The opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
NO. 23-CV-23287-ALTMAN/Reid
JEAN FRANTZ GUILLAUME,
Plaintiff,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al.,
Defendants.
___________________________________/
ORDER
Our Plaintiff, Jean Frantz Guillaume, has sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
(“VA”), the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Hearings & Appeals (“SBA”) (collectively,
the “Agency Defendants”), and five current or former officers of those agencies (collectively, the
“Individual Defendants”),1 asserting a long litany of constitutional, statutory, and common-law claims.
Guillaume’s claims arise from the VA’s decision to “remov[e] [his] application as a Service-Disabled
Veteran Owned Small Business in the U.S.” Compl. [ECF No. 1] ¶ 1. According to Guillaume,
throughout the application process, he “was subjected to unlawful conspiratorial retribution,
discrimination, retaliation, a hostile environment based on race, sex, age, and disabilities, and was
wrongfully denied application/verification from Defendant’s . . . illegal actions[.]” Id. ¶ 4 (errors in
original).
This isn’t the first time Guillaume has been before us. This is, in fact, his “fourth lawsuit
related to the participation of a business in a VA program providing preferential treatment to
1 The Individual Defendants are Kenneth M. Hyde, Christopher Holleman, Thomas McGrath,
Benjamin Ward, and John Perkins. See Compl. ¶¶ 8–9. Guillaume sues the Individual Defendants “in
their individual, as well as their official, capacities,” but, according to the Defendants, he “has not
properly served any individual Defendant in his individual capacity[.]” Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
[ECF No. 7] at 1 n.1.
businesses owned by disabled United States Veterans in the award of contracts with the agency.”
Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (“MTD”) [ECF No. 7] at 2 (first citing Afily8 Gov’t Sols. LLC v. United
States, No. 19-cv-61698 (S.D. Fla. July 29, 2019) (Bloom, J.); then citing Guillaume v. Hyde, 2020 WL
3317042 (S.D. Fla. June 18, 2020) (Altman, J.), aff’d sub nom., Guillaume v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs.,
847 F. App’x 627 (11th Cir. 2021); and then citing Guillaume v. Hyde, 2021 WL 7083359 (S.D. Fla. Aug.
9, 2021) (Middlebrooks, J.)).2 Those claims all arose from SBA’s decision to remove Guillaume’s
former business, AFILY8, from the VA’s veteran-owned vendor list—and the administrative-appeal
process that followed. See, e.g., Guillaume, 847 F. App’x at 628 (“Mr. Guillaume appealed the removal
of AFILY8 to Kenneth M. Hyde, an administrative judge of the Small Business Administration. Judge
Hyde denied Mr. Guillaume’s request for relief.”); see also Guillaume, 2021 WL 7083359, at *2 (“Mr.
Guillaume has sued all of the same defendants, except that in the instant action he has added the
United States of America as a defendant, and he relies on the same nucleus of facts that gave rise to
his claims in the Altman case.”).
This case, by contrast, arises out of the VA’s decision to remove Guillaume’s “application for
the Veterans First Contracting Program” through his new business, “Negro American,” in 2022,
“without procedural due process of law.” Compl. ¶¶ 70–72; see also Plaintiff’s Response (“Resp.”)
[ECF No. 15] at 2 (“Plaintiff, now doing business as ‘Negro American,’ . . . sued . . . for repetitive
conspiratorial, discriminatory, and retaliatory conduct by the Defendants in the removal of Plaintiff’s
documents and Plaintiff[’s] application submitted as a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small
Business[.]” (cleaned up)). In his Complaint, Guillaume asserts eleven counts, “sounding in the First,
Fourth, and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution (Counts I, II, IV, V and VI); the statute
2 “A district court may take judicial notice of certain facts without converting a motion to dismiss into
a motion for summary judgment.” Universal Express, Inc. v. SEC, 177 F. App’x 52, 53 (11th Cir. 2006)
(cleaned up). And public court records “are among the permissible facts that a district court may
consider.” Ibid. (first citing Stahl v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 327 F.3d 697, 700 (8th Cir. 2003); then citing
Bryant v. Avado Brands, Inc., 187 F.3d 1271, 1278 (11th Cir. 1999)).
governing the SDVOSB program, 38 U.S.C. § 8127 (Count III); negligence (Counts VII and VIII);
employment discrimination (Count IX); [ ] contract/unjust enrichment/fraud and breach of fiduciary
duty (Count X)[; and] . . . 38 U.S.C. § 4312 [(Count XI)].” MTD at 4–5; see also Compl. ¶¶ 10–124.
On November 11, 2023, the Defendants filed their Motion to Dismiss, arguing that all of
Guillaume’s claims against the Agency Defendants and the Individual Defendants (in their official
capacities) are barred by sovereign and judicial immunity, see MTD at 5–9, and that Guillaume failed
to properly serve the Individual Defendants in their individual capacities under FED. R. CIV. P. 4, id.
at 1 n.1 (“Plaintiff, however, has not properly served any individual Defendant in his individual
capacity as required by Rule 4[.]”). The Defendants also contend that the Complaint should be
dismissed as an impermissible “shotgun pleading[.]” Id. at 9 (“Plaintiff’s entire Complaint is a shotgun
pleading.”). We agree with that final argument and now dismiss the Complaint as a shotgun pleading.
THE LAW
To comply with federal pleading standards, a complaint “must contain . . . a short and plain
statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2). The
Federal Rules also require plaintiffs to “state [their] claims . . . in numbered paragraphs, each limited
as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances.” FED. R. CIV. P. 10(b). As the Eleventh Circuit
has explained, a complaint is a shotgun pleading if it:
(1) contains multiple counts where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding
counts; (2) is replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously
connected to any particular cause of action; (3) fails to separate into a different count
each cause of action; or (4) asserts multiple claims against multiple defendants without
specifying which defendant is responsible for which act.
Embree v. Wyndham Worldwide Corp., 779 F. App’x 658, 662 (11th Cir. 2019). All shotgun pleadings share
two characteristics. See Dorman v. Palm Beach Cnty., 2020 WL 2078527, at *1 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 30, 2020)
(Altman, J.). First, they “fail to one degree or another, and in one way or another, to give the defendants
adequate notice of the claims against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.” Weiland v.
Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 792 F.3d 1313, 1323 (11th Cir. 2015). Second, they “waste scarce judicial
resources, inexorably broaden the scope of discovery, wreak havoc on appellate court dockets, and
undermine the public’s respect for the courts.” Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1295
(11th Cir. 2018) (cleaned up).
“As [the Eleventh Circuit] ha[s] stated on several occasions . . . if, in the face of a shotgun
complaint, the defendant does not move the district court to require a more definite statement, the
court, in the exercise of its inherent power, must intervene sua sponte and order a repleader.” Byrne v.
Nezhat, 261 F.3d 1075, 1133 (11th Cir. 2001) (emphasis added), abrogated on other grounds by Bridge v.
Phoenix Bond & Indem. Co., 553 U.S. 639 (2008). “Discharging this duty ensures that the issues get
defined at the earliest stages of litigation. The district court should strike the complaint and instruct
counsel to replead the case—if counsel could in good faith make the representations required by Fed.
R. Civ. P. 11(b).” Id. at 1133 n.113 (cleaned up); see also Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d 1282, 1285 (11th
Cir. 2001) (vacating an order of dismissal and instructing the district court to “enter an order striking
the complaint and require a repleading of all claims in a complaint that respects the requirements of
Rule 8”); Anderson v. Dist. Bd. of Trs. of Cent. Fla. Cmty. Coll., 77 F.3d 364, 367 (11th Cir. 1996) (“On
examining those pleadings, the court, acting sua sponte, should have struck the plaintiff’s complaint,
and the defendants’ answer, and instructed plaintiff’s counsel to file a more definite statement.”).
ANALYSIS
Guillaume’s Complaint is a shotgun pleading because it “contain[s] multiple counts where each
count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that
came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at
1321. For example, Count III “incorporates by reference paragraphs 1 through above as though fully
set forth at length herein.” Compl. ¶ 41. So do Counts IV–VIII, see id. ¶¶ 48, 59, 68, 91, 95–96, and
Counts X–XI, see id. ¶¶ 104, 121. “By failing to incorporate only the specific factual allegations that
support the cause of action asserted in each count, [Guillaume] has committed what the Eleventh
Circuit has called the ‘cardinal sin’ of shotgun pleading.” Brown v. Air Line Pilots Ass’n, 2019 WL
13260855, at *3 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 24, 2019) (Altman, J.) (cleaned up).
Because the Complaint is a shotgun pleading, we decline to delve into its merits. See, e.g.,
Magluta, 256 F.3d at 1284 (“In the past when faced with complaints like this one, we have vacated
judgments and remanded with instructions that the district court require plaintiffs to replead their
claims. That is the appropriate disposition here.” (citing Cesnik v. Edgewood Baptist Church, 88 F.3d 902,
910 (11th Cir.1996))); see also ibid. (“[T]oleration of complaints such as this one ‘does great disservice
to the administration of civil justice.’” (quoting Johnson Enters. of Jacksonville, Inc. v. FPL Group, Inc., 162
F.3d 1290, 1332 (11th Cir. 1998))).
We therefore DISMISS the Complaint as a shotgun pleading and direct Guillaume to replead
his case without incorporating each count into every successive count. And, if Guillaume intends to
reassert his claims against the Individual Defendants in their individual capacities, he must make sure
that those Defendants have been properly served under FED. R. CIV. P. 4. Failure to comply with this
Order will result in dismissal without further notice.
* * *
After careful review, we hereby ORDER and ADJUDGE as follows:
1. The Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss [ECF No. 7] is GRANTED. The Complaint [ECF No.
1] is DISMISSED. The Plaintiff may file an amended complaint by March 18, 2024.
2. By March 27, 2024, the Plaintiff must file proof of service as to all Defendants.
3. This case is to remain STAYED and CLOSED until the Plaintiff properly serves all
Defendants.
DONE AND ORDERED in the Southern District of Florida on March 4, 2024.
ROY K. ALTMAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
CC: Jean Frantz Guillaume, pro se
counsel of record