Sullivan v. Hyland

• Decision Date: 12 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. 3:08-cv-00471 (CSH)(JGM).,3:08-cv-00471 (CSH)(JGM).
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: Philip SULLIVAN and Charlotte Sullivan, Plaintiffs, v. James HYLAND, Maryanne Delisa, Gregory Zigmont, Charles Coffey, Terri Sonneman, and John Malone, Defendants.

Page 143

647 F.Supp.2d 143

Philip SULLIVAN and Charlotte Sullivan, Plaintiffs, v. James HYLAND, Maryanne Delisa, Gregory Zigmont, Charles Coffey, Terri Sonneman, and John Malone, Defendants.

No. 3:08-cv-00471 (CSH)(JGM).

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

August 12, 2009.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Philip Sullivan, West Hartford, CT, pro se.

Charlotte Sullivan, West Hartford, CT, pro se.

Edward G. McAnaney, McAnaney & McAnaney, Suffield, CT, Julie A. Harris, Noble, Spector, Young & O'Connor, Robert J. Deichert, Attorney General's Office, Hartford, CT, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

HAIGHT, Senior District Judge:

This case comes before the Court to review several recommended rulings by Magistrate Judge Margolis: the Recommended Ruling of November 21, 2008 [doc. # 39, hereinafter "First Recommended Ruling" or "R.R.1"] on the Defendants' Motions to Dismiss [docs. ## 21, 24, 26]; the Recommended Ruling of November 25, 2008 [doc. # 40, hereinafter "Second Recommended Ruling" or "R.R.2"] on Defendant Hyland's Motion for Injunction [doc. # 30] and the Plaintiffs Philip and Charlotte Sullivan's Motion to Strike the same [doc. # 36]; and the Recommended Ruling of February 6, 2009 [doc. # 55, hereinafter "Third Recommended Ruling" or "R.R.3"] on Defendant Maryanne Delisa's Motion for Preliminary Injunction [doc. # 50] and Plaintiffs' Motion to Strike the same [doc. # 48].¹

This case was originally assigned to another district judge in this judicial district, the Honorable Janet Bond Arterton, and the case was reassigned to me while the referral to Judge Margolis was pending.

I. Introduction

A. Background

This case has its genesis in a domestic dispute, where plaintiffs were ejected from their home of many years after a dispute with their landlord,² who also happened to be plaintiff Philip Sullivan's mother. That removal gave rise to a criminal complaint against Philip Sullivan on eavesdropping charges. The case was dismissed after the chief witness—again, Philip Sullivan's mother—passed away, and pretrial testimony was therefore excluded under the hearsay rule. In addition to a landlord-tenant lawsuit in Connecticut state court (Sullivan I) the Sullivans have brought a state probate action (Sullivan II) and a federal lawsuit to recover damages for perceived violations of their civil rights (Sullivan III). In all those lawsuits, the Sullivans sued several family members, and in the federal action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, they also sued private attorneys and numerous officials of the State of Connecticut, including police investigators, prosecutors, and judges, at least some of whom the Sullivans believe conspired with their family members to deprive them of their constitutional rights.

According to plaintiffs,

[t]he current action which is labeled by the court as Sullivan IV . . . was brought by Plaintiffs because in Sullivan III, as appears of record, Plaintiffs were denied their due process opportunity to amend their complaint [in] September, 2005 to include said claims [for false arrest and malicious prosecution] AFTER the state criminal action was dismissed in Plaintiff Philip Sullivan's favor April 1, 2005 for total lack of evidence.

Pls.' Obj'n to R.R.2, Doc. # 43, at 7 (emphasis and footnote omitted).³

In other words, plaintiffs' purpose in the captioned action, Sullivan IV, is to obtain relief from Judge Kravitz's Joinder Ruling in Sullivan III, which denied them leave to reinstate certain claims and defendants and to introduce additional claims against those defendants.

B. Standard of Review

As required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b)(3), where timely objections are raised to a recommended ruling by a magistrate judge on a dispositive motion, "[t]he district judge must determine de novo any part of the magistrate judge's disposition that has been properly objected to. The district judge may accept, reject, or modify the recommended disposition; receive further evidence; or return the matter to the magistrate judge with instructions." Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(3).

C. Prior Proceedings

This case has a long and tortured history, and the parties' familiarity with the facts and procedural posture is presumed. After at least two actions in Connecticut state court, these same plaintiffs filed a sweeping lawsuit in this Court. See Complaint, Sullivan v. Stein ["Sullivan III"], No. 3:03-cv-1203 (MRK) (filed July 10, 2003). The decisions reached in that case form the basis of defendants' preclusion arguments in the case at bar. See Judge Kravitz's Ruling, 2004 WL 1179351, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9438 (D.Conn. May 21, 2004) (granting plaintiffs' motions to amend certain claims in their complaint; dismissing claims against the large majority of defendants on grounds of prosecutorial, judicial, or Eleventh Amendment immunity for most state defendants, and failure to state a claim under federal law against the private defendants; and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims); Ruling and Order, 2004 WL 2750312 (D.Conn. Nov. 18, 2004) (denying plaintiffs' multiple Motions for Reconsideration); Judge Kravitz's Joinder Ruling, 2005 WL 465425, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2840 (D.Conn. Feb. 7, 2005) (denying leave to add defendant prosecutor John Malone because such joinder would be futile, because claims against him would be barred on grounds of prosecutorial immunity; denying leave to amend the complaint to revive claims against most defendants under §§ 1983 & 1985(3), because the proposed amendments failed to cure defects previously identified; but granting leave to amend the complaint to add claims under § 1983 against defendant inspectors Zigmont and Coffey, in their individual capacities); Ruling and Order, 2005 WL 977069 (D.Conn. Apr. 19, 2005) (denying plaintiffs' Motions for Order of Certification of Immediate Appeal and for Stay Pending Determination by Second Circuit); Ruling and Order, 2005 WL 2209301 (D. Conn. Sep. 12, 2005) (denying defendants Zigmont and Coffey's renewed motion to dismiss, and permitting claims against those defendants to proceed); Memorandum of Decision, No. 3:03-cv-1203 (MRK), Doc. #250 (D.Conn. Sept. 29, 2005) (denying leave to reinstate claims previously dismissed against private and state defendants—leave was sought based on dismissal and expunction of the criminal case against Philip Sullivan and the Court's recent decision not to dismiss a limited set of claims); Judge Kravitz's Reconsideration Ruling, 2007 WL 1114028 (D.Conn. Apr. 10, 2007) (denying leave to amend and reinstate claims against private defendants, after repeated attempts to do so that were dismissed for insufficient pleading); Judge Kravitz's Summary Judgment Ruling, 487 F.Supp.2d 52 (D.Conn. 2007) (granting defendants' motions for summary judgment on all remaining federal claims under § 1983; denying those motions as to the remaining state-law claims; but declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims and therefore dismissing them for lack of jurisdiction).

In her First Recommended Ruling [doc. # 39], Judge Margolis prepared a comprehensive narrative of the factual and legal history in these matters, which I adopt as my own and incorporate by reference. See R.R.1 at 3-8.⁴

D. Subsequent Proceedings

Since the time that Judge Margolis issued her Recommended Rulings, one other change has occurred in the procedural posture of matters related to the case at bar. On April 3, 2009, the Second Circuit summarily affirmed Judge Kravitz's judgment in Sullivan III, which was based on the many opinions already cited supra. The Second Circuit provided no discussion, except that it affirmed "for substantially the reasons stated by the district court in its thorough opinions. We have considered all of the Sullivans' arguments and find them to be without merit." Sullivan v. Stein, 319 Fed.Appx. 42, 43 (2d Cir.2009) (unpublished summary order).

II. The First Recommended Ruling: Defendants' Motions To Dismiss

A. Standard of Review

The standard of review on a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is familiar, although recent modifications by the Supreme Court have made it less permissive in some cases.⁵ A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) must be decided on "facts stated on the face of the complaint, in documents appended to the complaint or incorporated in the complaint by reference, and [] matters of which judicial notice may be taken." Leonard F. v. Israel Disc. Bank of N.Y., 199 F.3d 99, 107 (2d Cir.1999) (citation omitted). In particular, because this case turns on facts that have been the subject of several prior actions, it is proper and indeed incumbent upon this Court to take judicial notice of the opinions in those prior cases. See Chien v. Skystar Bio Pharm. Co., 623 F.Supp.2d 255, 260 n. 3 (D.Conn.2009) ("[I]n considering a res judicata defense, a court may judicially notice prior pleadings, orders, judgments, and other items appearing in the court records of prior litigation that are related to the case before the Court.").⁶

In deciding a motion to dismiss, well-pleaded facts must be accepted as true and considered in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff. Patane v. Clark, 508 F.3d 106, 111 (2d Cir.2007). The issue in deciding a motion to dismiss is "not whether the plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the plaintiff is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims." Villager Pond, Inc. v. Town of Darien, 56 F.3d 375, 378 (2d Cir.1995). The factual allegations made in the complaint "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint's allegations are true." Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). This requires the complaint to contain "enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence" of the plaintiff's claim. Id. at 556, 127...