Viola v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp.
| Decision Date | 14 June 2019 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 18-2351 (JEB) |
| Parties | ANTHONY VIOLA, Plaintiff, v. FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORP., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Incarcerated pro se Plaintiff Anthony L. Viola makes a clear request: show me the money. Or at least: show me where the money went. Convicted of wire fraud and ordered, along with several co-defendants, to pay restitution to assorted victims, Viola now seeks an accounting. As he and his co-defendants are jointly and severally liable, Viola wants to know what payments have been made and to whom. Plaintiff's claims hit several snags, however. For starters, he fails to show injury and thus lacks standing. His counts against each of the four Defendants also suffer substantive defects. As a result, the Court will dismiss the suit without prejudice.
On April 1, 2011, Viola was convicted of wire fraud and related charges in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. See ECF No. 12 (Fed. Def. MTD) at 2; see also United States v. Viola, 2011 WL 6749643, at *2 (N.D. Ohio Dec. 22, 2011). That court subsequently held him and five co-defendants jointly and severally liable for $2,649,865 in restitution to five victims of the fraud. See Fed. Def. MTD at 2; see also ECF No. 1 (Compl.), Attach. 1 at 1-6 (Restitution Order). Those victims included the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Argent Mortgage Company. See Restitution Order at 3. To execute the court's restitution order, the Bureau of Prisons has deducted between $25 and $50 from Viola's account every three months since September 2012. Id. at 8-10 (Inmate Financial Obligations); Fed. Def. MTD, Attach. 1 (Viola Payment History).
Viola alleges that in January 2018, he requested that each of the payees provide a current balance of his outstanding restitution debt. See Compl. at 1. He claims that they either ignored him or failed to confirm receipt of restitution payments. Id. Viola further alleges that he requested from the court a "full accounting" of his payments, but that the court "refused to provide the information." Id.
Unhappy with his lack of progress, on October 9, 2018, Plaintiff filed suit in this Court against the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, the FDIC, BOP, and Argent. Although he does not delineate specific causes of action, he principally invokes 18 U.S.C. § 3664, the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. Id. at 4. He seeks to obtain an accounting of his restitution payments, verification that his payments have reached the proper payees, and the amount remaining on all co-defendants' liability. Id. at 4-5. The three federal Defendants have now filed a collective Motion to Dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Citigroup, Inc., as alleged successor to Argent, has filed a separate Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). See ECF No. 13.
In evaluating Defendants' Motions to Dismiss, the Court must "treat the complaint's factual allegations as true . . . and must grant plaintiff 'the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.'" Sparrow v. United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (quoting Schuler v. United States, 617 F.2d 605, 608 (D.C. Cir. 1979)); seealso Jerome Stevens Pharms., Inc. v. FDA, 402 F.3d 1249, 1253-54 (D.C. Cir. 2005). The Court need not accept as true, however, "a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation," nor an inference unsupported by the facts set forth in the Complaint. See Trudeau v. FTC, 456 F.3d 178, 193 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)).
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) provides for the dismissal of an action where a complaint fails "to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Although "detailed factual allegations" are not necessary to withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, "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 (2009) (internal citation omitted). For a complaint to survive a 12(b)(6) motion, the facts alleged in the complaint "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56 (2007).
The standard to survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) is less forgiving. Under this Rule, a plaintiff bears the burden of proving that the Court has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear his claims. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992). A court also has an "affirmative obligation to ensure that it is acting within the scope of its jurisdictional authority." Grand Lodge of Fraternal Order of Police v. Ashcroft, 185 F. Supp. 2d 9, 13 (D.D.C. 2001). For this reason, "'the [p]laintiff's factual allegations in the complaint . . . will bear closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion' than in resolving a 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim." Id. at 13-14 (quoting 5A Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1350 (2d ed. 1987)).
The Court is mindful that complaints filed by pro se claimants are held "to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). But "even a pro se complainant must plead 'factual matter' that permits the court to infer'more than the mere possibility of misconduct.'" Atherton v. D.C. Office of the Mayor, 567 F.3d 672, 681-82 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678). The Court therefore must dismiss a pro se complaint "where the plaintiff's complaint provides no factual or legal basis for the requested relief." Strunk v. Obama, 880 F. Supp. 2d 1, 3 (D.D.C. 2011) (internal citations omitted).
The Court, as it must, first considers Defendants' jurisdictional challenges, see Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 95 (1998), before exploring defects in Viola's claims against each Defendant.
The Government initially argues that the case is now moot because the Clerk has since provided Viola with a two-page payment history. Yet Plaintiff rejoins that this is insufficient, especially because it does not detail payments from his co-defendants. The Court need not spend time on this point, however, as a more basic obstacle blocks Viola's path — namely, lack of standing.
Article III of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to resolving "Cases" and "Controversies." U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. A party's standing "is an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III." Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. Standing therefore represents a "predicate to any exercise of [the Court's] jurisdiction." Florida Audubon Soc'y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658, 663 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
To maintain standing, a plaintiff must meet three criteria. First, he "must have suffered an injury in fact — an invasion of a legally-protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized . . . and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical." Lujan, 504 U.S.at 560 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Second, "there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of — the injury has to be fairly . . . trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not . . . th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court." Id. (alterations in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Third, "it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision." Id. at 561 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). A "deficiency on any one of the three prongs suffices to defeat standing." US Ecology, Inc. v. US Dep't of Interior, 231 F.3d 20, 24 (D.C. Cir. 2000).
Injury is the "[f]irst and foremost" of standing's three elements. See Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 103. To meet this requirement, a plaintiff must show that he has suffered a distinct harm. See Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472 (1982). Such an injury, moreover, must be "concrete and particularized." Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1545 (2016) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000)). In other words, injury requires more than a statutory violation: plaintiffs must also show a "'concrete interest' that is 'de facto,' 'real,' and 'actually exist[s].'" Owner-Operator Indep. Drivers Ass'n v. U.S. Dep't of Transportation, 879 F.3d 339, 343 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (quoting Hancock v. Urban Outfitters, Inc., 830 F.3d 511, 514 (D.C. Cir. 2016)).
Here, Viola has not demonstrated such a concrete injury. He makes a conclusory statement that he "continues to be damaged" by the Government's acceptance of restitution payments "without any certainty of the amount of his liability and to whom it is being paid." Compl. at 3. But uncertainty alone is insufficient to show injury. See, e.g., New England Power Generators Ass'n, Inc. v. FERC, 707 F.3d 364, 369 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (). To the extent Viola alleges a violation of the MVRA, he still must show he has suffered a concrete injury that "actually exist[s]," Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1548 — not that he is merely uncertain whether the Government is properly reimbursing his victims.
Viola, consequently, must show either that there is a likelihood he has overpaid, or that the lack of accounting is causing him some other concrete injury — e.g., it affects how he pays the restitution. Yet he has pled neither. Indeed, his own submissions indicate that he has not come close to paying his full restitution balance. See Inmate Financial Obligations; see also Viola...
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