Wall v. United States Dep't Of Justice
| Decision Date | 29 November 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 3:09CV1066 (DJS),3:09CV1066 (DJS) |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
| Parties | GARY R. WALL, Plaintiff v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ET AL.Defendants |
The pro se Plaintiff, Gary R. Wall, brought this action against the following the following named Defendants: Department of Justice U.S. Attorneys Office, New Haven, Connecticut; District Judge Janet C. Hall; Unknown District Law Clerks in the Meaning of Bivens; Circuit Judge [now Supreme Court Justice] Sonia Sotomayor; Unknown Circuit Law Clerks in the Meaning of Bivens; and Congressman John Larson. The caption of the Complaint states that it is a "42 U.S.C. 1985(3) Civil Rights Act Complaint for Obstruction and Usurpation of Due Process (5th Amendment) Rights (Action in Equity)." (Dkt. # 1, at 1.) The Complaint does not clearly identify the nature of the Plaintiff's action. In a subsequent submission to the Court, the Plaintiff represented that "[t]his complaint is and can only be interpreted as a Bivens Complaint and this Civil Rights pleader respectfully request[s] the Court to do so." (Dkt. # 12, at 3.)
The Plaintiff alleges that the U.S. Department of Justice improperly denied him access to a federal grand jury, that the defendant judges and law clerks conspired to violate, and did in fact violate, his "Due Process 5th Amendment Rights" through actions taken and rulings made in the previous federal lawsuits filed by the Plaintiff, and that Congressman Larson has failed to take action in response to information about corruption provided to Congressman Larson by the Plaintiff. The Defendants have moved pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) to dismiss the Complaint in its entirety.1 For the reasons that hereafter follow, the Defendants' motions to dismiss (Dkt. # 8 and Dkt. # 17) are GRANTED.
This lawsuit is the latest in a series of court actions filed by the Plaintiff relating in one way or another to longstanding claims by the Plaintiff and another individual named William Cooksey ("Cooksey") against Construction & General Laborers' Union, Local 230 (the "Union"), which is affiliated with the Laborers' International Union of North America ("LIUNA") (collectively, "the Unions"). The factual history of these claims is set forth in detail in Wall v. Construction & General Laborers' Union, Local 230, 224 F.3d 168, 170-73 (2d Cir. 2000) and need not be repeated here. In short, the Plaintiff has consistently maintained that he and Cooksey were wrongly and illegally denied readmission to the Union, from which they had resigned after they had successfully pursued unfair labor practice charges against the Union before the National Labor Relations Board. According to the Plaintiff, this denial adversely affected his and Cooksey's employment and pension rights.
Having been denied readmission to the Union, the Plaintiff and Cooksey initiated an action in federal court against the Union and its officers claiming violations of the federal Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act as well as Connecticut statutory and common law ("Wall I"). The district court (Janet C. Hall, Judge) initially granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants and the plaintiffs appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs' state law claims, but reversed the dismissal of the plaintiffs' federal claim. Wall v. Construction & General Laborers' Union, Local 230, 224 F.3d 168 (2d Cir. 2000). On remand, the district court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' renewed motion for summary judgment. The plaintiffs' remaining claim was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict for the defendants. The district court subsequently denied the plaintiffs' motion for a new trial and motion to reconsider the denial of the motion for a new trial. The Second Circuit later affirmed the district court's decision to deny the motion for reconsideration and declined to consider the plaintiffs' untimely challenge to the underlying verdict and judgment. Wall v. Construction & General Laborers' Union, Local 230, No. 06-1264-cv, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 1905, at *2-*3 (2d Cir. Feb. 2, 2009).
In 1998, the Plaintiff, along with Cooksey and a third individual named Stephen Manos ("Manos"), filed a complaint pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO") alleging that the defendants, who were the Unions and various officials of the Unions, had violated the civil remedy provisions of RICO. The plaintiffs in that action contended that the defendants had deprived them of the rights to union membership, employment, due process, and the right to vote in union affairs, as well as entitlement to their pensions. The district court (Janet C. Hall, Judge) concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to establish the existence of two predicate acts required to demonstrate a RICO violation and, for that reason, dismissed the Second Amended Complaint2. On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court. Wall v. Roman, 18 Fed. Appx. 41 (2d Cir. 2001).
In 2004, the Plaintiff, along with Cooksey and Manos, filed another RICO complaint, naming the Unions, various officials and agents of LIUNA, the Connecticut Laborers' Pension Fund (the "Pension Fund"), and the director of the Pension Fund as defendants. The plaintiffs in that action alleged that the defendants had violated their constitutional rights and RICO by failing to fully fund or credit their pensions and by denying them reinstatement to membership in the Union. The district court (Warren W. Eginton, Judge) concluded that the plaintiffs' claims were barred on the basis of collateral estoppel and granted the defendants' motion to dismiss. The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court. Wall v. Laborers' International Union of North America, Local 230, 27 6 Fed. Appx. 68 (2d Cir. 2008). In its decision, the Second Circuit stated that Id. at 70.
On March 3, 2009, the Plaintiff filed an action styled as a "5 U.S.C. 552(a)(4)(B) Fee Waiver Complaint," relating to a Freedom of Information request for information concerning an "Operating Agreement" between the Department of Justice and LIUNA. See Wall v. Executive Office for United States Attorneys, Case No. 09-cv-00344 (JCH). In that action, the court (Janet C. Hall, Judge) denied what was characterized as a Motion for Recusal that was based on the fact that the Plaintiff had named Judge Hall as a defendant in the case that is before this Court. The Second Circuit dismissed the Plaintiff's appeal from the denial of the recusal motion for the reason that it lacked jurisdiction over the appeal because a final order had not been issued by the district court. Wall v. Executive Office for United States Attorneys, No. 10-2943-cv, slip op. (Sept. 3, 2010). The district court subsequently granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and judgment entered in favor of the defendants on November 17, 2010.
The following facts are alleged in the Complaint. In early 1995, the U.S. Justice Department and LIUNA entered into an agreement known as the "Operating Agreement." According to the Plaintiff, this agreement was wrongly portrayed to Congress as a "self-policing action in response to a 212 page draft RICO complaint." (Dkt. #1, at 2-3.) Since December 2004, the Plaintiff has requested that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Connecticut provide him with access to a grand jury in order for the Plaintiff to expose the Operating Agreement for what it actually is, i.e., "a conspiracy to defraud the Lawful Functions of the United States (18 U.S.C. 371(a)(b)), by and through the corrupt procurement and administration of the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organization Act... (Id. at 3.) According to the Plaintiff various crimes have been committed "[b]y reason of said 'Operating Agreement, '" and the denial of grand jury access by the Connecticut U.S. Attorney's Office has facilitated this criminal activity. (Id.)
The Plaintiff's initial federal complaint (Wall I), was transferred from the Honorable Janet B. Arterton, who sits in New Haven, Connecticut, to the Honorable Janet C. Hall, who sits in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in October 1997. According to the Plaintiff, this transfer was ordered in furtherance of a conspiracy involving federal judges3 and law clerks to deprive him of his "Due Process 5th Amendment Rights" "as part of a scheme to hide the crimes of the 'Operating Agreement.'" (Id. at 7, 9.)
The Plaintiff alleges that in presiding over Wall I, Judge Hall "took no action against the defendants when she had full knowledge that the defendants stole co-plaintiff Cooksey's psychiatric records from Connecticut Laborer's Pension Fund... and then read them out to the membership at a membership meeting," and also took no action "when it was proven that the defendants [sic] lawyer printed after the fact fraudulent subpoenas." (Id. at 7.) He further alleges that Judge Hall, apparently through certain unknown law clerks, "criminally postdated an Amended Complaint by dating it 11 days late not knowing the plaintiff had a copy of the correct stamp day and time," "stopped the facts that were exposed in discovery in the LMRDA [Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act] case from 'Public Visibility' by pleading a fact fraud case for the defendants (Sua Sponti) [sic] that they did not even plead," and "knowingly aid[ed] and abet[ted] collusion perjury committed by G.E.B. Attorney Robert D. Luskin...." (Id. at 7-8.)
The Complaint asserts that "[t]he reason Circuit Judge Sotomayor is ...
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