Sharp v. Wenski

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

CASE NO. 25-cv-20379-ALTMAN

DARYL SHARP,

Plaintiff,

v.

THOMAS WENSKI,

Defendant.

______________________________/

ORDER

Our pro se Plaintiff, Daryl Sharp, has sued Thomas Wenski, the archbishop of the

Archdiocese of Miami. See Complaint [ECF No. 1]. Unfortunately, we can’t really say what his suit is

about. As best as we can tell, Sharp appears to allege a global conspiracy led by the Catholic Church,

in which the Defendant orchestrated “mass shootings against children and law enforcement

personnel,” “manipulat[ed] the bible,” and stole “government funds[.]” Id. at 3–4 (cleaned up). As

relief, he asks for $500 trillion dollars in “restoration of government funding[.]” Ibid. (cleaned up); see

ibid. (also claiming $500 million dollars at issue “to be returned to the U.S. Treasury” and $50 billion

in “Catholic financial statements” (cleaned up)). His 117-page Complaint is replete with hastily-

photocopied news clippings, bible verses, block paragraphs of word salad, excerpts of court

opinions, and financial reports. It’s often unclear where the text of his Complaint ends and his

exhibits begin.

Sharp’s allegations are “clearly baseless, fanciful, fantastic, [and] delusional,” and they lack

“any arguable basis in either law or fact[.]” Atraqchi v. United States, 2021 WL 4806405, at *1 (11th

Cir. Oct. 15, 2021). The statement of Sharp’s claim, moreover, includes not a single numbered

paragraph, his Complaint and attached exhibits are “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial

facts,” and he “fails to separate into a different count each cause of action.” Embree v. Wyndham

Worldwide Corp., 779 F. App’x 658, 662 (11th Cir. 2019). Sharp’s Complaint is thus a frivolous

shotgun pleading that must be dismissed.

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. Accordingly, 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 rewrite an otherwise deficient

pleading in order to sustain an action,” Curtiss v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 856 F. App’x 276, 276 (11th Cir.

2021) (cleaned up). 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. . . . Judges 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

Sharp’s Complaint is incomprehensible. He alleges that the Defendant orchestrated “mass

shootings against children and law enforcement personnel,” “manipulat[ed] the bible,” and stole

“government funds[.]” Complaint at 3–4 (cleaned up). And he doesn’t allege any cognizable or

plausible facts to support his “naked assertions of a conspiracy[.]” Williams, Scott & Assocs. LLC v.

Yates, 842 F. App’x 539, 540 (11th Cir. 2021) (“Williams’s naked assertions of a conspiracy involving

more than a dozen federal agents, judges, and lawyers, without any sufficient supporting factual

allegations to allege a plausible claim, is the type of fanciful complaint the frivolity screening seeks to

reject.”). Instead, he just attaches “photographs of several individuals” and “illegible documents”

with little explanation as to how any of these relate to his claims. See Sharp v. Dolan, 2023 WL

7411341, at *2 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 4, 2023) (Sneed, Mag. J.), report and recommendation adopted, 2023 WL

7411339 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 20, 2023) (Merryday, J.), aff’d, 2024 WL 4647986 (11th Cir. Nov. 1, 2024).

“A claim is frivolous when it ‘lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact.’” Miller v.

Donald, 541 F.3d 1091, 1100 (11th Cir. 2008) (first quoting Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327

(1989); and then citing Bilal v. Driver, 251 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2001)). “Nothing in [Sharp’s]

confusion of papers presents—even in incipient form—a cognizable claim for relief.” Sharp v. Dolan,

2023 WL 4359107, at *1 (M.D. Fla. June 20, 2023) (Merryday, J.), appeal dismissed, 2023 WL 9023338

(11th Cir. Aug. 25, 2023); see also Williams, Scott & Assocs. LLC, 842 F. App’x at 540 (holding that

“[t]he district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the amended complaint as frivolous

because its factual contentions were pure conjecture and baseless, as Williams failed to support his

numerous accusations . . . with any factual allegations other than conclusory and dubious

statements.”). His mess of exhibits certainly doesn’t provide any “sufficient supporting factual

allegations[.]” Williams, Scott & Assocs. LLC, 842 F. App’x at 540.1

And nowhere in Sharp’s statement of his claim does he allege how (or even if) he’s been

injured by the Defendant. See Complaint at 4; Mittenthal v. Fla. Panthers Hockey Club, Ltd., 472 F.

Supp. 3d 1211 (S.D. Fla. 2020) (Altman, J.) (“To establish their standing, the Plaintiffs ‘must have (1)

suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and

(3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.’” (first quoting Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins,

––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016); and then citing Lujan v. Def.’s of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555,

560 (1992))). All Sharp says—buried on page sixteen of his exhibits—is this: he was (1) “shot 6

times at point blank range when it was discovered that, my former Catholic wife was one of millions

used across this country;” and (2) “a car was sent careening into my back at 40 MPH” in a “present

attack by the Diocese of St. Petersburg . . . [under] Rick Wells, Deacon under Archbishop Gregory

Parkes direction[.]” Complaint at 16 (cleaned up & errors in original). He never explains how the

Defendant is connected to these “continuing attacks” or how they’re related to his genocide, use of

weapons of mass destruction, or racketeering claims. See id. at 3, 18. In fact, he says that these attacks

were organized by a network of “100 elders . . . hiding inside” and “working in the Congressional

offices”—not the Defendant himself. Id. at 18. Obviously, this won’t do.2

1 Sharp, it’s true, does include (illegible) “financial statements” from “around the country and the

globe” that allegedly show “the massive theft of government grants . . . illegal under the separation

of church and state[.]” See, e.g., Complaint at 15, 66–84. And he attaches pictures of the Bible with

the following (unreadable) explanation: “Jehovah’s name identified at Exodus 3:14 . . . this

invalidate[s] all teachings of the Catholic Church and falling under Title 18 § 1091 for manipulation

of teaching manual for theft, abuse, and murder[.]” Id. at 50–52 (cleaned up & errors in original). But

these indecipherable exhibits and unintelligible explanations don’t give the Defendant “fair notice of

what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests[.]” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.

2 If that weren’t enough, Sharp’s Complaint is also an impermissible shotgun pleading. 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). “A shotgun pleading is one that

Moreover, Sharp’s Complaint appears to include a request for reconsideration of a prior

order by Judge Steven D. Merryday in the Middle District of Florida, dismissing a similar complaint

against Timothy Dolan, a cardinal of the Catholic Church. See Complaint at 16 (“At issue is the

opinion rendered by Judge Steven Merryday on October 17, 2023 using Title 18 Section 1915 A

dismissing court case number 8:23 CV 1973 as frivolous. . . . Title 18 Section 1915(G) would

eliminate reverse and vacate the frivolity claim used by Judge Merryday[.]” (cleaned up & errors in

original)).3 He now sues here (the Southern District of Florida) presumably because he’s a restricted

filer there (the Middle District of Florida). And he became a restricted filer because he filed at least

six actions there “accus[ing]”—as he does here—“the Catholic Church of violations of the United

lacks the minimum clarity, brevity, or coherence required by Rules 8 and 10 of the Federal Rules of

Civil Procedure.” Webb v. Miami-Dade Cnty. Gov’t, 2023 WL 7299859, at *2 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 6, 2023)

(Altman, J.) (cleaned up). 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, 779 F. App’x at 662. All shotgun pleadings share two characteristics. One, 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.” Dorman v. Palm Beach Cnty., 2020 WL

2078527, at *1 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 30, 2020) (Altman, J.) (quoting Weiland v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s

Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1323 (11th Cir. 2015)). Two, 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.” Ibid. (quoting Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets, 878 F.3d 1291, 1295 (11th Cir.

2018) (cleaned up)).

Sharp’s 117-page compilation of documents, pictures, and word salad clearly falls into

Embree’s second and third categories of shotgun pleadings. But we won’t spend any more time on

Sharp’s procedural failings because his “wildly implausible” substantive allegations are plainly

frivolous. See Miller, 541 F.3d at 1100.

3 There’s no action by Sharp with that case number in the Middle District of Florida. We think Sharp

may, instead, be referring to Judge Merryday’s order dismissing his Complaint in No. 23-cv-01978,

an action in which he brought similar claims. See Sharp v. Dolan, 2023 WL 7411339, at *2.

Alternatively, Sharp could be referring to the Oct. 17, 2023, Judge Merryday Order in No. 23-cv-

1867 enjoining his “filing in the Middle District of Florida any new action against Timothy Dolan,

the Catholic Church, or a Catholic Church official” pro se. See Sharp v. Dolan, 2023 WL 7411339, at

*1. Regardless, Sharp’s Complaint must be dismissed as frivolous and as a shotgun pleading.

States criminal code.” Order, Sharp v. Dolan, No. 23-cv-01978 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 31, 2023) (Merryday,

J.), ECF No. 12 at 1 (identifying Sharp as a restricted filer).4

For starters, Sharp’s request for relief is improper. The proper vehicle to request

reconsideration of an order is a motion asking for that relief. See S.D. FLA. L. R. 7.1(a)(2) (referring to

“relief sought in the motion” (emphasis added)). More importantly, the Eleventh Circuit already

affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Complaint in that prior action as “frivolous[.]” Sharp v. Dolan,

2024 WL 4647986, at *1 (11th Cir. Nov. 1, 2024) (“Nor did the district court err in refusing to allow

Sharp leave to amend his shotgun pleading against Archbishop Dolan and officials of the Catholic

Church in the light of his history of filing frivolous and previously dismissed complaints against

them.”). And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing here. Sharp may have named a different Defendant,

but his core (frivolous, fanciful, and delusional) allegations remain the same. See generally Complaint.

Nor can we “reconsider” an order that wasn’t ours to begin with. Sharp sues here in a different case in

a different district with a different defendant. We won’t take any part in trying to “reconsider” that.

Frankly, we don’t think there’s any chance that a “more carefully drafted complaint might

state a claim[.]” Woldeab v. DeKalb Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 885 F.3d 1289, 1291 (11th Cir. 2018) (“Where a

more carefully drafted complaint might state a claim, a plaintiff must be given at least one chance to

amend the complaint before the district court dismisses the action with prejudice.” (cleaned up)); but

see Porter v. Governor of the State of Fla., 667 F. App’x 766, 767 (11th Cir. 2016) (“Any amendment in

this case would have been futile because Porter’s amended complaint would still have been subject

to dismissal.”). But, because it’s our duty to “ensure[ ] that the issues get defined at the earliest stages

of the litigation,” we’ll give Sharp one more chance and “instruct [Sharp] to replead the case.” Byrne v.

4 Here, too, some of Sharp’s claims appear to involve violations of criminal codes that don’t even

include a private cause of action. See Complaint at 3 (invoking, e.g., 18 U.S.C § 1091 (genocide) and

18 U.S.C § 2232(a) (use of weapons of mass destruction)); cf. Smith v. JP Morgan Chase, 837 F. App’x

769, 770 (11th Cir. 2021) (“[T]his Court has concluded that criminal statutes do not provide for

private civil causes of action.”).

Nezhat, 261 F.3d 1075, 1133 n.113 (11th Cir. 2001), abrogated on other grounds by Bridge v. Phoenix Bond

& Indem. Co., 553 U.S. 639 (2008); see also Buckman v. Lancaster Mortg. Co., 2021 WL 4618412, at *3

(11th Cir. Oct. 7, 2021) (“When a plaintiff files a shotgun pleading, a district court must give him one

chance to replead before dismissing his case with prejudice on shotgun pleading grounds.” (emphasis

added)).

If Sharp wants to maintain this action, he must (1) briefly and plainly explain how he’s been

injured (and by whom), (2) articulate a basis for our subject-matter jurisdiction over the case and our

personal jurisdiction over the Defendants, (3) show that venue is proper in our District, and

(4) plead the elements of a viable cause of action, supporting each element with specific factual

allegations (that aren’t wildly implausible). And he must separate his claims into distinct counts with

“numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances[.]” FED. R. CIV.

P. 10(b) (emphasis added).

If Sharp files an amended complaint that fails to satisfy the requirements we’ve set forth in

this Order, we will dismiss that amended complaint without leave to amend.

We therefore ORDER and ADJUDGE as follows:

1. The Complaint [ECF No. 1] is DISMISSED without prejudice.

2. The IFP Motion [ECF No. 3] is DENIED without prejudice.

3. The Plaintiff may file an amended complaint by April 24, 2025. If he wants to amend his

complaint, he must rewrite it as we’ve instructed him here. The Plaintiff’s failure to follow

the instructions we’ve outlined in this Order will result in dismissal without further

notice.

4. If the Plaintiff chooses to amend his complaint, he may also re-file his IFP Motion.

DONE AND ORDERED in the Southern District of Florida on March 30, 2025.

ROY K. ALTMAN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

ce: Daryl Sharp, pro se