Starks v. Davis

• Decision Date: 24 September 2021
• Docket Number: 3:20-cv-02771-G (BT)
• Parties: WILBERT NORWOOD STARKS. Plaintiff, v. ROBERT J. DAVIS, ET AL. Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

WILBERT NORWOOD STARKS. Plaintiff, v. ROBERT J. DAVIS, ET AL. Defendants.

No. 3:20-cv-02771-G (BT)

United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division

September 24, 2021

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

REBECCA RUTHERFORD, U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Pro se Plaintiff Wilbert Norwood Starks filed a petition for a writ of mandamus pursuant to the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C § 1651(a), on September 3, 2020. See Compl. (ECF No. 3). On April 15, 2021, the undersigned issued findings, conclusions, and a recommendation (FCR) that Starks's petition be dismissed for want of jurisdiction or, alternatively, under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) as frivolous, and that his motion for leave to amend be denied as futile. See FCR (ECF No. 12). The Court adopted the FCR in full and issued judgment dismissing Starks's action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, or alternatively, as frivolous. See OA and Judgment (ECF Nos. 15, 16). On May 18, 2021, Starks filed the pending “Motion for Rehearing, ” which the undersigned construes as a motion to alter or amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). See Mot. (ECF No. 17). For the following reasons, the Court should DENY Starks's motion to alter or amend the judgment.

Background

According to the documents filed in this action, copies of state court filings, and the Collin County Court at Law docket sheet for the underlying state-court action, Starks filed a civil suit-case number 32-SC-18-146-in a Collin County, Texas Justice of the Peace (JP) court against a Plano police officer and the Plano Police Department, alleging false arrest and imprisonment, excessive force, destruction of personal property, and for the violation of other state and federal constitutional rights.^[1] The JP court dismissed his case. See Mot. (ECF No. 17 at 10). Starks then filed an appeal- case number 005-03474-2018-in Collin County Court at Law.^[2] See Wilbert Norwood Starks v. Jody Privett, #1374, and Plano Police Department, et al., No. 005-03474-2018 (Co. Ct. at Law No. 2, Collin County, Tex. Dec. 4, 2018). The Collin County Court at Law dismissed his appeal. See Id. Thereafter, Defendant Robert J. Davis, an attorney, filed a motion for sanctions and attorney fees in the Collin County Court at Law action. See id.

The presiding judge in that case, Judge Dan K. Wilson, awarded the requested sanctions and attorney fees. See Id. Now, by this action, Starks seeks to challenge the sanctions award entered by Judge Wilson.

Specifically, Starks claims that, pursuant to Rule 13 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and Chapter 10 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, the Collin County Court at Law lacked jurisdiction to sanction him because he originally filed his civil action in JP court. He also claims that Davis conspired with Judge Wilson, to “commit fraud and grand theft against the ‘Elderly'” and to “illegally issue an unconstitutional Sanction and Attorney fees against Plaintiff . . .” Mot. (ECF No. 17 at 3); see also Compl. (ECF No. 3 at 10). Starks asks this Court to “issue a Writ of Mandamus to void this unconstitutional act of evil and as the United States Supreme Court label it a ‘Manifest Transgression, that any court have a duty [sic] to perform as a matter of law.'” Mot. (ECF No. 17 at 7).

The Court, adopting the FCR in full, originally dismissed Stark's claims for want of subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, or, alternatively, as frivolous pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B).

Starks now asks the Court to revisit that judgment. As for relief, he asks the Court to void its May 4, 2021 Order Adopting and Judgment and to grant all his original requested relief, which included a request for a writ of mandamus to void the sanction award, as well as compensatory, general, and punitive damages against Defendant Robert J. Davis for violating Starks's constitutional rights by conspiring to commit fraud and grand theft against the elderly by filing the motion for sanctions and attorney fees. See generally Mot. (ECF No. 17 at 7).

Legal Standards and Analysis

Starks does not frame his motion as one to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e), but tasked with the obligation to liberally construe the filings of pro se litigants the Court construes it as such. See Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (noting that a document filed pro se is to be “liberally construed”) (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104, 106 (1976)); see also Demahy v. Schwarz Pharma, Inc., 702 F.3d 177, 182, n.2 (5th Cir. 2012) (noting that a motion asking the court to reconsider its prior ruling is evaluated either as a motion “to alter or amend a judgment” under Rule 59(e) or as a motion for “relief from a final judgment, order, or proceeding” under Rule 60(b) depending on when the motion was filed, with a motion filed within twenty-eight days of the entry of judgment considered under Rule 59(e)). “Rule 59(e) ‘serve[s] the narrow purpose of allowing a party to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.'” Templet v. HydroChem Inc., 367 F.3d 473, 479 (5th Cir. 2004) (quoting Waltman v. Int'l Paper Co., 875 F.2d 468, 473 (5th Cir. 1989)). “Rule 59(e) permits a court to alter or amend a judgment, but it ‘may not be used to relitigate old matters, or to raise arguments or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.'” Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471, 485 n.5 (2008) (citation omitted). “The district court has considerable discretion in deciding whether to reopen a case under Rule 59(e).” Edward H. Bohlin Co. v. Banning Co., 6 F.3d 350, 355 (5th Cir. 1993). The court must balance “two competing imperatives: (1) finality, and (2) the need to render just decisions on the basis of all facts.” Id. “Relief under Rule 59(e) is an extraordinary remedy that should be used sparingly.” Indep. Coca-Cola Emps.' Union of Lake Charles, No. 1060 v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United, Inc., 114 Fed.Appx. 137, 143 (5th Cir. 2004).

Here, Starks fails to show that he is entitled to the relief he seeks. The Court previously found that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine barred his claims. “Absent specific law otherwise providing, [the Rooker-Feldman] doctrine directs that federal district courts lack jurisdiction to entertain collateral attacks on state court judgments.” Liedtke v. State Bar of Texas, 18 F.3d 315, 317 (5th Cir. 1994). The doctrine “is confined to . . . cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 291 (2005). Further, while “the doctrine usually applies only where a plaintiff explicitly attacks the validity of a state court's judgment, it can also apply if the plaintiff's claims are so inextricably intertwined with a state judgment that the federal court is in essence being called upon to review a state court decision.” Illinois Cent. R.R. Co. v. Guy, 682 F.3d 381, 390-91 (5th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Weaver v. Tex. Capital Bank, N.A., 660 F.3d 900, 904 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (noting that, in Fifth Circuit jurisprudence, “[a] state court judgment is attacked for purposes of Rooker-Feldman ‘when the [federal] claims are “inextricably intertwined” with a challenged state court judgment,' or where the losing party in a state court action seeks ‘what in substance would be appellate review of the state judgment'”) (citations omitted).

Starks fails to present any convincing argument that the Court should retreat from its prior finding that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars his claims. He asks the Court to void the state court judgment against him for sanctions and attorney fees, arguing that the state court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to issue it. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is clearly applicable to such a claim for relief because it invites this Court to review a state court judgment. See, e.g., Turner v. Cade, 354 Fed.Appx. 108, 110-11 (5th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (Rooker-Feldman bars a claim that a state-court divorce decree was procured through fraud when the federal plaintiff asked the decree to be declared void); Wade v. Louisiana State, Inc., 2020 WL 5647870, at *3 (M.D. La. July 27, 2020) (“Because Plaintiff asks this Court to ‘reopen,' ‘audit' and ‘declare void,' two state court judgments, his Complaint is barred by the Rooker-Feldman Doctrine and must be dismissed in its entirety.”).

The same is true for any 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims that Davis and Judge Wilson conspired together to commit fraud and grand theft against the elderly (apparently, Starks) by knowingly and illegally filing the motion for sanctions and attorney fees and violated Starks's equal protection rights by failing to dismiss the “erroneous petition for sanction [sic] and attorney fees.” See Proposed Amended Compl. (ECF No. 5 at 22). Even were the Court to consider these claims, to grant Starks the relief that he requests the Court would have to determine that the underlying state court judgment was tainted and therefore void. Such claims are inextricably intertwined with the state court judgment. See, e.g., Magor v. GMAC Mortgage, L.L.C., 456 Fed.Appx. 334, 335 (11th Cir. 2011) (Rooker-Feldman bars a claim that a state foreclosure judgment was procured through fraud because “reversal of the state court's foreclosure judgment would be a necessary part of the relief requested”); see also Kropelnicki v. Siegel, 290 F.3d 118, 129 (2d Cir. 2002) (“Moreover, if adjudication of a claim in federal court would require the...