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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19-13470
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 8:19-cv-00534-JSM-SPF
HUONG L. TRAN,
RICHARD W. HAZEN,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
CITY OF HOLMES BEACH,
a Municipal Corporation of the State
of Florida,
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION,
Defendants-Appellees,
CARMEL MONTI,
former City Mayor,
et al.,
Defendants.
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________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(July 17, 2020)
Before WILSON, BRANCH, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Plaintiffs Huong Tran and Richard Hazen (who refer to themselves
collectively as the Hazens) challenge the district court’s dismissal with prejudice of
their pro se civil rights lawsuit against the City of Holmes Beach, the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection, and a number of other defendants
connected to the City and the Department, and maybe against some other people as
well, but that is not clear. The district court found that the Hazens’ third amended
complaint, like the versions of the complaint that preceded it, was an
impermissible shotgun pleading. We agree and affirm.
I.
This case is the latest round in a nearly decade-long legal fight in state
administrative proceedings, state court proceedings, and in federal court over a
treehouse the Hazens built without a permit on their beachfront property.1 The
1
The dispute has been litigated before the City’s Code Enforcement Board, the Florida
Twelfth Circuit Court, the Florida Second District Court of Appeals, the United States District
Court for the Middle District of Florida, and now this Court. At one point the Hazens sought
review of a Florida court decision in the United States Supreme Court.
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Hazens filed their pro se complaint in federal district court in March 2019 and
amended it as a matter of course two weeks later. The City filed a motion for a
more definite statement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(e). Instead of
granting that motion, the court dismissed without prejudice the Hazens’ first
amended complaint on its own motion.2 In its dismissal order, the court stated that
the Hazens’ filing was a “quintessential shotgun pleading” because it incorporated
into each count all of the preceding allegations and did not specify which
defendants committed which alleged acts or omissions. The court’s order allowed
the Hazens to file a new complaint within 14 days.
The Hazens, still pro se, filed a second amended complaint within the
allotted time. The City and the Department filed separate motions for a more
definite statement or, in the alternative, for dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6). The court granted those motions and dismissed the second
amended complaint without prejudice. In its dismissal order the court explained
that the second amended complaint was still a shotgun pleading and was even more
confusing than the first amended complaint had been because the second amended
2
The court said that it was dismissing the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6) on the City’s motion, but the City had not actually moved to dismiss the
amended complaint or relied on Rule 12(b)(6). The appropriate remedy upon granting a Rule
12(e) motion for a more definite statement is to order the plaintiff to refile his complaint; the
court may strike the plaintiff’s existing complaint only if he fails to comply with that order
within 14 days. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(e). Here the court did not order the Hazens to file
another complaint but instead allowed them to do so. And it did not wait 14 days before striking
the amended complaint but instead dismissed it without prejudice immediately.
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complaint contained many more causes of action and alleged facts than the earlier
one had. The court pointed out that the second amended complaint still referred to
the defendants largely in the collective and was unclear about which constitutional
provisions provided the basis for the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims. The court advised
the Hazens that they could file a third amended complaint but warned them it
would be their last chance to amend, and the court “strongly encourage[d] [the
Hazens] to seek legal advice on these matters as it is not the Court’s responsibility
to further educate [them] on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
The Hazens, still proceeding pro se, filed the third amended complaint that is
the subject of this appeal. The City and the Department both filed motions to
dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), and the district court granted both motions after the
Hazens responded to the City’s motion but before they had a chance to respond to
the Department’s motion. This time the dismissal was with prejudice. The court
found that the third amended complaint was still a shotgun pleading and expressed
the opinion that the lawsuit was also subject to dismissal on claim preclusion
grounds. The Hazens moved for reconsideration because the court had not
considered their arguments in response to the Department’s motion, only the City’s
motion. The court granted the motion for reconsideration to the extent the Hazens
asked the court to consider their arguments, but it denied the motion to the extent
the Hazens asked it to change its mind about dismissing the case.
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The Hazens have appealed the district court’s dismissal order and its order
on their motion for reconsideration.
II.
“A district court has the inherent authority to control its docket and ensure
the prompt resolution of lawsuits, which includes the ability to dismiss a complaint
on shotgun pleading grounds.” Vibe Micro, Inc. v. Shabanets,
878 F.3d 1291,
1295 (11th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks omitted). Shotgun pleadings
violate Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, which requires a “short and plain
statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” by failing to
give the defendants notice of the claims against them and the grounds on which
those claims rest.
Id. (quotation marks omitted). And they sometimes violate
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 10(b), which requires the pleader to state “each
claim founded on a separate transaction or occurrence . . . in a separate count or
defense” if doing so “would promote clarity.” Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty.
Sheriff’s Office,
792 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation marks omitted).
We review the dismissal of a shotgun pleading only for abuse of discretion. Vibe
Micro, 878 F.3d at 1294.
We have recognized four types of shotgun pleadings: (1) a complaint
containing multiple counts where each count adopts all allegations of all preceding
counts; (2) a complaint that is full of conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not
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obviously connected to any particular cause of action; (3) a complaint that does not
separate each cause of action or claim for relief into different counts; and (4) a
complaint that asserts multiple claims against multiple defendants without
specifying which of the defendants is responsible for which acts or omissions, or
which of the defendants the claim is brought against.
Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321–
23. Those categories do not have precise and clearly marked boundaries — we
said in Weiland that they are “rough” and “cannot be too finely drawn.”
Id. at
1321. But “[t]he unifying characteristic of all types of shotgun pleadings is that
they fail to one degree or another, and in one way or another, to give the
defendants adequate notice of the claims against them and the grounds upon which
each claim rests.”
Id. at 1323.
The third amended complaint falls into the last Weiland category because it
fails to provide notice of what claims each defendant must defend against. In the
“parties” section the Hazens list as defendants the City; “City Building Officials of
the City of Holmes Beach, to include Mr. Thomas O’Brien and Mr. James
McGuiness, in their official capacity”; “[o]ther unnamed City Officials, in their
official or individual capacity”; the Department; James Martinello, “Environmental
Manager, Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems,” in his official capacity;
“[o]ther unnamed State Officials, in their official or individual capacity”; and
“[o]ther anonymous persons, in their individual capacities.” Included in those
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groups of “unnamed” and “anonymous” defendants may be a number of officials
who are also referred to in the factual allegations of the pleadings. Or maybe not.
The Hazens’ latest (and last) pleading does not specify what claims they are
bringing against most of the named defendants. Eight of the nine counts in the
third amended complaint are labeled as against the City, against the Department, or
both. The one exception is Count VI, which does not name a defendant at all but
instead alleges in the abstract that certain provisions of law are unconstitutional.
None of the counts specify that the claims (if any) in them are against any of the
officials named or referred to in the “parties” section. The Hazens must be trying
to bring some sort of claim against those officials because they named them as
parties defendant. But they never say what those claims are and those parties as
well as the Court are left to guess what they might be. Fostering guesswork is not
a goal of pleading, and requiring it violates not only Rule 8 but also Rule 10(b).
See Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b) (“If doing so would promote clarity, each claim founded
on a separate transaction or occurrence . . . must be stated in a separate count or
defense.”). 3
3
The City and the Department assert, as another reason why the third amended complaint
is a shotgun pleading, that the Hazens have failed to specify in what capacity many of the
defendants are being sued. The Hazens allege that they are suing the unnamed city and state
officials in their “official or individual capacity.” (Emphasis added.) That is a failing, the
argument goes, because it affects how those officials must defend against the Hazens’ claims: in
an individual-capacity claim a defendant may assert the defense of qualified immunity, see
Tapley v. Collins,
211 F.3d 1210, 1211 n.2 (11th Cir. 2000), while in an official-capacity claim
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In addition, the Hazens have not provided sufficient notice of which
defendants are claimed to be responsible for which acts and omissions because
they often refer to defendants collectively. See
Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1323 (stating
that some shotgun pleadings “assert[ ] multiple claims against multiple defendants
without specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which acts or
omissions”). For example, in Count X, 4 which asserts a claim under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1986, the Hazens allege collective acts and omissions by “[t]he City building
officials, City attorneys[,] and City code enforcement officers”; by “the Mayors
and Commissioners”; by “[t]he Department Managers, Mr. Martinello and Dr.
Subbuswammy[,] and unnamed Department staff”; and by “[t]he State Officials.”
They do not say who the building officials, the city attorneys, the code
the plaintiff must establish that a governmental “policy or custom” was behind the alleged
violation of federal law, see Hafer v. Melo,
502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991).
That may (or may not) be a reason to dismiss a complaint as a shotgun pleading. A
number of district courts in this Circuit have ruled that it is. See, e.g., Johnson v. Liberty
County, No. 4:18-cv-216,
2019 WL 1576303, at *2 (S.D. Ga. Apr. 11, 2019); Buckner v.
Whitley, No. 3:18-cv-610,
2019 WL 1117914, at *2 (M.D. Ala. Mar. 11, 2019); Thorn v.
Randall, No. 8:14-cv-862,
2014 WL 5094134, at *2 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 10, 2014). But we need not
decide that question because multiple grounds for dismissal are not required.
4
We mentioned above that there are nine claims, not ten, in the third amended complaint.
The pleading skips over Count V (like some elevators skip over the thirteenth floor). As a result,
the claim labeled Count X is actually the ninth one.
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enforcement officers, the mayors, the commissioners, the unnamed department
staff, or the state officials are, let alone who within each group did what.5
The Hazens contend that the district court erred because dismissal with
prejudice is an “extreme sanction” that is appropriate only when a party engages in
a clear pattern of delay or willful contempt and the district court specifically finds
that a lesser sanction would not suffice. But our case law “makes clear that
dismissal of a complaint with prejudice [as a shotgun pleading] is warranted under
certain circumstances.” Jackson v. Bank of Am., N.A.,
898 F.3d 1348, 1358 (11th
Cir. 2018). One circumstance is where, as here, the pleader fails to remedy the
problems with the complaint after being given another chance (or here two more
chances) to do so. See
id.
The Hazens also contend that the district court erred by dismissing their
lawsuit with prejudice without giving them a chance to fix their mistakes. We
have held that district courts must give litigants at least one chance to amend a
shotgun pleading. See Vibe
Micro, 878 F.3d at 1296. The Hazens are right that
the district court did not give them a chance to fix their mistakes –– it gave them
two chances to fix it, twice as many chances as are required. Instead of fixing the
mistakes they made in their complaint, they doubled down and replaced one
5
The complaint does specify that two named individuals are “include[d]” among the city
building officials, but there could be more. And it says that the commissioners “include” four
named individuals but, again, there could be more.
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shotgun pleading with another shotgun pleading. The district court could have
dismissed that one with prejudice. Instead, the court gave the Hazens a break and
dismissed it without prejudice and even explained to them what was wrong with it.
The court also urged them to seek legal advice before filing a third amended
complaint because that was going to be their last chance. Instead of following the
court’s advice, the Hazens filed a third amended complaint that was as shotgunny
as the two that preceded it had been. Three chances are plenty. There was no
abuse of discretion in dismissing the third amended complaint with prejudice.
The Hazens protest that the district court saddled them with a heightened
pleading standard. There is, however, nothing heightened about application of the
rule against shotgun pleading, which is based on Rule 8, Rule 10, and our
precedent.
The Hazens also assert that the district court did not give them the extra
leeway accorded to pro se plaintiffs. See Albra v. Advan, Inc.,
490 F.3d 826, 829
(11th Cir. 2007) (“[W]e are to give liberal construction to the pleadings of pro
se litigants, [although] we nevertheless have required them to conform to
procedural rules.”) (quotation marks omitted). The court did give the Hazens that
much leeway and more. Even pro se plaintiffs must comply with pleading rules or
face judgment day, which for the Hazens came after the district court gave them
two chances to replead, and even some guidance about what was wrong with the
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way they had done it before. The district court did not demand that the Hazens, as
pro se litigants, submit an artfully drafted or flawless complaint, just one that gave
fair notice to the people the complaint mentioned about who was a defendant and
what the claim or claims against them was or were. Only after the Hazens failed to
do that in a third attempt was judgment entered against them.
AFFIRMED.
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