# Inform Inc. v. Google LLC

> District Court, N.D. Georgia · September 20, 2021

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10126730

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, N.D. Georgia
- **Decided:** September 20, 2021
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10126730

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that where the dismissal occurs without any analysis of the merits of the state law claims, the dismissal of the state law claims should be without prejudice as to refiling in state court

## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
ATLANTA DIVISION

INFORM INC.,

Plaintiff,
v. CIVIL ACTION NO.
1:19-CV-05362-JPB
GOOGLE LLC, et al.,

Defendants.

ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Google LLC, Alphabet Inc. and YouTube,
LLC’s (collectively, “Defendants”) Motion to Dismiss the Complaint [Doc. 38].
This Court finds as follows:
BACKGROUND AND FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
On November 25, 2019, Inform Inc. (“Plaintiff”) filed this action against
Defendants asserting federal anti-trust claims and a state law claim for tortious
interference. [Doc. 1]. Defendants promptly moved for dismissal on January 22,
2020. [Doc. 16]. On September 25, 2020, the Court granted in part and denied in
part Defendants’ motion. [Doc. 33]. Without ruling on the merits of Defendants’
motion, the Court determined that Plaintiff’s Complaint, which was 105 pages, was
a “quintessential ‘shotgun’ pleading of the kind [the Eleventh Circuit has]
condemned repeatedly.” Id. at 3 (quoting Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d 1282,
1284 (11th Cir. 2001)). The Court noted that it was “virtually impossible” to know

which allegations of fact were intended to support which claims of relief since each
cause of action incorporated more than 190 paragraphs. Id. Instead of dismissing
Plaintiff’s Complaint, this Court identified the pleading deficiencies and ordered
Plaintiff to file an amended complaint in accordance with the following

instructions:
(1) Inform may not include conclusory, vague and immaterial
facts that do not clearly connect to a particular cause of
action.

(2) Inform may not incorporate every factual paragraph into
each count.

(3) Inform must indicate which of the factual paragraphs
support each individual count alleged.

(4) Inform must identify what precise conduct is attributable to
each individual defendant separately in each count when
asserting a single count against multiple defendants.

(5) Each individual count may only be based on a single legal
claim (i.e., Inform may not assert a violation of § 2 of the
Sherman Act and a violation of § 3 of the Clayton Act
together in the same count).

Id. at 5-6.
Plaintiff filed an eighty-nine page First Amended Complaint (“Amended
Complaint”) on October 9, 2020, and asserted the following causes of action: (1)
Violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act (Unreasonable Restraints on Trade); (2)
Violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act (Monopoly Maintenance); (3) Violation of § 2

of the Sherman Act (Monopoly Leveraging); (4) Violation of § 2 of the Sherman
Act (Attempted Monopolization); (5) Violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act
(Exclusive Dealing); (6) Violation of § 3 of the Clayton Act (Exclusive Dealing
and Tying); and (7) Tortious Interference. [Doc. 35]. Plaintiff primarily relies on

the same set of facts for each cause of action.1 Those facts are discussed
immediately below.
This case primarily involves online advertising. Online advertising consists

of marketing advertisements, which are delivered through the Internet on both
desktop and mobile devices. Id. at 12. Like other advertising media, online

1 In the original Complaint, as already explained herein, Plaintiff incorporated all 194
allegations into each of the enumerated causes of action. The Court explained in its
previous order that this pleading style required the reader to parse through numerous
allegations to identify those that have some relevance to a particular defendant or cause
of action. [Doc. 33, p. 4]. Plaintiff was ordered to replead and specifically directed not
to incorporate each and every factual allegation into the causes of action. In the
Amended Complaint, Plaintiff does not incorporate over 190 paragraphs. Plaintiff
continues, however, to incorporate a vast number of irrelevant facts into each count.
Consider this chart:

Count Paragraphs Incorporated
I (Unreasonable Restraints on Trade) 6-7, 9, 69-78, 102-157
II (Monopoly Maintenance) 6-7, 9, 69-78, 102-157
III (Monopoly Leveraging) 6-7, 9, 69-78, 102-157, 159-165
IV (Attempted Monopolization) 9, 102-157
V (Exclusive Dealing) 6-7, 69-78, 126, 132-157
VI (Exclusive Dealing and Tying) 6-7, 69-78, 126, 131-157
VII (Tortious Interference) 127-130
advertising often includes: (1) a publisher, who integrates advertisements into its

online content; (2) an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be displayed;
and (3) advertising agencies that help create and place the ads. Id.
Plaintiff is a digital media company that provides a platform of services to
online publishers, content creators and online advertisers. Id. at 38. Specifically,

Plaintiff manages the distribution and delivery of video advertisements from
content creators into articles on newspaper, magazine, radio and television
websites. Id. at 38-39. In so doing, Plaintiff works with both publishers (i.e.,

website operators for newspaper, magazine, radio and television sites) and
advertisers. Id. at 39. As to the publishers, Plaintiff’s platform enables them to
pair corresponding video with their original text content to enhance the user’s
experience and understanding of the publisher’s story. Id. As to the advertisers,

Plaintiff’s platform provides brands with an opportunity to deliver video
advertisements to the audience that is most likely to consume their products. Id.
At its peak, Plaintiff had an inventory of ad space from a network of approximately

5,000 publishers. Id. at 42. According to Plaintiff, this “aggregated digital
audience allowed [it] to work with a brand (or the advertising agency representing
a brand) to optimize the placement of its ads to reach that brand’s specific target
demographic.” Id. Plaintiff contends that between 2010 to 2017, it garnered

revenue of more than $180 million. Id. at 43.
Plaintiff asserts that Defendants have engaged in anticompetitive conduct
that has destroyed its business. Id. at 54-55. Very generally, Plaintiff alleges that
because a company’s advertising services must be compatible with Google’s ad

products and Google’s Chrome Browser, Defendants are able to influence industry
standards in its own favor by setting arbitrary and anti-competitive rules by which
video content and video advertisements are enabled, viewable and audible, which

ultimately preference Defendants’ products and services. Id. at 48-49.
According to Plaintiff, one such example of these “arbitrary and anti-
competitive rules” was Google’s decision to transition from Flash to HTML5.
Flash is a proprietary digital software developed by Adobe. Id. at 49. Plaintiff

asserts that Flash was the standard for playing video on websites for more than a
decade, and, as a result, most advertising content was developed in Flash. Id.
Plaintiff contends that in 2014, Google began offering Flash-to-HTML5

conversion tools for the Google Display Network that would create a backup
HTML5 video advertisement to run when Flash was disabled or otherwise not
supported. Id. at 50. On January 27, 2015, YouTube announced that it would no
longer be using Flash by default and would instead be using the HTML5 video
player in Google’s Chrome and other browsers. Id. at 50-51. In February 2015,

Google started to automatically convert both existing and new advertisements that
were supported by Flash to HTML5 but only when the advertiser uploaded their
ads through Google’s AdWords, AdWords Editor or third-party tools that worked
with Google’s ad platform. Id. at 51. Plaintiff asserts that in June 2015, Google

Chrome began to “intelligently pause” ads that were supported by Flash. Id. at 52.
Ultimately, Plaintiff alleges that by 2017, Google disabled Flash entirely in favor
of HTML5.2 Id. at 53. Although HTML5 is not owned by Defendants, as it is an

open-source technology, Plaintiff contends that Google has more control over how,
when and what videos are played with HTML5 than it had with Flash. Id. at 56.
Plaintiff asserts that because of Google’s transition to HTML5, advertisers
that had ads supported by Flash either had to convert their content to HTML5 or

migrate to the Google network to reach target users. Id. at 51. When Flash was
disabled in 2017, Plaintiff contends that it had the “immediate effect” of
foreclosing a very significant portion of online advertisers from reaching users and

target audiences. Id. at 54. As a result of this conduct, Plaintiff asserts that Google

2 By disabling Flash, if an advertisement supported by Flash was presented to a
consumer, a pop-up would appear to the consumer asking if that consumer “wanted to
allow Adobe Flash to run on this site?” [Doc. 35, p. 53]. By clicking allow, a consumer
could still see the advertisement. Id. It is Plaintiff’s contention that most consumers
would not authorize Flash to run, and thus the advertisement would never be seen. Id. at
54.
“syphoned off customers from [Plaintiff] and other competitors and hundreds of

online advertisers and publishers withered and died, while Google and YouTube
plundered valuable video advertisements that had supported publisher’s websites.”
Id. at 51-52. Ultimately, Plaintiff argues that it was “severely impacted overnight,”
and its business was sent “plummeting.” Id. at 55.

Plaintiff additionally asserts that Google engaged in the following
anticompetitive conduct: (1) exclusive dealing and anticompetitive contracts; (2)
illegal tying and bundling of services; (3) unilateral setting and altering of

technological standards; (4) manipulative and technological blocking, exclusion,
downgrading and denial of interoperability; (5) preferential treatment of its own
products and services; (6) denial of interoperability and purposeful incompatibility;
(7) opacity as to function, pricing and data; and (8) predatory pricing. Id. at 60-68.

LEGAL STANDARD
On November 13, 2020, Defendants filed the instant Motion to Dismiss the
Complaint. [Doc. 38]. In evaluating a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the court “accept[s] the allegations in the complaint as
true and constru[es] them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Traylor v.
P’ship Title Co., LLC, 491 F. App’x 988, 989 (11th Cir. 2012). Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) provides that a pleading must contain “a short and plain
statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Although

detailed factual allegations are not necessarily required, the pleading must contain
more than “labels and conclusions” or a “formulaic recitation of the elements of a
cause of action.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Importantly, “a
complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim

to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Id. (citation omitted). At bottom, the
complaint must contain more than “an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-
harmed-me accusation,” id., and must “plead[] factual content that allows the court

to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct
alleged.” Traylor, 491 F. App’x at 990 (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678).
ANALYSIS
In their Motion to Dismiss, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s Amended

Complaint is still a shotgun pleading. [Doc. 38-1, p. 8]. Defendants also argue
that Plaintiff lacks antitrust standing and that the claims suffer from myriad
pleading and legal deficiencies. Id. at 16.

1. Shotgun Pleading
As already explained at length in this Court’s September 25, 2020 Order,
“[c]ourts in the Eleventh Circuit have little tolerance for shotgun pleadings.” Vibe
Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1295 (11th Cir. 2018). Typically,
shotgun pleadings are characterized by: (1) multiple counts that each adopt the

allegations of the preceding counts; (2) conclusory, vague and immaterial facts that
do not clearly connect to a particular cause of action; (3) failing to separate each
cause of action into distinct counts; or (4) combining multiple claims against
multiple defendants without specifying which defendant is responsible for which

act. McDonough v. City of Homestead, 771 F. App’x 952, 955 (11th Cir. 2019).
Shotgun pleadings “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.” Arrington v. Green, 757 F. App’x 796, 797 (11th
Cir. 2018). Shotgun pleadings,
whether filed by plaintiffs or defendants, exact an intolerable toll
on the trial court's docket, lead to unnecessary and unchannelled
discovery, and impose unwarranted expense on the litigants, the
court and the court's parajudicial personnel and resources.
Moreover, justice is delayed for the litigants who are “standing
in line,” waiting for their cases to be heard. The courts of
appeals and the litigants appearing before them suffer as well.

Jackson v. Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1356-57 (11th Cir. 2018).
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has even stated that tolerating
shotgun pleadings “constitutes toleration of obstruction of justice.” Id. at
1357.
To be sure, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is cumbersome and suffers from

some of the same deficiencies as the first. While the Amended Complaint no
longer has multiple counts that adopt the allegations of the preceding counts and
does not fail to separate each cause of action into distinct counts, at eighty-nine
pages, the Amended Complaint is in no sense a “short and plain statement of the

claim” required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Particularly concerning
to this Court is Plaintiff’s inclusion of numerous conclusory, vague and immaterial
facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action. In fact, Plaintiff

still incorporates more than sixty paragraphs into each cause of action. Plaintiff
also never specifies which defendant is responsible for which act or omissions;
instead, Plaintiff simply lumps the conduct of Defendants together. For the
reasons explained below, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is an impermissible

shotgun pleading subject to dismissal.
A. Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is replete with conclusory, vague and
immaterial facts that do not clearly connect to a particular cause of
action.

In the Court’s first instruction to Plaintiff, Plaintiff was directed not to
include conclusory, vague and immaterial facts that are not clearly connected to a
particular cause of action. [Doc. 33, p. 5]. Although Plaintiff made some changes
to its Complaint, it failed to adequately comply with this instruction. As an initial
matter, in the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff describes at length the growth of

Google’s search engine, which plays no role in any cause of action. [Doc. 35, pp.
17-19]. Plaintiff also describes various acquisitions but does not base any claim on
them. Id. at 26-29. Moreover, Plaintiff asserts that Google improperly influences
the government yet does not state a claim based on this purported influence. Id. at

74-75. These factual assertions, which are not connected to any of the causes of
action, are almost ten pages in length.
As to the causes of actions specifically, this Court recognizes that Plaintiff

no longer incorporates every paragraph into the causes of action. Nevertheless, the
pleading is still improper. By way of example, Count 1 targets unreasonable
restraints on trade. The elements of a § 1 claim are: (1) an agreement between two
or more parties (2) that unreasonably restrains trade. Levine v. Cent. Fla. Med.

Affiliates, Inc., 72 F.3d 1538, 1545 (11th Cir. 1996).
In Count 1, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint asserts several conclusory
paragraphs, which include allegations that “[i]ndividually and in combination,

[Defendants’] Anticompetitive Restraints constitute illegal restrictions,
agreements, and barriers that are intended to and do in fact prevent, restrict or
interfere with competition in Defendants’ Leveraged Monopolies in violation of
the Sherman Act,” “[t]he Google Defendants are combinations within the meaning
of [§ 1 of the Sherman Act]” and “Plaintiff has suffered, continues to suffer, and

will suffer until the Court enters the relief requested below, an antitrust injury
resulting from [Defendants’] Anticompetitive Restraints as described herein.”
[Doc. 35, p. 76]. In addition to these conclusory paragraphs, Plaintiff then
incorporates by reference more than sixty paragraphs—the same sixty plus

paragraphs incorporated into all the other causes of action.
In violation of this Court’s previous order, most of these paragraphs have
nothing to do with a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. For instance, spanning

almost ten pages, Plaintiff discusses Google’s transition from Flash to HTML5. In
these paragraphs, Plaintiff never identifies a conspiracy or an agreement with
another entity which would amount to an antitrust violation. While these
paragraphs are comprehensible and this Court understands that Flash is now

disabled in the Google Chrome Browser, Plaintiff never explains why this
transition violated various antitrust laws or was otherwise illegal. It seems to the
Court that many facts alleged by Plaintiff are simply aimed at creating the

impression that Google is a bad actor.
At bottom, Plaintiff should have specifically directed this Court to an
agreement between two or more parties. In the allegations to support Count 1,
Plaintiff does not identify any specific agreement and instead refers the Court to
paragraphs 9 and 102-157. [Doc. 35, p. 76]. Certainly, most of these allegations

have nothing to do with an agreement between two or more parties. To determine
whether Plaintiff has stated a claim here, Plaintiff expects this Court to comb
through more than sixty paragraphs (and over twenty-five pages) to identify which
agreement between two or more persons or entities unreasonably restrains trade.

The Court is not willing to undergo this type of analysis. “The federal judiciary is
a system of scarce resources,” and “district courts have neither the manpower nor
the time to sift through a morass of irrelevant facts in order to piece together claims

for plaintiff’s counsel.” Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1327-28 (11th Cir.
2021) (Tjoflat, J., concurring). Importantly, “district courts are flatly forbidden
from scouring shotgun complaints to craft a potentially viable claim for a plaintiff.
By digging through a complaint in search of a valid claim, the courts ‘would give

the appearance of lawyering for one side of the controversy.’” Id. at 1328.
Ultimately, because Plaintiff again chose to incorporate numerous immaterial facts
to support the causes of action, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint remains a shotgun

pleading.
B. Plaintiff failed to adequately identify the precise conduct that is
attributable to each defendant.

Plaintiff was also specifically instructed by this Court that when a single
count is brought against multiple defendants, Plaintiff must identify what precise
conduct is attributable to each individual defendant. [Doc. 33, p. 5]. Plaintiff

contends that it complied with this directive because Defendants operate as a single
entity. Plaintiff thus added the following allegation to its Amended Complaint:
Collectively, the Google Defendants are operated and controlled
as a single entity, with Sundar Pichai acting as the CEO of both
companies. Not only did Google essentially create Alphabet as a
holding company in 2015, but virtually all of Alphabet’s
revenues comes from Google. YouTube, in turn, is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Google and is controlled and operated as
such. Alphabet filed its 10-K and 10-Q statements with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, reporting consolidated
revenues for all of the Google Defendants. In fact, these
statements expressly define Alphabet as “Alphabet Inc. and its
subsidiaries.”

[Doc. 35, p. 10]. This allegation is not sufficient to comply with the Court’s
directive. Simply put, the allegation does not plausibly show that all the
defendants participated in all the alleged anticompetitive conduct. It is important
to attribute the specific conduct to the specific defendant because liability for both
a subsidiary and parent is not automatic where “there is no evidence that both were
involved in the challenged conduct.” In re Fla. Cement & Concrete Antitrust
Litig., 746 F. Supp. 2d 1291, 1324 (S.D. Fla. 2010) (quoting Mitchael v. Intracorp.,
Inc., 179 F.3d 847, 857 (10th Cir. 1999)). At bottom, even though this Court
ordered Plaintiff to specify which conduct was attributable to which defendant,
Plaintiff did not do so.
Although Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint corrects some of the pleading

deficiencies and does not demonstrate all the previously identified characteristics
of shotgun pleadings, this Court cannot ignore that Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint
undoubtedly continues to exhibit key characteristics of shotgun pleadings. As
explained earlier, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is rife with immaterial factual

and conclusory allegations. Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint also does not specify
which defendants are responsible for which acts or omissions. For these reasons,
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint remains a “quintessential ‘shotgun’ pleading of the

kind [the Eleventh Circuit has] condemned repeatedly.” Magluta, 256 F.3d at
1284. Accordingly, dismissal is appropriate in this case.
2. Antitrust Standing
Even though dismissal is appropriate on shotgun pleading grounds, dismissal

is also required because Plaintiff has not shown antitrust standing. “A private
plaintiff seeking damages under the antitrust laws must establish standing to sue.”
Fla. Seed Co. v. Monsanto Co., 105 F.3d 1372, 1374 (11th Cir. 1997). To have

antitrust standing, a plaintiff must do more than satisfy the basic “injury in fact”
and “case or controversy” requirements that would satisfy constitutional standing.
Id. In addition to these constitutional requirements, “the court must find a close
relationship between the plaintiff’s injury and the alleged antitrust violation.”

Amey, Inc. v. Gulf Abstract & Title, Inc., 758 F.2d 1486, 1493 (11th Cir. 1985).
The Eleventh Circuit has established a “two-pronged approach” in deciding
whether a plaintiff has antitrust standing. Id. First, a plaintiff must establish that it
has suffered “antitrust injury.” Fla. Seed, 105 F.3d at 1374. Second, a plaintiff

must establish that it is an “efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws.” Id.
A. Antitrust Injury
Antitrust injury is defined as:

injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and
that flows from that which makes the defendants' acts unlawful.
The injury should reflect the anticompetitive effect either of the
violation or of anticompetitive acts made possible by the
violation. It should, in short, be “the type of loss that the claimed
violations . . . would be likely to cause.”

Todorov v. DCH Healthcare Auth., 921 F.2d 1438, 1449 (11th Cir. 1991) (quoting
Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 489 (1977)).
Generally, a plaintiff must prove that there is a public harm that coincides with the
antitrust plaintiff’s private harm. Id. at 1449-50. In fact, “[w]here an antitrust
plaintiff merely alleges harm to an individual competitor not harm to competition
generally, antitrust injury has not been established and dismissal is warranted.”
QSGI, Inc. v. IBM Glob. Fin., No. 11-CV-80880, 2012 WL 13019046, at *3 (S.D.
Fla. July 31, 2012).
As to the alleged antitrust injury, Plaintiff asserts in its Amended Complaint

that “Defendants’ Anticompetitive Restraints have resulted in significant monetary
injury to Plaintiff, as well as higher prices paid by consumers for retail products,
higher prices for advertising and the forcing of Plaintiff and others to use Google
products and services.” [Doc. 35, p. 76]. Plaintiff also alleges that Google has

“effectively put [it] out of business.” Id. at 2. After review, this Court finds that
these allegations are too conclusory to establish an antitrust injury. Here, Plaintiff
provides no factual support to show that Defendants weakened competition beyond

Plaintiff’s claim that Plaintiff was put out of business. Moreover, Plaintiff
provides no factual support to show that prices are higher for retail products or that
prices are higher for advertising. Ultimately, these “naked assertions” devoid of
further factual enhancement are insufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.

B. Efficient Enforcer
A plaintiff must also show that it is an efficient enforcer of antitrust laws.
Courts generally consider the following factors when determining whether a

plaintiff is an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws:
(1) whether the plaintiff has suffered a direct injury; (2) whether
its injury is remote; (3) whether other plaintiffs are better suited
to bring the suit; (4) whether the plaintiff's injuries are
speculative; (5) whether the calculation of damages would be
complex and run the risk of duplicative recoveries; and (6)
whether the plaintiff could enforce the court's judgment.
Duty Free Ams., Inc, v. Estee Lauder Cos., 797 F.3d 1248, 1273 n.5 (11th Cir.
2015).

As to the first factor, Plaintiff has not suffered a direct injury. Based on the
allegations in the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff would have been injured only if:
(1) a publisher provided video advertising space on its website to Plaintiff; (2)
Plaintiff selected advertisements for the space that were not compatible with

HTML5; (3) a consumer viewed the publisher’s website using Chrome; and (4) the
consumer would have clicked on or viewed the ad but did not do so because of
Chrome’s limitations. Only then, because the publisher and advertiser were

injured, would Plaintiff suffer an injury. Given this chain of events needed to
occur before injury, not only is Plaintiff’s injury not direct, but it is also remote and
speculative. Importantly, given that advertisers, publishers and Adobe suffered a
direct injury, they are better suited to bring this action. After considering the

factors, this Court finds that Plaintiff is not an efficient enforcer of the antitrust
laws.
Ultimately, Plaintiff must do more than satisfy the constitutional minimums

to have standing, and Plaintiff has not done so in this case. First, Plaintiff has not
alleged antitrust injury because the allegations are too conclusory. Second,
Plaintiff has not shown it is an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws.
Accordingly, dismissal is appropriate on this alternative ground.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss [Doc. 38] is
GRANTED on shotgun pleading grounds, and alternatively on standing grounds.
The state law tortious interference claim is DISMISSED without prejudice.? The
remaining claims are DISMISSED with prejudice.*- The Clerk is DIRECTED to
close this case.
SO ORDERED this 20th day of September, 2021.

(\ A
- oe el, ———
J.\P. BOULEE
United States District Judge

> Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1296-97 (11th Cir. 2018) (holding that
where the dismissal occurs without any analysis of the merits of the state law claims, the
dismissal of the state law claims should be without prejudice as to refiling in state court).
* Jackson v. Bank of Am., N.A., 898 F.3d 1348, 1358 (11th Cir. 2018) (determining that
a court does not abuse its discretion in dismissing the case with prejudice on shotgun
pleading grounds where the plaintiff had fair notice of the defects and a meaningful
chance to fix them).
19

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10126730. Public record. Not legal advice.