Viola v. Kasaris, Case No. 2:16-cv-1036
| Decision Date | 24 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:16-cv-1036 |
| Parties | Anthony L. Viola, Plaintiff, v. Daniel J. Kasaris, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio |
Anthony L. Viola, an inmate at the McKean Federal Correctional Institution located in Bradford, Pennsylvania, has filed this action against Daniel J. Kasaris, who is currently employed as an assistant Ohio Attorney General. Mr. Viola has moved for injunctive relief; Mr. Kasaris opposes that motion and has moved to dismiss. For the following reasons, the Court recommends that the motion to dismiss be granted, the motion for injunctive relief be denied, and the case be dismissed under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
In order to resolve the pending motions, it is necessary to read the complaint closely, and to read its statements in conjunction with the exhibits which are attached. The Court will therefore set out its allegations in detail. It is important to keep in mind that the facts alleged in the complaint are just that - allegations - although the well-pleaded ones must be assumed to be true for purposes of ruling on the motion to dismiss. See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974); Gunasekera v. Irwin, 551 F.3d 461, 466 (6th Cir. 2009).
Mr. Kasaris was formerly a prosecuting attorney in Cuyahoga County. Mr. Viola is a former defendant in a case brought by the State of Ohio against him in which mortgage fraud was alleged. Mr. Kasaris prosecuted that case, which ended in an acquittal. Mr. Viola was convicted on similar charges in federal court, however, which explains why he is currently an inmate at a federal correctional institution.
The complaint alleges that, during the course of these prosecutions, Mr. Kasaris engaged in some questionable tactics. Whether he did or did not is not relevant to the issues before this Court. Mr. Viola claims that he was wrongfully convicted in the federal case. His friends and supporters have created a website, www.FreeTonyViola.com, the purpose of which (in Mr. Viola's words, see Doc. 1, ¶14) is "to highlight the obvious injustice of a citizen who proved his innocence at trial remaining imprisoned." One of the topics on the website is the misconduct charges leveled against Mr. Kasaris, as well as allegations about other improprieties, both personal and professional, allegedly engaged in by Mr. Kasaris (who, in addition to being an assistant attorney general, is on the North Royalton, Ohio, City Council).
Mr. Viola alleges that in September and October, 2016, Mr. Kasaris sent what the complaint characterizes as "threatening letters" to both Mr. Viola and to others assisting with the website. The letter to Mr. Viola is attached to the complaint as Exhibit F. It reads in full as follows (with all errors as in the original):
The letter is not on official stationary and, as can be seen from the exhibit, Mr. Kasaris did not sign it in any particular capacity.
The complaint specifically avers that all of the statementson www.FreeTonyViola.com are truthful and accurate. However, Mr. Viola claims that the "web team" (which presumably includes himself) "is afraid of being prosecuted for assisting with this initiative." Id. at ¶22. As a result, he asserts that he has been deprived, and will continue to be deprived, of his First Amendment rights. As relief, he seeks a declaration that Mr. Kasaris's actions are unconstitutional, and an order enjoining Mr. Kasaris from further threatening to prosecute either Mr. Viola or others who have assisted with the website.
Mr. Kasaris's motion to dismiss raises three distinct arguments - lack of subject matter jurisdiction, insufficiency of service of process, and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. He has since accepted service, so only two potential grounds for dismissal remain. Because the subject matter jurisdiction argument raises the question of Article III standing, the Court must address that issue first before considering the merits of his claim. See Steel Company v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83 (1998).
Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution governs the scope of the "judicial Power" of the United States. It says that this power extends to "all Cases, in Law and Equity" which fall into certain defined categories - cases arising under the Constitution itself being one of those categories - and to certain kinds of "Controversies" as well. If a particular matter brought before a federal court is not one of those described in Article III, Section 2, the court has no jurisdiction - literally, no "judicial Power" - to decide the matter. And if the matter is neither a "case" nor a "controversy," as those terms which appear in Article III have come to be defined, the Court similarly lacks the power to make a merits determination.
In order for a dispute to qualify as a "case or controversy,"at a minimum, the plaintiff must have standing to sue. Standing is conferred by the existence of a real-world injury which places the plaintiff sufficiently at odds with the defendant or defendants so as to make the matter in dispute a Not all types of injuries are sufficient, but without some type of injury, the plaintiff lacks standing, and the Court lacks Article III jurisdiction.
This Court has explained the concept of Article III jurisdiction this way:
It is true that plaintiffs "must possess both constitutional and statutory standing in order for a federal court to have jurisdiction." Loren v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mich., 505 F.3d 598, 606 (6th Cir. 2007) (citing Bender v. Williamsport Area Sch. Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 541, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 89 L.Ed.2d 501 (1986)). "As the party invoking federal jurisdiction, Plaintiffs bear the burden of establishing standing." Loren, 505 F.3d at 607 (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)). In order to establish Article III standing, a plaintiff "must allege: (1) 'injury in fact,' (2) 'a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of,' and (3) redressability." Taylor v. KeyCorp, 680 F.3d 609, 612 (6th Cir.2012) (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).
Jones v. Allen, 2014 WL 347035, *3 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 30, 2014), adopted and affirmed 2014 WL 1235184 (S.D. Ohio Mar. 25, 2014). Each element of Article III standing must be separately and plausibly pleaded; an injury in fact, for example, will not support standing if the injury was not caused by the defendant's conduct, or if the injury would persist even if the court were to rule in the plaintiff's favor. These elements are designed to insure both that the parties have a sufficient stake in the outcome of the case to make them appropriate and motivatedadversaries, and to insure that the Court's resolution of the case will have a real-world impact on the parties' legal relationship. Without that, the Court would essentially be rendering advice on a theoretical or collusively-presented legal issue rather than deciding an actual case, and the Constitution does not extend the judicial power that far.
In his motion to dismiss, Mr. Kasaris focuses on the first of the three Article III standing elements: injury in fact. He argues that Mr. Viola has not pleaded an injury to his First Amendment rights which is "'likely to occur imminently.'" See Doc. 6, at 6, quoting Parsons v. United States Dept. of Justice, 801 F.3d 701, 710 (6th Cir. 2015). Mr. Kasaris asserts that when the injury at issue is the "chilling" of a person's right to speak freely, the person must allege something more than simply his or her subjective feeling that an impediment to free speech has been created. Thus, for example, if a person feels deterred from speaking out by the possibility that he or she will face criminal charges, unless there is some objective basis for believing that criminal charges might be filed, the person has not suffered an injury sufficient to confer Article III standing.
Parsons (...
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