David Campeau, Jr. v. Edward Sandercock ( 2022 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 21-2357
__________
DAVID FRANK CAMPEAU, JR., a natural born man and Citizen of the United States of
America; CHRISTIN CAMPEAU, a natural born woman and Citizen of the Federal
Republic of Germany, Appellants
v.
EDWARD SANDERCOCK, Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas of Wayne
County of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; KATHLEEN BAUSMAN, Field Office
Director of the United States Customs and Immigration Services, Philadelphia Field
Office
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 3:21-cv-00280)
District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
March 28, 2022
Before: GREENAWAY, JR., PORTER and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: May 20, 2022)
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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 appellants David Frank Campeau and Christin Campeau appeal from the
District Court’s judgment dismissing their complaint. For the reasons that follow, we
will affirm.
The appellants state that, in 2014, they exchanged marriage vows at a ceremony
and later signed a self-generated “Certificate of Marriage” before witnesses. When
appellant David Campeau tried to record the “Certificate of Marriage” with the Wayne
County Prothonotary’s Office in late 2015, employees of that office told Campeau that
the document could not be recorded because Campeau had not first obtained a marriage
license in accordance with Pennsylvania law. Campeau sued Prothonotary Sandercock in
state court, alleging that Pennsylvania’s marriage law was unconstitutional. The lawsuit
was unsuccessful, as was Campeau’s subsequent appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court. The United States Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari in 2018.
In the meantime, Christin Campeau, who is apparently a German citizen, filed a
Form I-485 to apply for permanent residence or adjust status with the United States
Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS). The USCIS denied the application in April
2016 because the appellants had not entered a legally valid marriage. When she sought
review of that ruling, the USCIS issued a decision on February 15, 2019, affirming that
appellants had not entered a legally valid marriage under the laws of Pennsylvania. In the
decision, the USCIS explained that David Campeau’s unsuccessful litigation regarding
the validity of the marriage was further explanation why Christin had not established
eligibility for adjustment of status. The appellants filed a complaint in federal district
court against Prothonotary Sandercock and USCIS Field Office Director Bausman,
2
alleging violations of the appellants’ rights under the U.S. Constitution. A Magistrate
Judge recommended granting Sandercock’s motion to dismiss the complaint on statute of
limitations grounds. The appellants filed objections and Bausman filed a motion to
dismiss. The District Court dismissed the complaint against the appellees in an order
entered on May 18, 2021, and denied Bausman’s motion to dismiss as moot. After the
District Court denied the appellants’ motion for reconsideration, the appellants filed this
timely appeal of the May 18 order.
On appeal, the appellants concede that the two-year statute of limitations for
personal injury actions in Pennsylvania bars their claims against Sandercock, and that the
District Court properly dismissed their claims asserted against him. However, they argue
that their claims against Bausman should have survived dismissal. Assuming arguendo
that the claims against Bausman are not time-barred, we will affirm because the
complaint fails to state a claim against her.1
In their complaint, the appellants alleged that their rights under the Fifth, Ninth,
and Fourteenth Amendments were violated when Bausman upheld the USCIS’s denial of
Christin Campeau’s Form 1-495.2 First, the appellants argued that Bausman infringed on
1
Our review is plenary, see Burtch v. Milberg Factors, Inc., 662 F.3d 212, 220 (3d Cir.
2011), and we may affirm the District Court’s judgment “on any basis supported by the
record.” Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam).
2
The appellants brought their lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which, by its own terms,
authorizes suits against state and local officers; it does not provide a cause of action
against federal actors. See id.; Kach v. Hose, 589 F.3d 626, 646 (3d Cir. 2009) (to state a
claim under § 1983, a party must allege deprivation of a federal constitutional or statutory
right by a state actor). For that reason, dismissal of the claims asserted against Bausman
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction
3
their rights to due process and equal protection under the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments, see ECF No. 1 at 27-29, when she concluded that the appellants had not
established that they had a legally valid marriage under Pennsylvania law.3 To state a
claim for a violation of substantive due process rights, the appellants needed to allege that
Bausman infringed on a fundamental liberty interest without narrowly tailoring the
infringement to serve a compelling state interest. See Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 301-
02 (1993). Some of the liberty interests that the appellants identified qualify as
fundamental rights, see Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644, 664 (2015) (right to marry is
a fundamental right), and Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000) (parents’ interest in
care, custody, and control of their children is fundamental liberty interest). State laws
requiring a marriage license do not violate these rights, as has been made plain to David
Campeau in his litigation before. See, e.g., Campeau v. Sandercock, No. 597 M.D. 2015
would have also been appropriate. However, the appellants asked that we vacate and
remand to allow them to amend their complaint to bring a lawsuit pursuant to Bivens v.
Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971),
against Bausman. But that amendment would be futile because, as we explain, the
appellants have failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, regardless of
what cause of action it is packaged in.
3
We consider the appellants’ due process and equal protection claims against Bausman
under the Fifth Amendment because she is a federal official. Cf. Nguyen v. U.S. Catholic
Conference, 719 F.2d 52, 54 (3d Cir. 1983) (noting that the Fifth Amendment restricts
federal government action). Practically speaking, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment
claims use the same analytical rubric. That is, while the Fifth Amendment contains no
Equal Protection Clause, we have construed the Fifth Amendment to contain a guarantee
of equal protection from that Amendment’s prohibition of federal government
discriminatory action “so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.” Abdul-Akbar v.
McKelvie, 239 F.3d 307, 316 (3d Cir. 2001) (en banc) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted).
4
at 6-7 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Aug. 15. 2016). Additionally, it is well settled that, in
accordance with Congress’s plenary authority to set immigration requirements for aliens
to enter the United States, a citizen does not have a Constitutional right to have an alien
spouse reside in the United States, see Bakran v. Sec’y, United States Dept. of Homeland
Sec., 894 F.3d 557, 565 (3d Cir. 2018). The fact that the appellants have children
together does not change our analysis. See Morales-Izquierdo v. Dept. of Homeland
Sec., 600 F.3d 1076, 1091 (9th Cir. 2010), abrogated in part on other grounds by Garfias-
Rodriguez v. Holder, 702 F.3d 504 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc).
We also discern no violation of the appellants’ rights to equal protection. In order
to state an equal protection claim for members of a non-suspect class, the appellants
needed to “allege[] that [they have] been intentionally treated differently from other
similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Vill.
of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (per curiam); see also Arca-Pineda v.
Att’y Gen., 527 F.3d 101, 105 (3d Cir. 2008) (“disparate treatment of different groups of
aliens triggers only rational basis review under equal protection doctrine”) (citation
omitted). The appellants argued that the USCIS routinely grants adjustment of status to
aliens who have married under the laws of Pennsylvania. But they are not similarly
situated to such aliens because the appellants were not married under the laws of
Pennsylvania—which is why the USCIS denied their Form I-485 application. So their
equal protection argument fails.4
4
We have considered the remaining arguments in the complaint and are satisfied that
none states a claim.
5
Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.
6