Lambert v. Casteel

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

STEVEN LAMBERT, : CIV. NO. 1:22-CV-1220

:

Plaintiff, :

:

v. : (Magistrate Judge Carlson)

:

ROSS CASTEEL, :

:

Defendant. :

MEMORANDUM OPINION

I. Factual Background and Procedural History

This case comes before us for consideration of a motion to dismiss the pro se

plaintiff’s amended complaint. (Doc. 23). This case was referred to us on February

4, 2024, and upon review it is clear that we do not wrote upon a blank slate in this

case.

Quite the contrary, this district court has already determined that Lambert’s

initial complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted and

dismissed that complaint. (Docs. 18, 19). Thus, we are called upon to assess the legal

sufficiency of Lambert’s amended complaint. (Doc. 20). In undertaking this task, we

are struck by two facts: First, it is evident that Lambert’s claims continue to shift,

evolve, and transmogrify over time. Thus, the gist of Lambert’s initial complaint

related to the failure of local police to follow up on his allegations that he was

sexually assaulted in the course of a 2017 emergency room encounter during which

Lambert averred that FBI agents performed a rectal examination upon him. In stark

contrast, Lambert’s amended complaint asserts that an FBI agent forced him to

undergo unnecessary eye surgery in June of 2022 and that local police have failed to

aggressively pursue his allegations.

Second, we are constrained to observe that there is a recurring theme to these

disparate allegations that the FBI is compelling Lambert to undergo invasive medical

procedures and unnecessary ocular surgeries: The claims have the quality of things

that are more imagined than real.

Nonetheless, based upon these extraordinary averments relating to the FBI,

Lambert now sues a York City Police Officer, Ross Casteel. (Doc. 20). The

gravamen of Lambert’s latest allegations against Officer Casteel is that the officer

has violated Lambert’s substantive due process rights by exposing him to a state

created danger.

With Lambert’s latest allegations framed in this fashion, the defendant has

filed a motion to dismiss this amended complaint. (Doc. 23). This motion is fully

briefed and is, therefore, ripe for resolution.

For the reasons set forth below, the motion will be granted.

II. Discussion

A. Motions to Dismiss Under Rule 12(b)(6)—Standards of Review.

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of a

complaint. It is proper for the court to dismiss a complaint in accordance with Rule

12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only if the complaint fails to state

a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). With respect to

this benchmark standard for legal sufficiency of a complaint, the United States Court

of Appeals for the Third Circuit has aptly noted the evolving standards governing

pleading practice in federal court, stating that:

Standards of pleading have been in the forefront of jurisprudence in

recent years. Beginning with the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bell

Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), continuing with our

opinion in Phillips [v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 230 (3d Cir.

2008)], and culminating recently with the Supreme Court’s decision in

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, BU.S.B, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), pleading standards

have seemingly shifted from simple notice pleading to a more

heightened form of pleading, requiring a plaintiff to plead more than

the possibility of relief to survive a motion to dismiss.

Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 209-10 (3d Cir. 2009).

In considering whether a complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief

may be granted, the court must accept as true all allegations in the complaint and all

reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom are to be construed in the light

most favorable to the plaintiff. Jordan v. Fox, Rothschild, O’Brien & Frankel, Inc.,

20 F.3d 1250, 1261 (3d Cir. 1994). However, a court “need not credit a complaint’s

bald assertions or legal conclusions when deciding a motion to dismiss.” Morse v.

Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997). Additionally, a court

need not “assume that a . . . plaintiff can prove facts that the . . . plaintiff has not

alleged.” Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal. v. California State Council of

Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 526 (1983). As the Supreme Court held in Bell Atlantic

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), in order to state a valid cause of action, a

plaintiff must provide some factual grounds for relief which “requires more than

labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of

actions will not do.” Id. at 555. “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right

to relief above the speculative level.” Id.

In keeping with the principles of Twombly, the Supreme Court has

underscored that a trial court must assess whether a complaint states facts upon

which relief can be granted when ruling on a motion to dismiss. In Ashcroft v. Iqbal,

556 U.S. 662 (2009), the Supreme Court held that, when considering a motion to

dismiss, a court should “begin by identifying pleadings that, because they are no

more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.” Id. at 679.

According to the Supreme Court, “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of

action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. at 678. Rather,

in conducting a review of the adequacy of a complaint, the Supreme Court has

advised trial courts that they must:

[B]egin by identifying pleadings that because they are no more than

conclusions are not entitled to the assumption of truth. While legal

conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be

supported by factual allegations. When there are well-pleaded factual

allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine

whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.

Id. at 679.

Thus, following Twombly and Iqbal, a well-pleaded complaint must contain

more than mere legal labels and conclusions; it must recite factual allegations

sufficient to raise the plaintiff’s claimed right to relief beyond the level of mere

speculation. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has stated:

[A]fter Iqbal, when presented with a motion to dismiss for failure to

state a claim, district courts should conduct a two-part analysis. First,

the factual and legal elements of a claim should be separated. The

District Court must accept all of the complaint’s well-pleaded facts as

true, but may disregard any legal conclusions. Second, a District Court

must then determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are

sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a “plausible claim for relief.” In

other words, a complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff’s

entitlement to relief. A complaint has to “show” such an entitlement

with its facts.

Fowler, 578 F.3d at 210-11.

As the Court of Appeals has observed:

The Supreme Court in Twombly set forth the “plausibility” standard for

overcoming a motion to dismiss and refined this approach in Iqbal. The

plausibility standard requires the complaint to allege “enough facts to

state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S.

at 570, 127 S. Ct. 1955. A complaint satisfies the plausibility standard

when the factual pleadings “allow[ ] the court to draw the reasonable

inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal,

129 S. Ct. at 1949 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S. Ct. 1955).

This standard requires showing “more than a sheer possibility that a

defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. A complaint which pleads facts

“merely consistent with” a defendant’s liability, [ ] “stops short of the

line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement of relief.’ ”

Burtch v. Milberg Factors, Inc., 662 F.3d 212, 220-21 (3d Cir. 2011), cert. denied,

132 S. Ct. 1861, 182 L.Ed.2d 644 (2012).

In practice, consideration of the legal sufficiency of a complaint entails a

three-step analysis: “First, the court must ‘tak[e] note of the elements a plaintiff must

plead to state a claim.’ Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1947. Second, the court should identify

allegations that, ‘because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the

assumption of truth.’ Id. at 1950. Finally, ‘where there are well-pleaded factual

allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they

plausibly give rise to an entitlement for relief.’ Id.” Santiago v. Warminster Twp.,

629 F.3d 121, 130 (3d Cir. 2010).

In considering a motion to dismiss, the court generally relies on the complaint,

attached exhibits, and matters of public record. Sands v. McCormick, 502 F.3d 263,

268 (3d Cir. 2007). The court may also consider “undisputedly authentic

document[s] that a defendant attached as an exhibit to a motion to dismiss if the

plaintiff’s claims are based on the [attached] documents.” Pension Benefit Guar.

Corp. v. White Consol. Indus., 998 F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir. 1993). Moreover,

“documents whose contents are alleged in the complaint and whose authenticity no

party questions, but which are not physically attached to the pleading, may be

considered.” Pryor v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 288 F.3d 548, 560 (3d Cir.

2002); see also U.S. Express Lines, Ltd. v. Higgins, 281 F.3d 382, 388 (3d Cir. 2002)

(holding that “[a]lthough a district court may not consider matters extraneous to the

pleadings, a document integral to or explicitly relied upon in the complaint may be

considered without converting the motion to dismiss in one for summary

judgment”). However, the court may not rely on other parts of the record in

determining a motion to dismiss, or when determining whether a proposed amended

complaint is futile because it fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

Jordan v. Fox, Rothschild, O’Brien & Frankel, 20 F.3d 1250, 1261 (3d Cir. 1994).

It is against these legal guideposts that we assess the legal sufficiency of this

complaint.

B. The State Created Danger Doctrine

In its current form the gravamen of Lambert’s amended complaint is an

allegation that Defendant Casteel has violated his substantive due process rights and

exposed him to a state created danger by failing to follow up on his various

allegations that the FBI is indulging in physically invasive medical procedures and

forcing him to undergo unnecessary eye surgeries. Lambert faces an exacting burden

of pleading and proof in advancing this substantive due process, state created danger

claim. As we have observed:

An important starting point for this kind of substantive due process

analysis is recognition that the Supreme Court has found that the Due

Process Clause “d[oes] not impose an affirmative obligation on the state

to protect its citizens[.]” Bright v. Westmoreland Cty, 443 F.3d 276,

280 (3d Cir. 2006). On this score, the Supreme Court has stated:

The Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power

to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety

and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive

individuals of life, liberty, or property without “due

process of law,” but its language cannot fairly be extended

to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure

that those interests do not come to harm through other

means. Nor does history support such an expansive

reading of the constitutional text.

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Social Services, 489 U.S.

189, 195, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L. Ed. 2d 249 (1989). As such, the minimal

“affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the

individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him,

but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on

his own behalf.” Bright, 443 F.3d at 280-81 (quoting DeShaney, 489

U.S. at 199-200, 109 S.Ct. 998). In other words, “DeShaney stands for

the proposition that the Due Process Clause imposes no affirmative

duty to protect a citizen who is not in state custody.” Bright, 443 F.3d

at 281.

However, DeShaney does not preclude the existence of constitutional

violations where “state authority is affirmatively employed in a manner

that injures a citizen or renders him ‘more vulnerable to injury from

another source than he or she would have been in the absence of state

intervention.’ ” Bright, 443 F.3d at 281 (quoting Schieber v. City of

Philadelphia, 320 F.3d 409, 416 (3d Cir. 2003)). The Third Circuit has

accordingly recognized, but narrowly construed, the state-created

danger doctrine as a carefully crafted and specifically defined exception

to DeShaney’s scope. Construed in this narrow fashion the four

“essential elements” of the doctrine are as follows: (1) the harm

ultimately realized must have been foreseeable and fairly direct; (2) a

state actor must have acted with a degree of culpability that shocks the

conscience; (3) there must have been a relationship between the state

actor and the plaintiff such that the plaintiff was a foreseeable victim of

the defendant's acts, or a member of a discrete class of persons

subjected to the potential harm brought about by the state's actions; and

(4) a state actor must have affirmatively used his or her authority in a

way that created a danger to the citizen or caused the citizen to be more

vulnerable to danger than had the state not acted at all. Id.

Vorobyev v. Wolfe, 638 F. Supp. 3d 410, 423–24 (M.D. Pa. 2022).

Thus, at the outset, an essential element to any state created danger claim is a

showing that state actors were presented with some foreseeable future harm. On this

score, the future harm potentially facing the plaintiff must be defined with a high

degree of certainty.

In order to satisfy the first element of the state-created danger theory,

the plaintiffs bear the burden of showing “that the harm ultimately

caused was a foreseeable and fairly direct result of the state's actions.”

Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 907 (3d Cir. 1997).

This requirement obligates the plaintiffs to adduce evidence

demonstrating “an awareness on the part of the state actors that rises to

the level of actual knowledge or an awareness of risk that is sufficiently

concrete to put the actors on notice of the harm.” Phillips, 515 F.3d at

238.

Hamilton v. Spriggle, 965 F. Supp. 2d 550, 580 (M.D. Pa. 2013).

Confronted with this clearly foreseeable future harm, the state actor must

affirmatively use his or her authority in a way that created a danger to the citizen or

caused the citizen to be more vulnerable to that danger. In this regard, we have found

that:

This is a particularly difficult element of the state-created danger test to

prove, as courts have often noted. The Third Circuit has explained:

It is important to stress ... that under the fourth element of

a state-created danger claim, “[l]iability under the state-

created danger theory is predicated upon the states'

affirmative acts which work to the plaintiffs' detriments in

terms of exposure to danger.” D.R. by L.R. v. Middle

Bucks Area Vo. Tech. School, 972 F.2d 1364, 1374 (3d

Cir.1992) (en banc) (emphasis supplied); Brown v.

Grabowski, 922 F.2d 1097, 1100–01 (3d Cir.1990)

(finding that DeShaney [v. Winnebago County Dep't of

Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249

(1989) ] holds “that a state's failure to take affirmative

action to protect a victim from the actions of a third party

will not, in the absence of a custodial relationship ...

support a civil rights claim”). It is misuse of state

authority, rather than a failure to use it, that can violate the

Due Process Clause.

Bright v. Westmoreland County, 443 F.3d 276, 282 (3d Cir.2006). The

Third Circuit has acknowledged that drawing a distinction between

action and inaction is not always clear or easy. See D.R., 972 F.2d at

1374. However, the appeals court has emphasized that “we have never

found a state-created danger claim to be meritorious without an

allegation and subsequent showing that state authority was

affirmatively exercised.” Bright, 443 F.3d at 282. …. [T]he Third

Circuit held that a plaintiff must establish three elements in order to

show an affirmative act by state officials to satisfy the state-created

danger test: (1) a state actor exercised his or her authority; (2) the state

actor took an affirmative action; and (3) this act created a danger to the

citizen or rendered the citizen more vulnerable to danger than if the

state had not acted at all. Ye v. United States, 484 F.3d 634, 639 (3d

Cir.2007).

Hamilton, 965 F. Supp. 2d at 593–94.

These legal tenets serve as the guideposts for our evaluation of Lambert’s

amended complaint.

C. The Amended Complaint Will Be Dismissed.

Judged by these benchmarks, Lambert’s amended complaint continues to fail

to state a substantive due process claim under the state created danger doctrine. At

the outset, the factual premise underlying Lambert’s various complaints—his

assertion that the FBI has engaged in a far-reaching pattern of physical, sexual, and

medical abuse of the plaintiff spanning five years—is plainly more fantastic than

foreseeable. Thus, the amended complaint is subject to dismissal because it presents

a cause of action that Arelies on >fantastic or delusional scenarios.=” DeGrazia v.

F.B.I., 316 F. App'x 172, 173 (3d Cir. 2009) (quoting Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S.

319, 328, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989)). Furthermore, we are obliged to

Asua sponte dismiss a complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) when the allegations within the complaint

>are so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit, . . . wholly

insubstantial, . . . obviously frivolous, . . . plainly unsubstantial, . . . or no longer

open to discussion.= There is no question that [these] claims meet this standard, as

they rely on fantastic scenarios lacking any arguable factual basis.@ DeGrazia v.

F.B.I., 316 F. App'x 172, 173 (3d Cir. 2009) (quoting Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S.

528, 536-37, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974)) (internal citations and quotation

marks omitted).

Moreover, the fantastic nature of Lambert’s underlying allegations about

physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the FBI wholly undermine any state created

danger claim that Lambert may wish to level against Officer Casteel. At the outset,

the well-pleaded facts alleged by Lambert simply do not support an inference that

Officer Casteel had actual knowledge of or an awareness of a sufficiently concrete

foreseeable risk to Lambert’s safety. Quite the contrary, it appears that Lambert was

reporting what he believed to be past incidents, and not foreseeable future harms.

Furthermore, the nature of these allegations made by Lambert described matters that

were more fantastic rather than foreseeable. Therefore, Lambert’s state created

danger claim fails on the first element of any such claim—the existence of a readily

foreseeable, concrete future harm to the plaintiff.

This state created danger claim also founders on the final element of any such

claim, since Lambert has not alleged facts which would permit an inference that

Officer Casteel took some affirmative act which led to a state created danger. Quite

the contrary, Lambert’s complaint seems premised upon an alleged failure to act;

that is, the failure of the local police to aggressively investigate the strange scenarios

of past abuse by the FBI which he reported to them. Since a state created danger

claim must be based upon some affirmative act by state officers, these averments of

police inaction when presented with what were facially incredible claims by Lambert

simply do not satisfy the elements of the state created danger, substantive due

process doctrine.

III. Conclusion

Simply put, Lambert’s state created danger claim, which rests upon scenarios

that are more imagined than real, continues to fail as a matter of law. Therefore,

Lambert’s amended complaint will be dismissed. We are mindful of the fact that in

civil rights cases pro se plaintiffs often should be afforded an opportunity to amend

a complaint before the complaint is dismissed in its entirety, see Fletcher-Hardee

Corp. v. Pote Concrete Contractors, 482 F.3d 247, 253 (3d Cir. 2007), unless

granting further leave to amend is not necessary because amendment would be futile

or result in undue delay. Alston v. Parker, 363 F.3d 229, 235 (3d Cir. 2004). In this

case, however, Lambert was provided leave to amend but to no avail. Lambert’s

amended complaint still fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted and

the flaws in this pleading are so persistent and profound that they cannot be corrected

through any more artful form of pleading. Therefore, the amended complaint will be

dismissed with prejudice.

An appropriate order follows.

S/ Martin C. Carlson

Martin C. Carlson

United States Magistrate Judge

DATED: February 12th, 2024