Turner v. Smith, C 11-05176 CRB
| Decision Date | 03 December 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. C 11-05176 CRB,C 11-05176 CRB |
| Parties | STEPHEN B. TURNER, Plaintiff, v. MELODY SMITH, ET AL., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
Defendants Ambroselli, Brown, Tierney, and Cate ("Defendants") move to dismiss Plaintiff Stephen B. Turner's Second Amended Complaint (SAC) on several grounds, including that the complaint as a whole is incomprehensible in violation of Rule 8(a), that many of the claims are barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994), that certain claims violate joinder rules, and that many alleged causes of action fail to state valid claims for relief. The Court finds this motion suitable for disposition without oral argument. See N.D. Cal. Local R. 7-1(b).
Turner, proceeding pro se, is currently on parole in the State of California. SAC (dkt. 64) ¶ 20. He filed the original complaint in this lawsuit on October 24, 2011. See Compl. (dkt. 1). Six days later, Plaintiff filed a 121-page (213 pages including exhibits) First Amended Complaint (FAC). See FAC (dkt. 9). On December 12, 2011, Defendant Tierneyfiled a motion to dismiss or stay the case (MTD), alleging, inter alia, that the FAC violated Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. MTD (dkt. 20) at 6.
Recognizing at that time that Plaintiff's 132-paragraph FAC containing 78 pages of block quotes from tangentially relevant caselaw was problematic, the Court granted Plaintiff leave to amend in lieu of dismissing the complaint outright under Rule 8(a). At the June 22, 2012, hearing, the Court strongly encouraged Plaintiff to retain an attorney. Minutes (dkt. 56) at 1. That did not happen, however, and Plaintiff filed his SAC on September 24, 2012. The SAC is a 160-page document with 168 paragraphs alleging 47 causes of action against thirteen named defendants and five Doe defendants. In addition, there are 50 pages of exhibits, for a total of 210 pages.
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of the claims alleged in a complaint. Ileto v. Glock, Inc., 349 F.3d 1191, 1199-1200 (9th Cir. 2003). "Detailed factual allegations" are not required, but the Rule does call for 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 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 570 (2007)). "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. In determining facial plausibility, whether a complaint states a plausible claim is a "context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679. Allegations of material fact are taken as true and construed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Cahill v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 80 F.3d 336, 337-38 (9th Cir. 1996).
A complaint should not be dismissed without leave to amend unless it is clear that the claims could not be saved by amendment. Swartz v. KPMG LLP, 476 F.3d 756, 760 (9th Cir. 2007).
Where the allegations in a complaint are "argumentative, prolix, replete with redundancy and largely irrelevant," the complaint is properly dismissed for failure to comply with Rule 8(a). McHenry v. Renne, 84 F.3d 1172, 1177, 1178-79 (9th Cir. 1996); see also Nevijel v. North Coast Life Ins. Co., 651 F.2d 671, 673-74 (9th Cir. 1981) (). "Something labeled a complaint but . . . prolix in evidentiary detail, yet without simplicity, conciseness and clarity as to whom plaintiffs are suing for what wrongs, fails to perform the essential functions of a complaint," McHenry, 84 F.3d at 1180, and "impose[s] unfair burdens on litigants and judges." Id. at 1179.
But "verbosity or length is not by itself a basis for dismissing a complaint based on Rule 8(a)." Hearns v. San Bernardino Police Dept., 530 F.3d 1124, 1131 (9th Cir. 2008). A complaint, even if lengthy, is permissible if it is "coherent, well-organized, and state[s] legally viable claims." Id.
A complaint that fails to comply with Rule 8(a) may be dismissed with prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(b).1 Nevijel, 651 F.2d at 673. Generally, dismissal with leave to amend is proper "unless it is clear, upon de novo review, that the complaint could not be saved by any amendment." Schneider v. California DOC, 151 F.3d 1194, 1196 (9th Cir. 1998).
Defendants claim that the "prolix, confusing, and disjointed SAC unfairly and unreasonably burdens the court and Defendants, [and] makes it impossible for Defendants to formulate a response . . . ." MTD (dkt. 72) at 3. Defendants further allege that the SAC is "a tangle of made-up theories that have no obvious basis in law, " and that its structure and format amounts to "an incoherent jumble that makes it impossible to determine what legaltheories are being asserted, which facts are intended to support which claims, and appears to assert some claims against certain Defendants that are contradicted by the factual allegations." Id. at 10.
The Court disagrees. It is beyond dispute that the complaint is needlessly long-winded and contains much extraneous material, inappropriate argument, and redundancies. Nevertheless, Turner is proceeding pro se, and his complaint is intelligible, logically structured, and organized into distinct causes of action setting out forty-seven independent claims. To the extent the asserted claims are "made up theories" or contain factual allegations contradicting the asserted theory, Defendants' proper course is to proceed claim-by-claim under Rule 12(b)(6) and identify which asserted causes of action, in light of the alleged facts or applicable law, fail to state a claim.
In order to recover damages for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87 (1994).2 A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983. Id. at 487.
"Heck applies to proceedings [that] call into question the fact or duration of parole." Jackson v. Vannoy, 49 F.3d 175, 177 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 851 (1995). A challenge to the denial of parole, whether based upon procedural defects in the parole hearing or upon allegations that parole was improperly denied on the merits, directly implicates the validity of the prisoner's continued confinement. See Butterfield v. Bail, 120 F.3d 1023, 1024 (9th Cir. 1997). Similarly, a challenge to the denial of parole based upon allegations ofdeceit and bias in the administration of the state's parole statutes implies the invalidity of the inmates' confinement "insofar as their prolonged incarcerations are due to the purported bias of state officials." McQuillion, 369 F.3d at 1097-98.
This Court agrees with other district courts holding that conditions of parole are themselves part of a defendant's sentence for purposes of Heck analysis. Cordell v. Tilton, 515 F. Supp. 2d 1114, 1121-22 (S.D. Cal. 2007); Moreno v. State of Cal., 25 F. Supp. 2d 1060, 1062-63 (N.D. Cal. 1998); cf. Williams v. Wisconsin, 336 F.3d 576, 580 (7th Cir. 2003).
Accordingly, Heck does not permit a challenge to the procedures or validity of a parole revocation decision unless the parole board's decision has been reversed, expunged, set aside or called into question. See McQuillion, 369 F.3d at 1097-98; Schafer v. Moore, 46 F.3d 43, 44-45 (8th Cir. 1995); Littles v. Bd. of Pardons and Paroles Div., 68 F.3d 122, 123 (5th Cir. 1995); McGrew v. Texas Bd. of Pardons & Paroles, 47 F.3d 158, 161 (5th Cir. 1995). Nor may a plaintiff question the validity of his parole conditions unless and until he shows that the conditions have been invalidated. Moreno, 25 F. Supp. 2d at 1064.
The majority of Turner's forty-seven causes of action are barred by Heck and its progeny. The core of Turner's case is a challenge to the state parole board's classification of him as a high-risk sex offender, the imposition of parole conditions consistent with that classification, and the revocation of his parole on various occasions for violations of those conditions. Though some of the individual causes of action present as challenges to particular conduct by parole agents or the parole board, those challenges ultimately rest on the proposition, or would require a finding, that a particular condition is invalid or that a revocation decision was invalid.
For example, Turner's sixth cause of action alleges "the intentional violation of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution for false arrest/imprisonment and malicious prosecution." SAC at 106. That claim arises out of Turner's arrest and subsequent parole revocation in April 2012 for leaving Alameda County without approval. Id. & Ex. L. Turner argues that the sole purpose of his trip out ofAlameda County was to visit the San Francisco courthouse to file papers in a pending lawsuit, which he says he had a constitutional right to do. Though Turner's argument has some logical force, awarding him money damages on that cause of action would require a finding that the decision of the parole board to revoke his parole on those grounds was invalid, which this Court cannot do in the absence of a prior successful collateral attack on the revocation...
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