Grady v. U.S. Dep't of Def.

• Decision Date: 04 January 2017
• Docket Number: Case No. 16-14293-ROSENBERG
• Parties: PATRICK J. GRADY, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, ERIC H. HOLDER, JOHN F. LAUGEL, Defendants
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

PATRICK J. GRADY, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENTOF JUSTICE, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, ERIC H. HOLDER, JOHN F. LAUGEL, Defendants

Case No. 16-14293-ROSENBERG

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

January 4, 2017

ORDER GRANTING GOVERNMENT DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

This matter is before the Court on the Motion (DE 16) filed by the Defendants, U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, and Eric H. Holder (in his official capacity), pursuant to Rules 12(b)(1) and (6), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, to dismiss the Complaint (DE 1) filed by Plaintiff, Patrick J. Grady in this action. For the reasons provided below, the Motion is GRANTED and this case is DISMISSED.

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff's Complaint presents a long list of fanciful and vague allegations that the government and a private citizen living in the apartment above him illegally surveilled and harassed him. Among other things, Plaintiff alleges that the defendants installed cameras in his rental apartment complex (Compl. at ¶ 48), implanted a microchip in his ear (Compl. at ¶ ¶ 56, 72), made loud noises to disturb him at the library (Compl. at ¶ 59), placed a surveillance device on the roof of his apartment building (Compl. at ¶ 60), and used electromagnetic microwave energy that made him hear voices and other sounds (Compl. at ¶ ¶ 60, 61, 71). Plaintiff further alleges that the defendants unlawfully "targeted [him] through a National Security Letter or FISA Court Order." Compl. at ¶ 75. Plaintiff claims that, as a result of the foregoing alleged conduct, he has suffered broken bones, broken teeth, blurred vision, heart palpitations, breathing problems, pulsing above his left ear, exhaustion, prostate cancer, back pain, hand cramps, nightmares and flatulence. See Compl. at ¶¶ 47, 112.

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Plaintiff complains that the defendants' alleged conduct violated his Fourth Amendment right to privacy (Count 1) and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and equal protection (Count 2). Plaintiff further claims that defendants' alleged "electronic and electromagnetic surveillance" and their "gang-stalking" of him at the library, theaters and restaurants violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the U.S.A. Patriot Act (Count 3). Finally, Plaintiff claims that the alleged surveillance and harassment amounted to intentional infliction of emotional distress or the tort of outrage (Count 4). Plaintiff seeks damages and injunctive relief.

As explained below, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's claims. Moreover, Plaintiff's Complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

I. The Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction because Plaintiff's Complaint is patently insubstantial.

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction. See Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375, 114 S.Ct. 1673, 128 L.Ed.2d 391 (1994). While complaints filed by pro se litigants are held to less stringent standards than those applied to formal pleadings drafted by lawyers (see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972)), even a pro se plaintiff bearsthe burden of establishing that the Court has subject matter jurisdiction. See Rosenboro v. Kim, 994 F.2d 13, 17 (D.C.Cir.1993)).

"[F]ederal courts are without power to entertain claims that are 'so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit.'" Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974) (quoting Newburyport Water Co. v. Newburyport, 193 U.S. 561, 579, 24 S.Ct. 553, 48 L.Ed. 795 (1904)). No federal question jurisdiction exists "when the complaint is patently insubstantial." Best v. Kelly, 39 F.3d 328, 330 (D.C.Cir.1994) (internal citations omitted); see also Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327 n. 6, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989). To be dismissed on this ground under Rule 12(b)(1) the claims must be "flimsier than 'doubtful or questionable' they must be 'essentially fictitious.'" Best, 39 F.3d at 330 (quoting Hagans, 415 U.S. at 536-37, 94 S.Ct. 1372). Claims that are essentially fictitious include those that allege "bizarre conspiracy theories, any fantastic government manipulations of their will or mind [or] any sort of supernatural intervention." Id. at 330.

In this action, Plaintiff's allegations of extreme forms of government surveillance and harassment are of the sort of "bizarre conspiracy theory" that warrant dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1). Plaintiff's allegations that the government implanted a device in his ear (Compl. at ¶ ¶ 56, 72), that it caused groups of people to disturb him by making noise at the library and the theater (Compl. at ¶ 59), that it used "electromagnetic microwaves" to spy on him (Compl. at ¶ ¶ 60, 61, 71) and that it caused him to hear voices (Compl. at ¶ 60) are not merely doubtful or questionable, but are entirely unbelievable. Plaintiff's allegation that the government "target[ed] [him] through a National Security Letter or FISA Court order" (Compl. at 75) is totally unsupported by anything beyond his own bare suspicion. And Plaintiff's assertions that the alleged surveillance and harassment caused him to suffer injuries ranging from prostate cancer tobroken bones to flatulence are so incredibly attenuated and baseless as to render his claims totally devoid of merit. For these reasons, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's Complaint and dismisses it accordingly. See, e.g., Tooley v. Napolitano, 586 F.3d 1006 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (affirming district court's dismissal of plaintiff's Constitutional claims as patently insubstantial where plaintiff alleged that, about a year and a half after he had used the word "bomb" on a telephone call with an airline representative, the government wiretapped his telephones and those of his family members, monitored his vehicle with a radio frequency identification tag and placed an officer outside his home for several hours per day; observing that the allegations were in the realm of claims flimsier than doubtful or questionable and were, thus, essentially fictitious); Curran v. Holder, 626 F.Supp.2d 30 (D.C. Dist. 2009) (dismissing a pro se plaintiff's Fourth and Fifth Amendment and Privacy Act claims based on allegations of ongoing and pervasive government surveillance and harassment because the claims were conclusory and unsupported by factual detail, and so attenuated and insubstantial as to be devoid of merit); Frank v. Bush, 2010 WL 1408405, *5 (D. Kan. Apr. 2, 2010) (dismissing as insubstantial, implausible and frivolous a pro se plaintiff's claim that federal government defendants issued a National Security Letter to harm him in retaliation for his activism because (1) plaintiff alleged no facts which would lend plausibility to his claim, (2) it would require "wild speculation" to infer that the plaintiff's alleged injuries were caused by the issuance of NSLs, and (3) only the plaintiff's "bare suspicion" supported his claims); Custis v. CIA, 118 F. Supp.3d 252 (D.C. Dist. 2015) (dismissing as patently insubstantial and fictitious plaintiff's Constitutional and statutory claims based on the plaintiff's belief that the government had surgically implanted an electronic GPS into her skull); Moore v. Bush, 535 F. Supp.2d 46 (D.C. Dist. 2008) (dismissing former government employee plaintiff's claim that the NSA, theDepartment of Justice and others conspired to implant a microchip in his brain for the purpose of controlling his brain data because the claim was so attenuated and insubstantial as to be totally devoid of merit).

II. Plaintiff Also Fails to State a Claim Upon Which Relief May Be Granted

Complaints that defy reality are not only subject to dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, they are also subject to dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Courts ruling on motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) read the rule together with Rule 8(a)(2), which requires that a pleading contain only a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." While the pleading standard set forth in Rule 8(a) does not require "detailed factual allegations," Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 544 U.S. 544, 550 (2007), it does demand "more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citations 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." [Bell Atlantic Corp., 550 U.S.] at 570. 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., at 556. The plausibility standard is not akin to a "probability requirement," but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. Ibid. 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 557 (brackets omitted).

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (alteration supplied). Moreover, a court need not accept a complaint's legal conclusions as true. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-79 (2009).

The Supreme Court's ruling in Iqbal permits dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) when a complaint defies reality as we know it. As Justice Souter observed, the exception to the rule that courts must accept the allegations in a plaintiff's complaint as true "lies with allegations that are sufficiently fantastic to defy reality as we know it: claims about little green men, or the plaintiff's recent trip to...