Folajtar v. Barr, 5:18-cv-02717
| Citation | 369 F.Supp.3d 617 |
| Decision Date | 22 February 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 5:18-cv-02717,5:18-cv-02717 |
| Parties | Lisa M. FOLAJTAR, Plaintiff, v. William P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States; Thomas E. Brandon, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and Christopher A. Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Joshua Prince, Adam J. Kraut, Prince Law Offices PC, Bechtelsville, PA, for Plaintiff.
Paul J. Koob, U.S. Attorney's Office, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.
Defendants' Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim, ECF No. 3—Granted
Plaintiff was convicted of filing a false tax return over seven years ago.
Now, as a convicted felon, she is prohibited from owning firearms by federal law. A claim that the federal law is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment as applied to her has been brought.2 Defendants move to dismiss the complaint in its entirety under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). For the reasons set forth below, the motion to dismiss is granted.
In 2011 Lisa Folajtar pled guilty in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to filing a false tax return, a felony subject to possible fine up to $ 100,000, imprisonment for up to three years, or both. The Honorable James Knoll Gardner sentenced Folajtar to three years' probation, including three months of home confinement with an electronic monitoring device, a $ 10,000 fine, and a mandatory $ 100 special assessment.4 She completed her probation without any violations.
Folajtar wants to obtain firearms and ammunition to defend herself and her family within their home and a Federal Firearms License for Archery Addictions, LTD, a Pennsylvania corporation of which she is President. Federal law, however, bars her from owning, possessing, using, or purchasing a firearm or ammunition. After learning of this bar, Folajtar has not attempted to purchase a firearm or apply for a Federal Firearms License for Archery Addictions for fear of violating federal law. As a result, she filed the complaint in this matter seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The Attorney General of the United States, Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States (collectively, the "Government") move to dismiss the complaint in its entirety with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) allows a court to dismiss a complaint for its "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The Rules generally demand "only a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, in order to give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests." Connelly v. Lane Constr. Corp. , 809 F.3d 780, 786 (3d Cir. 2016) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (internal quotations omitted) ).
"To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). In rendering a decision on a motion to dismiss, this Court must "accept all factual allegations as true [and] construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Phillips , 515 F.3d at 233 (quoting Pinker v. Roche Holdings Ltd. , 292 F.3d 361, 374 n.7 (3d Cir. 2002) (internal quotations omitted) ). Only if "the ‘[f]actual allegations ... raise a right to relief above the speculative level’ " has the plaintiff stated a plausible claim. Id. at 234 (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937. However, "the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions." Id. (). The defendant bears the burden of demonstrating that a plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Hedges v. United States , 404 F.3d 744, 750 (3d Cir. 2005) (citing Kehr Packages, Inc. v. Fidelcor, Inc. , 926 F.2d 1406, 1409 (3d Cir. 1991) ).
The Government moves to dismiss the complaint in its entirety with prejudice. The Government argues that Folajtar seeks an unreasonable and unsupportable expansion of Second Amendment case law because Congress defined her conviction as a felony—a serious criminal offense. Folajtar argues her non-violent felony conviction is distinguished from the class of individuals historically barred from gun ownership.
After applying the relevant authority and the framework established in United States v. Marzzarella and confirmed in Binderup v. Attorney General , and for the reasons discussed below, the Court concludes that Folajtar does not state a plausible Second Amendment claim, grants the Government's motion, and dismisses this case.
The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." U.S. Const. amend. II. These Second Amendment rights are not without limitations. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court considered the Second Amendment's protections and clarified that it protects the right to possess and use firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S. 570, 573, 128 S.Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (2008). The Supreme Court explained, however, that the right was not unlimited and that its opinion "should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill...." Heller , 554 U.S. at 573, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago , the Supreme Court repeated this assurance that its holding in Heller "did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as ‘prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.’ " 561 U.S. 742, 786, 130 S.Ct. 3020, 177 L.Ed.2d 894 (2010).
Some of those "longstanding prohibitions" are found in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Section 922(g) bars gun ownership by felons, fugitives, drug abusers, those adjudicated to be mentally ill, illegal aliens, those dishonorably discharged from the military, those who have renounced U.S. citizenship, and convicted domestic abusers or others subject to domestic violence restraining orders. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)–(8).
Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's assurances in Heller and McDonald , the constitutionality of section 922(g) has been challenged repeatedly. See , e.g. , Medina v. Whitaker , 913 F.3d 152, 159-160 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (). "However, the Supreme Court ‘has not yet heard an as-applied challenge to a presumptively lawful ban on firearms possession.’ " King v. Sessions , No. 17-884, 2018 WL 3008527, at *3, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100501, at *6–7 (E.D. Pa. June 15, 2018) (quoting Binderup v. Att'y Gen. , 836 F.3d 336, 359 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc ), cert. denied sub nom. Sessions v. Binderup , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S.Ct. 2323, 198 L.Ed.2d 746 (2017) ). Here, in this circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit considered the application of section 922(g)(1) as applied to two individuals convicted of state misdemeanors in Binderup v. Attorney General .
Sitting en banc , the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that section 922(g)(1) violated the Second Amendment as applied to those individuals based on different triggering state law offenses.5 Binderup , 836 F.3d at 340–41. Its fractured decision consists of an opinion, concurrence, and dissent.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals' decision has led to other as-applied challenges to section 922(g) in this circuit. Numerous district courts in this district and circuit have surveyed relevant authority and addressed similar challenges. Many of these opinions considered other state law offenses that triggered section 922(g)(1) and presented analyses similar to the analysis in Binderup .6 Others considered whether section 922(g)(4)'s restriction of a person's ability to possess a firearm when that person has been "committed to a mental institution" violated the Second Amendment as applied.7 Others considered whether federal felony convictions that triggered section 922(g)(1)'s bar violated the Second Amendment as applied.8
This case falls into the latter. Here, Folajtar contends section 922(g)(1)'s prohibition triggered by her federal felony conviction violates the Second Amendment as applied. The Court analyzes her claim using the two-step burden shifting analysis previously articulated in Marzzarella .
The narrowest ground supporting the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit's fractured vote in Binderup held that as-applied Second Amendment challenges were cognizable and controlled by a two-step burden shifting analysis previously articulated in Marzzarella . Binderup v. Att'y Gen. , 836 F.3d at 339 (citing United States v. Marzzarella , 614 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010) ); see also...
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