Sobin v. Dist. of Columbia
| Decision Date | 14 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 19-cv-02580 (ABJ) |
| Citation | 480 F.Supp.3d 210 |
| Parties | Dennis SOBIN, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Dennis Sobin, Washington, DC, pro se.
Shani Brown, Office of Attorney General, Washington, DC, for Defendant.
The District of Columbia has filed a motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) to dismiss plaintiff Dennis Sobin's lawsuit against it for failure to state a claim. The District has certainly given the 80 year old plaintiff the runaround; plaintiff has received conflicting information from various local officials. But while he is understandably frustrated, the fact that he may have a legitimate grievance does not mean that he has suffered a deprivation of constitutional dimensions, particularly given his own admitted errors when transferring ownership of his car. For that reason, as will be explained in more detail below, the Court will grant the motion and dismiss the case.
According to the complaint, plaintiff sold his 2006 Chrysler Sebring convertible on or about April 30, 2019. See Compl. [Dkt. 1] at 7.2 He states that he then disposed of the vehicle's license tags "in accordance with DMV regulations by throwing them away on the same day in two separate dumpsters." Id. He submitted a report online to the District of Columbia Department of Motor Vehicles ("DC DMV"), formally representing that he "no longer owned the vehicle and had disposed of the plates." Id. At some point thereafter, plaintiff alleges, DC DMV acknowledged that the tags were no longer in plaintiff's possession and that he "disposed of them in accordance with their regulations." Id.3
Plaintiff was issued and received "a refund check for the unused time of the car registration since [he] was no longer in possession of the license plates." Compl. at 7. Approximately 45 days later, though, he allegedly received a notice from DC DMV, indicating that the Sebring had been ticketed and that the tickets were overdue. While the complaint does not include the date of the charged infractions, plaintiff alleges that the penalties were unfairly assessed because he did not own or possess the Sebring at the time the tickets were written. Id. He speculated in his complaint that "[a]pparently the new owner or someone he gave or sold the car to had somehow found one of my license plates and put it on the car and was using the car with the dead license plate I had disposed of and reported as dead plates to DMV." Id.4
Plaintiff contested the tickets, see D.C. Code § 50–2302.05, and he requested a hearing. Compl. at 7. A hearing was held through the DC DMV Adjudication Services, see D.C. Code § 50–2302.06, on June 27, 2019. The hearing examiner apparently informed plaintiff that "ticket writers for DMV do not have information on dead plates and will continue to write tickets if plates are being used." Id. He therefore denied plaintiff's request to rescind the tickets, indicating that they remained plaintiff's responsibility. He further advised plaintiff to report the license tags as stolen to the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department. Id.
On June 28, 2019, plaintiff went to the Second District of the Metropolitan Police Department. Id. According to the plaintiff, the police declined to take a report on the grounds that "the license plates were not stolen but rather disposed of," and the DC DMV "was at fault for giving [plaintiff] the tickets after [he] reported them disposed of and [were] therefore dead plates." Id.
Given those developments, plaintiff filed a timely motion for reconsideration of the Adjudication Services decision on July 24, 2019. Id. ; see D.C. Code § 50–2303.11. The motion was apparently denied on July 26, 2019. Compl. at 7. Plaintiff was instructed that he could appeal the determination, see D.C. Code § 50–2304.02, but that he would be responsible for an administrative fee and the cost of the original hearing transcript, Compl. at 7. He was also instructed that he was required to pay the tickets while he awaited the outcome of any appeal. He attests that he has been financially unable to pay the tickets, id. , and that he has been continuing to incur unspecified "additional tickets and penalties for other violations" relating to the Sebring, id. at 8.
Plaintiff argues that the DMV's license tag disposal process is unconstitutional and violative of his due process rights because despite his attempts to follow the required procedures in good faith, he has been unfairly punished: he is receiving tickets for a vehicle he no longer owns. Compl. at 5. Plaintiff believes this is a direct result of a confusing municipal policy. See id.; see also Pl.’s Opp. at 2, citing TAG SURRENDER , DMV.DC.GOV, HTTPS://DMV.DC.GOV/SERVICE/TAG-SURRENDER (last visited August 6, 2020). He submits that if he is in fact receiving tickets because the registration sticker was not removed from the car, that "proves that it's the government's fault that I'm still getting tickets for the car I no longer own." Pl.’s Opp. at 2.
In his request for relief, plaintiff asks the Court "to declare that [his] due process rights are being violated in the way this DMV regulation is being administered and applied to [him] and others similarly situate[ed]"5 and to "rescind" the penalties already assessed. Compl. at 5. He also demands that the Court "declare [DC DMV's] regulation unconstitutional," id. at 8, although he does not identify the particular regulation that offends the constitution. The defendant moved to dismiss the complaint [Dkt. 7], plaintiff opposed the motion [Dkt. 9], the District replied [Dkt. 10], and the matter is ripe for decision. The Court, like the District, see Def's Mem. at 7–8, assumes that plaintiff is challenging Title 18, Section 415, of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations ("DCMR"), which governs the proper cancellation of registration and disposal of tags following the sale of a vehicle.
To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), "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 Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 557, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007).
When considering a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court is bound to construe a complaint liberally in the plaintiff's favor, and it should grant the plaintiff "the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged." Kowal v. MCI Commc'ns Corp. , 16 F.3d 1271, 1276 (D.C. Cir. 1994), citing Schuler v. United States , 617 F.2d 605, 608 (D.C. Cir. 1979). Where the action is brought by a pro se plaintiff, a district court has an obligation "to consider his filings as a whole before dismissing a complaint," Schnitzler v. United States , 761 F.3d 33, 38 (D.C. Cir. 2014), citing Richardson v. United States , 193 F.3d 545, 548 (D.C. Cir. 1999), because such complaints are held "to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." Haines v. Kerner , 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972). Nevertheless, the Court need not accept inferences drawn by the plaintiff if those inferences are unsupported by facts alleged in the complaint, nor must the Court accept plaintiff's legal conclusions. See Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (); Kowal , 16 F.3d at 1276 ; see also Browning v. Clinton , 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002). In ruling upon a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a court may ordinarily consider only "the facts alleged in the complaint, documents attached as exhibits or incorporated by reference in the complaint, and matters about which the Court may take judicial notice." Gustave-Schmidt v. Chao , 226 F. Supp. 2d 191, 196 (D.D.C. 2002), citing EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial Sch. , 117 F.3d 621, 624–25 (D.C. Cir. 1997).
Plaintiff invokes 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which permits an individual to bring a civil action for damages based on a deprivation of his constitutional rights. The statute provides:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress ...
Id. The statute "is not itself a source of substantive rights; rather, it is a method of vindicating federal rights conferred elsewhere." Melton v. District of Columbia , 85 F. Supp. 3d 183, 192 (D.D.C. 2015) ().
A necessary predicate for any section 1983 claim, then, is a plausible allegation of a constitutional violation. Graham v. Connor , 490 U.S. 386, 394, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) ; see Baker v. District of Columbia , 326 F.3d 1302, 1306 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (...
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