Glennborough Homeowners Ass'n v. U.S. Postal Serv.
| Decision Date | 08 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 20-12526 |
| Parties | GLENNBOROUGH HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
Plaintiff Glennborough Homeowners Association brings this action for violation of the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. § 552, breach of a consent judgment, and for a declaratory judgment. (ECF No. 1, PageID.8-11.) Plaintiff, a residential subdivision located in Ypsilanti, Michigan, petitioned Defendant United States Postal Service to reclassify it as a neighborhood within Ann Arbor, Michigan. Defendant denied that request.
Defendant moves to dismiss the complaint. (ECF No. 6.) The matter has been thoroughly briefed. (ECF Nos. 8, 9.) The court has reviewed the record and does not find a hearing to be necessary. E.D. Mich. LR 7.1(f)(2). For the reasons provided below, the court will grant Defendant's motion.
The following are facts as alleged in Plaintiff's complaint. In a motion to dismiss, the court accepts Plaintiff's factual allegations as true but makes no overt finding as to truth or falsity. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
Plaintiff is located in Superior Township, Michigan, with an Ypsilanti zip code. (ECF No. 1, PageID.2.) The original developer of Plaintiff's subdivision brought suit against Defendant in 1999 to change Plaintiff's zip code. (Id.) In October 1999, the parties signed a consent judgment that recognized "Superior Township" as an authorized last line of address. (Id.)
Defendant has established a process to review requests to alter last lines of acceptable addresses and zip code boundaries. (Id., PageID.3-4.) On November 23, 2015, Plaintiff requested a zip code change from Ypsilanti to neighboring Ann Arbor. (Id., PageID.5.) Plaintiff is allegedly within the Ann Arbor school district and closer to the Ann Arbor post office than to the Ypsilanti post office. (Id.) On January 8, 2016, Defendant denied Plaintiff's request, but did not provide specific reasons for doing so. (Id.)
On February 16, 2016, Plaintiff initiated an internal appeal of Defendant's decision. (Id., PageID.6.) Plaintiff argued that Defendant did not provide it an opportunity to discuss the zip code modification, that Plaintiff was not informed of the metrics Defendant used to deny Plaintiff's request, and that Defendant did not advise Plaintiff of the internal appeal process. (Id.) Defendant denied the appeal in August 2016. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges that when denying the appeal, Defendant committed severalprocedural violations of agency policy, such as taking over sixty days to resolve Plaintiff's appeal. (Id.)
On November 16, 2016, Plaintiff reapplied for a zip code change. (Id.) Defendant responded on June 27, 2017, stating that "once a request to match a municipal boundary has been accommodated, additional requests to amend that boundary will not be considered more frequently than once every 10 years." (Id.) Plaintiff's second request was denied. (Id.)
On February 1, 2018, a resident of Plaintiff's subdivision, Kathryn P. Marx, submitted a FOIA request for documents related to Plaintiff's requested zip code change. (Id., PageID.7; ECF No. 6-15, PageID.257; ECF No. 8, PageID.289.) Defendant denied Marx's FOIA request on March 23, 2018. (ECF No. 1, PageID.7, 17-18.) Marx filed an administrative appeal on April 27, 2018, and, on March 7, 2019, Defendant provided a response that Plaintiff contends is incomplete. (ECF No. 1, PageID.7; ECF No. 6-18, PageID.261-62.) Plaintiff also alleges that some of the information Defendant provided in its FOIA response was not previously disclosed. (ECF No. 1, PageID.7.) According to Plaintiff, the information that actually was disclosed did not fully explain the reasoning for Defendant's decision to deny a zip code change. (Id.)
Plaintiff filed this action on September 15, 2020, (id.), and Defendant moved to dismiss in lieu of filing an answer. (ECF No. 6.)
Defendant moved to dismiss Plaintiff's FOIA and declaratory judgment claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.(ECF No. 6, PageID.59, 66.) Defendant seeks dismissal of Plaintiff's breach of consent judgment claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. (Id., PageID.62.)
Rule 12(b)(1) permits parties to seek dismissal of claims for "lack of subject-matter jurisdiction." Such motions "fall into two general categories: facial attacks and factual attacks." United States v. Ritchie, 15 F.3d 592, 598 (1994). For a facial attack, which concerns the legal sufficiency of the complaint, "the court must take the material allegations of the petition as true and construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Id. (internal citation omitted).
For an attack against "the factual existence of subject matter jurisdiction[,] . . . no presumptive truthfulness applies to the factual allegations and the court is free to weigh the evidence and satisfy itself as to the existence of its power to hear the case." Id. (internal citation omitted). "[A] trial court has wide discretion to allow affidavits, documents and even a limited evidentiary hearing to resolve disputed jurisdictional facts." Ohio Nat. Life Ins. v. United States, 922 F.2d 320, 325 (6th Cir. 1990). The "[p]laintiff bears the burden of establishing that subject matter jurisdiction exists," and factual findings made by the court to "are reviewed for clear error." Cartwright v. Garner, 751 F.3d 752, 760 (6th Cir. 2014).
"Standing goes to a court's subject matter jurisdiction," Kepley v. Lanz, 715 F.3d 969, 972 (6th Cir. 2013) (quotations removed), and can be reviewed through a Rule 12(b)(1) motion. E.g., Am. BioCare Inc. v. Howard & Howard Att'ys. PLLC, 702 Fed.App'x 416, 419 (6th Cir. 2017). "The Supreme Court has enumerated the following elements necessary to establish standing:
First, [the] [p]laintiff must have suffered an injury in fact-an invasion of a legally-protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized; and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of-the injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision."
Parsons v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, 801 F.3d 701, 710 (6th Cir. 2015) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992)).
Under Rule 12(b)(6), a party can move to dismiss a complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." When reviewing motions under Rule 12(b)(6), the complaint is viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the allegations in the complaint are accepted as true, and all reasonable inferences are drawn in favor of the plaintiffs. Bassett v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 528 F.3d 426, 430 (6th Cir. 2008). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain factual matter, accepted as true, to 'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Ashcroft, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). "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." Id. Determining plausibility is "a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679. The plaintiff must present "more than labels and conclusions." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 545. "[A] formulaic recitation of a cause of action's elements will not do." Id.
When reviewing a motion to dismiss, the court "may not consider matters beyond the complaint." Hensley Mfg. v. ProPride, Inc., 579 F.3d 603, 613 (6th Cir. 2009). However, the court may consider "documents incorporated into the complaint by reference . . . and matters of which a court may take judicial notice." Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 322 (2007). The court may also consider "a document that is not formally incorporated by reference or attached to a complaint" when "[the] document is referred to in the complaint and is central to the plaintiff's claim." Greenberg v. Life Ins. Co. of Va., 177 F.3d 507, 514 (6th Cir. 1999).
The court will first address whether it has subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's FOIA and declaratory judgment claims. The court will then turn to a discussion of whether Plaintiff stated a valid breach of consent judgment claim.
The court reviews Defendant's motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) as a factual attack and will consider evidence attached to the parties' briefing. See Ohio Nat. Life Ins., 922 F.2d at 325.
Defendant argues Plaintiff does not have standing to sue because Marx, not Plaintiff, filed the relevant FOIA request. (ECF No. 6, PageID.59-62.) Defendant attaches the FOIA requests, one of which was made on January 17, 2018, and another was made on February 1, 2018. (ECF Nos. 6-13, 6-15.) Both requests were made by Marx, both asked Defendant to respond to Marx directly, and the February 1 request explicitly stated the documents were "to me [Marx], a private citizen." (ECF Nos. 6-13,6-15.) Plaintiff states "[t]he FOIA was signed by Kathryn Marx, a Glennborough resident and member of its zip code committee." (ECF No. 8, PageID.289.)
In order to have standing, Plaintiff must allege "an invasion of a legally-protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized; and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical." Parsons, 801 F.3d at...
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