Roberts v. Sormrude

• Decision Date: 01 March 2017
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:16cv68-MCR-CJK
• Citation: Roberts v. Sormrude, Case No. 3:16cv68-MCR-CJK (N.D. Fla. Mar 01, 2017)
• Parties: TROY LYNN ROBERTS, Plaintiff, v. ERIK SORMRUDE, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Florida

TROY LYNN ROBERTS, Plaintiff, v. ERIK SORMRUDE, Defendant.

Case No. 3:16cv68-MCR-CJK

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA PENSACOLA DIVISION

March 1, 2017

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

This matter is before the court on defendant Erik Sormrude's motion to dismiss. (Doc. 14).¹ Defendant argues plaintiff's claims are barred by: (1) the Supreme Court's decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S. Ct. 2364, 129 L. Ed. 2d 383 (1994); and (2) the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Plaintiff responded in opposition. (Doc. 19). The matter is referred to the undersigned Magistrate Judge for a report and recommendation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636 and N.D. Fla. Loc. R. 72.2(C). After reviewing the parties' submissions and the relevant law, the undersigned recommends that the motion to dismiss be granted in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Troy L. Roberts, proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis, is an inmate of the Florida penal system currently confined at Bay Correctional Facility. He initiated this action on February 3, 2016, by filing a civil rights complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (Doc. 1). The complaint names Erik Sormrude, an investigator with the Walton County Sheriff's Office, as the sole defendant. The complaint sets forth the factual allegations that follow.

In 2014 plaintiff lived in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. At 9:30 p.m. on November 19, defendant Sormrude and members of the Walton County Sheriff's Office "did the execution of a probable cause search warrant" at plaintiff's residence. After plaintiff was brought outside the residence, Sormrude Mirandized² plaintiff and informed him the officers had a warrant to search the residence. Plaintiff "requested to see the warrant but he never seen one." "The warrant was never served" on November 19, "nor is [there] any testimony or other evidence that the application was taken along on the search or that any of the officers performing have a copy of the warrant and the Attachment 'A.' The officers had no document telling them what to take/items to be seized so they took no items that is on the list to have been seized[.]" Because plaintiff "could look at no documents specifying what the officers could take," he lost "the power to limit the search." In addition, plaintiffclaims "affiant Erik Sormrude perjured the affidavit when he incorporated incriminating items that he found in Roberts' residence. The affiant made reckless false statements [and] used after-acquired knowledge that was learned as a result of the search in the case of perjured warrant affidavits[.]"

The November 19 search uncovered evidence that led the state of Florida to charge plaintiff with: (1) trafficking in amphetamine; (2) selling, manufacturing, and/or delivering methamphetamine; and (3) possession of drug paraphernalia. (Doc. 14-1, p. 1-2, 10-33). Plaintiff pleaded nolo contendere to the charges and received a 7-year prison sentence.³ (Id., p. 3, 5).

Based on the foregoing, plaintiff alleges: (1) he was subjected to an unreasonable search and seizure; (2) defendant falsified the affidavit to obtain the search warrant; and (3) defendant violated "Rule 41(d)'s service requirement, the Warrant Clause, the plaintiff's . . . due process, his privacy interest, the Fourth, Fifth, and the Fourteenth Amendment[s.]" As relief, plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as "any additional relief this court deems just, proper, and equitable."

LEGAL STANDARD

In considering a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court reads plaintiff's pro se allegations in a liberal fashion, Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21, 92 S. Ct. 594, 30 L. Ed. 2d 652 (1972), accepts all factual allegations in the complaint as true, and evaluates all reasonable inferences derived from those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Hunnings v. Texaco, Inc., 29 F.3d 1480, 1483 (11th Cir. 1994). There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as where the facts alleged are internally inconsistent or where they run counter to facts of which the court can take judicial notice. 5B Charles A. Wright and Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1357 (2008). Further, only well-pleaded factual allegations are taken as true and only reasonable inferences are drawn in favor of the plaintiff. See Oladeinde v. City of Birmingham, 963 F.2d 1481, 1485 (11th Cir. 1992); see also Associated Builders, Inc. v. Ala. Power Co., 505 F.2d 97, 100 (5th Cir. 1974) ("unwarranted deductions of fact are not admitted as true").⁴ Mere "labels and conclusions" are not accepted as true. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007) (citing Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286, 106 S. Ct. 2932, 92 L. Ed. 2d 209 (1986)) (noting courts "are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation"); Ashcroft v. Iqbal,556 U.S. 662, 680-81, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 173 L. Ed. 2d 868 (2009) (explaining that conclusory allegations are not entitled to a presumption of truth).

As the Supreme Court reiterated in Iqbal, although Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure does not require detailed factual allegations, it does demand "more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." 556 U.S. at 678. A complaint must state a plausible claim for relief, and "[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. The mere possibility that the defendant acted unlawfully is insufficient to survive dismissal for failure to state a claim. Id. The complaint must include "[f]actual allegations . . . [sufficient] to raise a right to relief above the speculative level," Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, that is, "across the line from conceivable to plausible." Id. at 570.

DISCUSSION

Heck v. Humphrey

The complaint alleges defendant Sormrude conducted an unconstitutional search of plaintiff's residence on November 19. Defendant argues plaintiff's claims are barred under the Heck doctrine because proving the factual basis for the claims necessarily implies plaintiff's conviction and sentence are invalid. See (Doc. 14, p. 9) ("[A] finding that Defendant, Investigator Sormrude, did not have probable causeto search Plaintiff's residence for controlled substances, narcotics, and paraphernalia would imply the invalidity of Plaintiff's conviction[s.]"). In Heck v. Humphrey, the Supreme Court stated:

[W]hen a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated. But if the district court determines that the plaintiff's action, even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment against the plaintiff, the action should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit.

512 U.S. 477, 487, 114 S. Ct. 2364, 129 L. Ed. 2d 383 (1994) (footnotes omitted, emphasis in original).

"Because an illegal search or arrest may be followed by a valid conviction, a successful § 1983 action for Fourth Amendment search and seizure violations does not necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction. As a result, Heck does not generally bar such claims." Hughes v. Lott, 350 F.3d 1157, 1160 (11th Cir. 2003) (citations and footnotes omitted); see also Heck, 512 U.S. at 487 n.7 ("For example, a suit for damages attributable to an allegedly unreasonable search may lie even if the challenged search produced evidence that was introduced in a state criminal trial resulting in the § 1983 plaintiff's still-outstanding conviction. Because of doctrines like independent source and inevitable discovery, and especially harmless error, such a § 1983 action, even if successful, would not necessarily imply that the plaintiff'sconviction was unlawful.") (citations omitted, emphasis in original). Not all Fourth Amendment claims fit this exception; "the court must look both to the claims raised under § 1983 and to the specific offenses for which the § 1983 claimant was convicted." Hughes, 350 F.3d at 1160 n.2.

Plaintiff, for his part, claims he is not challenging the validity of his convictions, and Heck does not preclude him from seeking damages for an allegedly unconstitutional search. (Doc. 19, p. 1). Plaintiff argues his claims are not Heck-barred based on the Supreme Court's decision in Haring v. Prosise, 462 U.S. 306, 103 S. Ct. 2368, 76 L. Ed. 2d 595 (1983).

In Haring, the Supreme Court considered "whether Prosise's § 1983 action to redress an alleged Fourth Amendment violation is barred by the judgment of conviction entered in state court following his guilty plea." Haring, 462 U.S. at 312 (footnotes omitted). Applying the full faith and credit statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, and Virginia law concerning collateral estoppel, the Court concluded Prosise's "conviction in state court does not preclude him from now seeking to recover damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an alleged Fourth Amendment violation that was never considered in the state proceedings." Id. at 314-23; see also Webb v. Ethridge, 849 F.2d 546, 549 (11th Cir. 1988) ("Because the federal full faith and credit statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, requires federal courts to give preclusive effect to a state-court judgment whenever the courts of the state from which the judgmentemerged would do so, we must look to the operation of the state's law of collateral estoppel.") (citing Allen, 449 U.S. at 96). The Court stated: "[W]hen a defendant is convicted pursuant to his guilty plea rather than a trial, the validity of that conviction cannot be affected by an alleged Fourth Amendment violation because the conviction does not rest in any way on...