Christiana Itiowe v. The Trentonian , 620 F. App'x 65 ( 2015 )

ALD-242 NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 14-4421
___________
CHRISTIANA ITIOWE,
Appellant
v.
THE TRENTONIAN; JOURNAL REGISTER COMPANY; THE STATE OF NEW
JERSEY; THE CITY OF TRENTON; THE TRENTON TIMES; ADVANCE
PUBLICATIONS INC.; DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
(D.C. Civil No. 3-13-cv-05779)
District Judge: Honorable Joel A. Pisano
____________________________________
Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) or
Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6
June 18, 2015
Before: RENDELL, CHAGARES and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: July 13, 2015)
_________
OPINION*
_________
PER CURIAM
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
Pro se appellant Christiana Itiowe (“Itiowe”) appeals the District Court’s order
dismissing her complaint, denying her motion to amend her complaint, and denying her
motion to change venue as moot, which all followed the defendant City of Trenton’s
motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Because her appeal lacks any arguable basis in law or fact, we will dismiss the appeal
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i).
I.
Itiowe filed a pro se complaint in the District Court naming various media entities
and government parties as defendants, and demanding $500 million in damages. As the
District Court did, we construe Itiowe’s complaint and her numerous subsequent
submissions together, and we refer collectively to those filings as Itiowe’s complaint.
Itiowe alleges that she and her sister Victoria Itiowe’s freedom-of-press rights were
violated when Itiowe was terminated from her position as an on-air radio personality and
board operator at the WIMG 1300AM radio station—which is not named as a defendant.
That termination allegedly followed Itiowe’s efforts to litigate a previous lawsuit on
behalf of her sister related to her sister’s medical care, and her attempt to speak about that
incident and about police misconduct on the air.
Itiowe’s complaint never connects any named defendant’s actions or omissions to
her alleged termination. However, the complaint appears to allege that The Trentonian
and The Trenton Times have failed to report fully on the incidents underlying Itiowe’s
previous lawsuits, and that the Trenton Police made false statements about Itiowe and
also withheld information about the incidents underlying Itiowe’s previous litigation. In
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a motion to amend the complaint and in additional letters, Itiowe appears to request that
certain government officials bring criminal harassment charges against various parties.
No defendant has been served. However, counsel for the City of Trenton certified
that he became aware of this lawsuit through a docket search, after Itiowe sent him letters
concerning parking tickets she received. As a result, counsel filed a motion to dismiss
Itiowe’s complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a), 12(b)(1), and 12(b)(6).
The District Court dismissed the complaint in its entirety, concluding that Itiowe
had not made a short and plain statement of any legally cognizable claim, and that she
lacked standing to litigate claims brought on behalf of her sister. The District Court then
also denied Itiowe’s motion to amend her complaint as futile on the ground that a civil
lawsuit may not initiate criminal charges against a party, and denied her motion to change
venue. This appeal followed.
II.
We have jurisdiction over the District Court’s orders pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291.1 Itiowe’s complaint was subject to dismissal “if the pleading [did] not plausibly
suggest an entitlement to relief,” and our review of that question is plenary. Huertas v.
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Although the District Court at first indicated that it was dismissing Itiowe’s complaint
without prejudice, it then refused her leave to amend that complaint. We note that the
District Court had initially given Itiowe at least one opportunity to cure the defects in her
complaint after her initial application for in forma pauperis status (which the District
Court had denied), but then concluded that her proposed amendments were legally
insufficient and that amendment was futile. Under these circumstances, we understand
the District Court to have effected a final, appealable judgment. See, e.g., GFL
Advantage Fund, Ltd. v. Colkitt, 272 F.3d 189, 198 n.3 (3d Cir. 2001) (concluding that
even after the dismissal of a claim without prejudice, an order is final and appealable
“when the district court has divested itself of the case entirely. . . . Consequently, the
court’s order . . . terminated the suit so far as the court was concerned”).
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Galaxy Asset Mgmt., 641 F.3d 28, 32 (3d Cir. 2011); Monroe v. Beard, 536 F.3d 198,
205 (3d Cir. 2008). However, we review the District Court’s determination that the
complaint fails to meet the short-and-plain-statement requirement of Rule 8 for an abuse
of discretion. See In re: Westinghouse Sec. Litig., 90 F.3d 696, 702 (3d Cir. 1996).
Likewise, the denial of a motion for leave to amend the complaint is reviewed for an
abuse of discretion. See Lorenz v. CSX Corp., 1 F.3d 1406, 1413 (3d Cir. 1993). We
will dismiss an appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) if it lacks any arguable basis in
law or fact, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i); Roman v. Jeffes, 904 F.2d 192, 194-95 (3d
Cir. 1990), and we may rely on any grounds supported by the record, see Hughes v.
Long, 242 F.3d 121, 122 n.1 (3d Cir. 2001).
The District Court did not err in dismissing Itiowe’s complaint. Itiowe failed to
state a claim against the City of Trenton—or against any defendant—substantially for the
reasons explained by the District Court.2
With respect to Itiowe’s claim that her sister’s First Amendment rights were
violated, Itiowe lacks standing to seek damages herself because, with exceptions not at
2
We largely confine our discussion to the claims brought against the City of Trenton.
Regarding the other claims, we note that a federal court may sua sponte dismiss a
complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) when the allegations
within the complaint “are so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of
merit, . . . wholly insubstantial, . . . obviously frivolous, . . . plainly unsubstantial, . . . or
no longer open to discussion.” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37 (1974) (internal
citations and quotation marks omitted). Here, the claims against the remaining parties
were “plainly unsubstantial” and thus also subject to dismissal. In particular, we note that
Itiowe’s allegations against the non-government parties were especially insubstantial
because a litigant has no viable First Amendment civil rights case against non-state actors
who have not been plausibly alleged to have acted under the color of state law. See Am.
Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 49-50 (1999). Even if Itiowe would like
various media entities to report in full on her circumstances, she may not bring a civil
rights case in federal court to require them to do so.
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issue here, litigants “cannot rest a claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third
parties.” Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 410 (1991). Itiowe also lacks the authority to
assert claims on her sister’s behalf because a party may not represent another party pro
se. See Osei-Afriyie v. Med. Coll. of Pa., 937 F.2d 876, 883 (3d Cir. 1991).3
As for Itiowe’s own rights, we agree with the District Court that Itiowe’s difficult-
to-follow complaint fails to suggest the existence of any plausible claim. A complaint
must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled
to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). And in particular, “a complaint should set forth ‘who
is being sued, for what relief, and on what theory, with enough detail to guide
discovery.’” Alston v. Parker, 363 F.3d 229, 235 (3d Cir. 2004) (quoting McHenry v.
Renne, 84 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 1996)). To survive dismissal, “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) (quoting Bell Atl.
Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Assessing plausibility is “a context-
specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and
common sense.” Id. at 679.
A pro se plaintiff like Itiowe is given some leeway in meeting the Federal Rules’
pleading requirements, see Dluhos v. Strasberg, 321 F.3d 365, 369 (3d Cir. 2003), but
3
We note that the District Court’s opinion states that “claims brought on behalf of
Victoria Itiowe” are “dismissed with prejudice.” We do not interpret that disposition as
affecting claims that Victoria Itiowe might herself bring, or that a properly authorized
representative of Victoria might bring on Victoria’s behalf—rather, here it is Itiowe’s
effort to base a civil rights claim on her sister Victoria’s rights that was dismissed with
prejudice.
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even under that relaxed standard her complaint fails to state a plausible federal claim
against the City of Trenton, or any other government entity, see Fantone v. Latini, 780
F.3d 184, 193 (3d Cir. 2015) (although a pro se complaint is held to less stringent
requirements, it must still meet Twombly and Iqbal’s plausibility standard). Itiowe’s
narratives never set out how any named defendant acted or failed to act in a way that
violated her First Amendment rights. At most, Itiowe alleges that the “Trenton Police” is
a “client” of the radio station that terminated her, but she never pleads facts concerning
how that alleged relationship in any way could have caused her termination or otherwise
limited her freedom-of-press rights. Moreover, even if any (here unnamed) city
government official had somehow deprived the Itiowe sisters of a First Amendment right,
nothing in Itiowe’s filings sets out how that hypothetical official’s actions could be
attributable to the City of Trenton. See Connick v. Thompson, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S. Ct.
1350, 1359 (2011) (local governments are not vicariously liable for their employees’
actions and a plaintiff must instead prove that an official municipal policy caused the
plaintiff’s injury).
Itiowe’s proposed amendment suffers from similar deficiencies, and as a result the
District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Itiowe’s motion to again amend her
complaint as futile. See Alston, 363 F.3d at 235. Although the nature of the amendment
is difficult to discern, it appears that the motion seeks to add the President of the United
States, the Governor of New Jersey, and the Mayor of the City of Trenton as defendants
for purposes of initiating criminal harassment charges against the Trenton Police
Department, and potentially also against court personnel in New Jersey. But as the
District Court correctly observed, a private plaintiff may not sue in federal court to
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require the government to bring criminal charges. See Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410
U.S. 614, 619 (1973). Moreover, Itiowe’s proposed amendment pleads no facts that, if
accepted as true, would plausibly support Itiowe’s conclusory statement that various
parties have been engaging in “retaliative, [h]arassing[,] and stalking acts” against her, as
she has alleged—let alone acts that could subject a state actor to liability in a federal civil
rights case. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 682.
Finally, having dismissed the case, the District Court was correct to conclude that
Itiowe’s motion to change venue was moot.
For these reasons, we will dismiss the appeal.
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