Including information about his associates
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LIBERTY LOBBY, INC., and WILLIS A. CARTO Plaintiffs v. MARK WEBER, GREG RAVEN, an organization controlled by the defendants and holding itself out to be the LEGION FOR THE SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, et al. Defendants |
Civil Action No. 98-0236 (HHK) [stamp]
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The defendants have filed a motion for a more definite statement in response to plaintiff’s complaint. Nevertheless, this court considers sua sponte whether dismissal of the complaint is appropriate for failure to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).
This suit was initiated by the filing of a complaint comprising 769 paragraphs in 148 pages and containing numerous incorporations by reference. It specifically purports to assert causes of action under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 1961 et seq. (RICO
) (four counts), the Sherman Antitrust Act (one count), defamation (seven counts), tortious interference with contracts and business relations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Embedded in the rambling and expansive language of the complaint, however, are other causes of action, including violations of local statutes, extortion, bribery, robbery, slander, libel, assault and conversion. For example, paragraph 414 of the complaint alone spans three pages and contains over 20 allegations of the defendants intentionally, willfully, wantonly, purposefully, unjustifiably, and unlawfully
engaging in various criminal and tortious acts.
Fed. R. Civ. P. (Rule
) 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint must contain a short and plain statement showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.
The purpose of Rule 8(a)(2) is to give fair notice of the claim being asserted so that the defendant will have an opportunity to file a responsive answer, prepare an adequate defense, and determine whether the doctrine of res judicata applies. See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957); Brown v. Califano, 75, F.R.D. 497, 498 (D.D.C. 1977).
This court has noted that courts in general have not hesitated to dismiss actions under Rule 8(a)(2) where the complaint set forth a meandering, disorganized, prolix narrative
or was so verbose, confused and redundant that its true substance, if any, is well disguised.
Brown, 75 F.R.D at 499 (citations omitted). Such dismissals may be made on motion or sua sponte by the court. Resource N.E. of Long Island, Inc. v. Babylon, 28 F. Supp. 2d 786, 794 (E.D.N.Y. 1998) (citations omitted).
Rule 15(a) teaches that leave to amend should be freely
given when the presentation of the merits of the action will be subserved thereby
without prejudice to the other party. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). Accordingly, the usual remedy for noncompliance with Rule 8(a)(2) is dismissal with leave to amend. Brown, 75 F.R.D. at 499 (citations omitted); Research N.E., 28 F. Supp. 2d at 796 (citation omitted). Where the plaintiff has shown he is no stranger to the court and has filed lawsuits similar to the suit at issue, however, dismissal with prejudice is not inappropriate. Brown, 75 F.R.D. at 499 (citing Hutter v. Schraml, 51 F.R.D. 519, 522 (E.D. Wisc. 1970)).
In Resource N.E., the court dismissed a complaint sua sponte under Rule 8(a)(2) notwithstanding the defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). 28 F. Supp. 2d at 794-96. In the court’s opinion, the complaint, consisting of 97 pages and containing more than 442 paragraphs, was excessively long-winded and redundant
and unnecessarily prolix.
Id. at 795-96. The court noted, however, that leave to amend should be granted where the [c]omplaint is not entirely `incomprehensible, and it … pleads at least some [aspects of plaintiff's] claims that cannot be termed frivolous on their face.'
Id. at 796. Finding that the plaintiff will have to pare the [complaint] significantly to satisfy Rule 8,
the court dismissed the complaint without prejudice and admonished the plaintiff that it its amended complaint merely recycle[d] the complaint,
it would be dismissed with prejudice. Id.
In Brown, the plaintiff had filed a virtual onslaught of litigation
against various public and private individuals and organizations alleging widespread misconduct by defendants actionable variously under the Constitution, numerous federal statutes and nearly all theories of recovery known to the common law.
75 F.R.D. at 498. The court concluded that the complaint fell far short of the admittedly liberal standard set in F.R. Civ. P. 8(a).
Id. at 499. Noting that the usual remedy for noncompliance with Rule 8(a) is dismissal with leave to amend, id. at 499 (citations omitted), the court nevertheless dismissed the complaint with prejudice:
[W]here, as here, the plaintiff has shown that he is no stranger to the courts, having filed seven previous lawsuits akin to this one, dismissal with prejudice is not inappropriate. Hutter v. Schraml, 51 F.R.D. 519, 522 (E.D. Wisc. 1970). To permit plaintiff to institute this lawsuit another time will needlessly waste time and effort.
Id. See also Hutter, 51 F.R.D. 519, 520-22 (dismissing three complaints with prejudice where the complaints, in addition to failing to comply with Rule 8(a), contained a medley
of allegations similar
to those litigated in an earlier finally decided case.
This court finds that the complaint against Mark Weber, et al. is outrageously long-winded and redundant, and hides the substance of the claims within its prolixity. The complaint’s length far exceeds that of the complaint in Resource N.E. The complaint does not put either the defendants or this court on notice of the plaintiffs' claims; nor was the complaint intended to satisfy the purposes of Rule 8(a)(2) by giving the defendants an opportunity to file a responsive answer, prepare an adequate defense, or determine whether the doctrine of res judicata applies. Rather, the complaint was designed, with no expectation of prevailing on the merits, to burden the defendants by forcing them to spend time and energy in attempting to decipher an utterly confusing and lengthy pleading. The court finds not only that the complaint falls far short of the Rule 8(a) standard, but that the complaint is so unclear that motions to rectify the flaws in the complaint would be excessively burdensome
on the defendants or, alternatively, on the court acting sua sponte. See Hutter, 51 F.R.D. at 521.
The court also notes that the plaintiffs are not new to court procedure, having filed previous lawsuits in fora through the United States. See Raven Aff. at Paragraphs 20-32 (listing twelve prior cases between the present parties, most of which were originated by the plaintiffs); see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242 (1986), Carto v. Buckley, 649 F. Supp. 502 (S.D.N.Y. 1986), Liberty Lobby v. Rees, 667 F. Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1986), Liberty Lobby v. Dow Jones & Co., 638 F. Supp. 1149 (D.D.C. 1986). Furthermore, the court finds that the complaint is suffused with factual allegations that have previously been litigated and adjudged in California state courts. See, e.g., Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Inc. v. Willis Carto, Civ. No. N64584, San Diego County Superior Court (Nov. 21, 1996).
An offshoot of that litigation made its way to this court last year. In that case, Liberty Lobby, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, Civ. No. 98-1109, Liberty Lobby sought, inter alia, to enjoin the United States Postal Service and the receiver who had been appointed by the Superior Court of San Diego County from complying with that court’s instructions to the receiver to perform certain tasks in connection with the effort of the Legion for the Survival of Freedom to satisfy its multimillion dollar judgment against Liberty Lobby and Willis A. Carto. This court dismissed that case and the judgment was not appealed.
To permit the plaintiffs to use this court to relitigate these issues in merely recycle form will needlessly waste time and effort. Accordingly, the plaintiffs' complaint will be dismissed with prejudice. An appropriate order accompanies this memorandum.
Dated: 4/13/99
HENRY H. KENNEDY, JR.
United States District Judge
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LIBERTY LOBBY, INC., and WILLIS A. CARTO Plaintiffs v. MARK WEBER, GREG RAVEN, an organization controlled by the defendants and holding itself out to be the LEGION FOR THE SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, et al. Defendant. |
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Civil Action No. [stamp]
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Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 58 and for the reasons stated by the court in its memorandum docketed this same day, it is this 13th day of April, 1999, hereby
ORDERED that this case is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.
HENRY H. KENNEDY, JR.
United States District Judge