Errato v. Seder
| Decision Date | 31 March 2023 |
| Docket Number | 3:22-CV-793 (SVN) |
| Parties | ROBERT M. ERRATO, Plaintiff, v. LAUREN T. SEDER, CAMPBELL D. BARRETT, JON T. KUKUCKA, JOHANNA S. KATZ, GERARD I. ADELMAN, MICHAEL A. ALBIS, BARBARA M. QUINN, LEO VINCENT DIANA, EDWARD MCCREERY, III, and the STATE OF CONNECTICUT, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
RULING AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS' MOTIONS TO DISMISS
Plaintiff Robert M. Errato, proceeding pro se, has brought this federal civil rights action against his former spouse Lauren T. Seder, Attorneys Campbell D. Barrett, John T Kukucka, Johanna S. Katz, and Edward McCreery, III (the “Attorney Defendants”), Connecticut Superior Court Judges Gerard I. Adelman, Michael A. Albis, Barbara M Quinn, and Leo Vincent Diana (the “Judicial Defendants”), and the State of Connecticut. Plaintiff brings his complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that his Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection rights were violated when the Judicial Defendants issued orders and decisions based on allegedly fabricated financial affidavits Seder and the Attorney Defendants submitted in an underlying state court divorce action.
Seder and the Attorney Defendants now seek dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), while the Judicial Defendants and the State of Connecticut seek dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). For the reasons below, the Court dismisses this action in full.
Plaintiff's amended complaint (“Am. Compl.”), ECF No. 56, alleges the following facts, which the Court takes as true for purposes of Defendants' pending motions to dismiss.[1]
Plaintiff's claims pertain to the divorce action in Connecticut Superior Court that dissolved his marriage to Defendant Seder. Am. Compl. ¶ 2. The Attorney Defendants are all current or former attorneys at the law firm of Pullman & Comley, LLC, the firm that represented Seder during the divorce action. Id. ¶¶ 2-3. Plaintiff alleges that Attorneys Barrett, Kukucka, and Katz served as counsel for Seder during the divorce action, while Attorney McCreery is a partner and General Counsel at Pullman & Comley who was made aware of his colleagues' alleged misconduct. Id. ¶¶ 2-4. The Judicial Defendants each presided over certain aspects of the divorce action. Id. ¶ 5. Plaintiff seeks to hold both the Judicial Defendants and the State of Connecticut liable for the Judicial Defendants' alleged misconduct. See id. ¶¶ 6-9. He further contends that each of the individual defendants-including Seder, who is an attorney-acted under color of state law as officers of the court. Id. ¶¶ 2-5.
Specifically, Plaintiff asserts that Seder and Barrett conspired to fabricate evidence in at least two financial affidavits during the dissolution action, id. ¶¶ 10, 18-20, and that the Judicial Defendants wrongfully accepted this fabricated evidence, id. ¶ 11. Plaintiff contends that, on October 22, 2015, Seder and Barrett filed a sworn affidavit in Connecticut Superior Court falsely stating that Seder had weekly expenses of $3,111 and then, on December 16, 2015, Seder and Barrett filed a second sworn affidavit falsely listing Seder's weekly expenses as $4,439. Id. ¶¶ 18-19. Plaintiff alleges that Seder's weekly expenses at the time were less than $1,700. Id. ¶ 19.
He further alleges that Seder and Barrett knew the figures in the affidavits were false and misleading, that Seder's subsequent testimony regarding her expenses was false, and that the submission of the affidavits amounted to perjury and suborning perjury. Id. ¶¶ 21-23.
Plaintiff asserts that he raised the issue of the fabricated evidence to each of the individual defendants named in this case, but none of them took any action as officers of the court to stop the “corruption.” Id. ¶ 15. For example, during a hearing on December 16, 2015, Plaintiff notified Judge Albis that Seder had purchased a residential condominium in West Hartford, Connecticut, and that her affidavit must be inaccurate because no lending institution would allow her to mortgage the property if her weekly expenses were truly as high as she represented. Id. ¶ 24. Plaintiff claims that, when Seder's mortgage application was later disclosed, it revealed that she had provided different figures to her lender than she had provided in the affidavit she submitted to the state court. Id. ¶¶ 25-26.
Plaintiff contends that each of the significant decisions that followed the submission of the fabricated affidavits was “tainted” by the alleged “fraud on the court,” and that he suffered a financial detriment as a result. Id. ¶ 13. For example, Plaintiff asserts that, based on the fabricated evidence, Judge Albis ordered him to pay Seder $8,500 per month in temporary alimony. Id. ¶ 27. He asserts that, in doing so, Judge Albis deprived him of his rights to be heard, to present evidence, to present reasons for the proposed action he requested, and to call and cross-examine witnesses. Id. Plaintiff further asserts that Seder experienced a windfall as a result of the state court's acceptance of her false affidavits. Id. ¶ 29.
In 2017, Judge Adelman held multiple hearings in which he discussed the representations in Seder's affidavits. Id. ¶¶ 31-33. Plaintiff claims that Judge Adelman acknowledged the importance of the accuracy of financial affidavits in dissolution actions, yet “failed on numerous occasions and with numerous motions filed by [Plaintiff] to seek the truth, protect the integrity of the court, and protect [Plaintiff's] civil rights.” Id. ¶¶ 31, 33. In July of 2018, Plaintiff filed a document in state court seeking a trial to address his claims that Seder and Attorneys Barrett, Kukucka, and Katz committed a fraud on the court. Id. ¶ 34. He claims that Judge Adelman did not address the motion “in any legal fashion,” failed to take other action “to seek out the truth,” and failed to protect his civil rights. Id. ¶¶ 34, 35.
In April of 2019, at the conclusion of the divorce trial, Judge Adelman issued a memorandum of decision in which he awarded Seder $700,000, including $250,000 in legal fees on the basis that Plaintiff had committed litigation misconduct. Id. ¶ 36. Plaintiff claims that Judge Adelman awarded legal fees “because of the number of times, and legal venues [Plaintiff] tried to get an audience to hear the evidence he had for fraud upon the court by officers of the court.” Id. Judge Adelman also awarded Seder $2,500 per month in permanent alimony, stating that Seder's earning capacity was $15 per hour for a forty-hour workweek. Id.
On May 24, 2022, Plaintiff requested a mandamus order pursuant to Connecticut Practice Book § 23-47, but Judge Diana denied Plaintiff's request without explanation. Id. ¶¶ 16-17. Plaintiff contends that Judge Diana's “unexplained” denial violated his rights to be heard, to present evidence, to present reasons for the proposed action he requested, and to call and crossexamine witnesses. Id. ¶ 17. Plaintiff's amended complaint does not specify the precise relief he was seeking with respect to his request for a mandamus order. See id. ¶¶ 16-17.
Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff alleges that various defendants have tampered with evidence and committed fraud on the court, perjury,[2]and larceny. Id. ¶ 39. He further alleges violations of his Fourteenth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution. Id. ¶ 37. Specifically, he alleges that he has been deprived of his property without due process of the law, that he has been denied equal protection under the law, and that his procedural due process rights have been violated. Id. ¶¶ 38, 39.[3]He seeks monetary damages, and he asks the Court to find all rulings, findings, and judgments in the dissolution action voided and vacated. Id. at 19-20. He further requests an order directing the Connecticut Superior Court to “exercise its functions to prevent a failure of justice.” Id. at 19.
Plaintiff initiated this action in June of 2022, by filing both his original complaint and a request for an injunction. ECF Nos. 1, 2. Then, in response to Plaintiff's amended complaint, Defendants filed three separate motions to dismiss: the Attorney Defendants moved for dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), ECF No. 42; the Judicial Defendants and the State of Connecticut, together, moved for dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), ECF No. 45; and Defendant Seder moved separately for dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), ECF No. 47. The Court thereafter stayed discovery pending resolution of these motions. ECF No. 61. In October of 2022, Plaintiff filed a motion requesting oral argument on Defendants' motions to dismiss, as well as leave to file a surreply in opposition to those motions. The Court denied Plaintiff's request to file a surreply and took under advisement Plaintiff's request for argument. ECF No. 69. Plaintiff thereafter moved to stay this action pursuant to the abstention doctrine set forth in Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976), so that a related state court case he filed could proceed. ECF No. 75. The Court denied Plaintiff's request for a stay and noted that it would proceed to issuing rulings on Defendants' pending motions to dismiss. ECF No. 85.
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), a defendant may move to dismiss a case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. A case is properly dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) “when the district court lacks the statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate it.”...
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