ibid.

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). “Where 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 (cleaned up).

Although “pro se pleadings are held to a more lenient standard than pleadings filed by lawyers,”

Abram-Adams v. Citigroup, Inc., 491 F. App’x 972, 974 (11th Cir. 2012), that leniency “does not give a

court license to serve as de facto counsel for a party, or to rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading in

order to sustain an action,” GJR Inv., Inc. v. Cnty. of Escambia, Fla., 132 F.3d 1359, 1369 (11th Cir. 1989).

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

Wade, acting pro se, has sued the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (“VA”) and twelve

individuals who appear to be employees of the VA. His Complaint [ECF No. 1] is only six lines long

and asserts (mostly) the following:

Claim 1. Granting injunctions, to stop the Agency from further harassment of Plaintiff, other

federal employees, and immediate reversal of Agencies, illegal actions. Labor Management

rules, regulations, and policies, are not to be altered, in character or composition, or for own

one personnel gain. All of the [defendants], so listed in [ ] this complaint are guilty by way of

conspiracy to the same, whistleblower retaliation, fraud, cyber fraud, schemes, libel, (PPP)

personnel prohibited practices constitutional violations[,] and (ADA) violations, with no need

for oral argument, as no other explination can be rendered, also directly responsible for

wrongful death.

Id. at 4 (errors in original). In his prayer for relief, Wade appears to seek an injunction against the VA

as follows:

The plaintiff is seeking that the court compels the defendant to perform a certain act or refrain

from a certain act. Common types of equitable relief are injunctions, specific performance, or

vacatur. Aditionaly remedy resulting from a claim of estoppel[,] remedies for legal actions

seeking monetary damages, in direct accordance with applicable law, and established table of

penalties which fit the degree of seriousness with

Ibid. (errors in original). As these quotations should make plain, we agree with Magistrate Judge Reid

that the “Plaintiff’s claim is so lacking in factual content that [we are] unable to determine the basis

for his claim against the Defendants or the remedy he seeks.” R&R at 3.

Resisting this conclusion, the Plaintiff has filed an Objection to the R&R—really, a series of

disconnected musings from which we can discern only two objections that warrant de novo review.2 In

the first, Wade accuses Magistrate Judge Reid of “wrongly equat[ing] the standard for failure to state

a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) with the more lenient standard for frivolousness under § 1915(d),[3] which

permits dismissal only if a petitioner cannot make any rational argument in law or fact entitling him

to relief.” Objection at 2. In saying so, Wade appears to quote from the Supreme Court’s decision in

Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 319 (1989). In the second, Wade contends that “[t]he District Court[

] failed to sustain, or articulate, the grounds for the dismissal of the Plaintiff’s[ ] undisputed and

historical case.” Objection at 6. We’ll address—and reject—both objections in turn.

First, while we agree with Wade that a complaint isn’t necessarily frivolous within the meaning

of § 1915 just because it fails to state a viable claim under Rule 12(b)(6), see Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 320,

2 Much of the Objection quotes from a law review article: Alexander A. Reinert, Screening Out Innovation:

The Merits of Meritless Litigation, 89 IND. L. J. 1191 (2013). Other portions lift from an uncited-to Federal

Trade Commission report on “Sham Litigation.” In treating us to these quotations, though, Wade

never identifies those portions of the R&R he’s objecting to—nor does he articulate any legal grounds

for his objection. We thus need not and will not treat these ramblings as proper objections to the

R&R. See Tardon, 493 F. Supp. 3d at 1209 (“Parties filing objections to a magistrate’s report and

recommendation must specifically identify those findings objected to. Frivolous, conclusive, or general

objections need not be considered by the district court.”).

3 The 1996 amendments to § 1915 moved the dismissal provision from § 1915(d) to § 1915(e)(2). See

Michael Zachary, Dismissal of Federal Actions and Appeals Under U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A(b), 42

U.S.C. § 1997e(c) and the Inherent Authority of the Federal Courts, 43 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 975 (1999–2000).

when “a complaint filed in forma pauperis which fails to state a claim lacks even an arguable basis in law,

Rule 12(b)(6) and § 1915(d) both counsel dismissal,” id. at 328 (emphasis added). And Wade’s

Complaint plainly lacks any arguable basis in law. It, after all, includes no factual allegations at all. It’s

just a hodgepodge of various state and federal causes of action—all lumped together and totally

disconnected from any legitimate factual basis. Indeed, having now read the Complaint several times,

we still have no idea how the Defendants harmed the Plaintiff or why they should be liable to him. See

Arthur v. Cir. Ct of 11th Jud. Cir., 2022 WL 1045646, at *1 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 7, 2022) (Scola, J.) (dismissing

a pro se complaint under § 1915(e)(2) because “the precise contours of [the plaintiff’s] allegations are .

. . impossible to discern” and because “[i]t does not include sufficient factual matter, accepted as true,

that would allow the Court to reasonably infer what [the plaintiff’s] claim or claims for relief against

the [d]efendants may be”). In any event, even if a complaint isn’t frivolous within the meaning of

§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(i), it may still be dismissed for failure to state a claim under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). See

Diarra v. Atlanta City Det. Ctr., 2020 WL 6867074, at *2 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 15, 2020) (dismissing complaint

under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) because, “[e]ven if it were not frivolous, it fails to state a claim for relief”); see

also Bilal v. Driver, 251 F.3d 1346, 1348 (11th Cir. 2001) (explaining that, under the amendments to §

1915, a complaint may be dismissed either as frivolous or for failure to state a claim). We therefore

overrule this first objection.

We also overrule the Plaintiff’s second objection because Magistrate Judge Reid properly

articulated her reasoning. In her R&R, Magistrate Judge Reid said that she had carefully reviewed the

Complaint and that she was “unable to determine the basis” for the Plaintiff’s claims—“[e]ven while

providing greater deference to [a] pro se litigant[.]” R&R at 3. She added that there were “no facts

within the six-line Statement of Claim section of the Complaint to support or sufficiently describe”

the Plaintiff’s claims. And (she concluded) the Plaintiff’s prayer for relief didn’t “clearly state the

remedy he seeks.” Ibid. As we’ve suggested, we agree with all of this. So, although the R&R was brief,

it didn’t fail to articulate Magistrate Judge Reid’s reasoning.

1K

After careful review, therefore, we ORDER AND ADJUDGE as follows:

1. The R&R [ECF No. 8] is ACCEPTED and ADOPTED in full.

2. The Defendant’s Motion for Leave to Proceed i Forma Pauperis [ECF No. 6] ts

DENIED.

3. This case is DISMISSED with prejudice.

4, The Clerk of Court shall CLOSE this case. Any pending motions are DENIED as

moot. All pending deadlines and hearings ace CANCELED.

DONE AND ORDERED in the Southern District of Florida on June 27, 2023.

“a

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

ce: counsel of record