United States District Court, D. North Dakota
Charlotte Horst, et. al., Plaintiffs,
v.
Governor Doug Burgum, et. al., Defendants.
ORDER AND REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
CLARE
R. HOCHHALTER, MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
The
plaintiff, Charlotte Horst, initiated the above-entitled
action pro se with the submission of a motion for leave to
proceed in forma pauperis, a thirty-nine page Complaint,
three-hundred sixty pages of attachments/supplemental
materials, and a motion for a preliminary injunction. Chief
Judge Hovland has referred this matter to the Magistrate
Judge for preliminary consideration. For the reason set forth
below, I shall grant Horst's motion to proceed in forma
pauperis but recommend that the Court dismiss this action
without prejudice.
I.
BACKGROUND
Horst
names the following individuals and entities as defendants in
her Complaint: State Child Support Enforcement Attorney
Sheila K. Keller, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; North
Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem; North Dakota
Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger; the Bismarck Police
Department and approximately fifty of its officers; the
Mandan Police Department and approximately six of its
officers; the Burleigh County State's Attorney's
office and approximately ten of its personnel; the Morton
County State's Attorney's office and approximately
five of its personnel; the Morton County Sheriffs Department
and its sheriff; the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal
Investigation (ABCI") and approximately three of its
officers; the City of Bismarck and its commissioner; the City
of Mandan and its commissioner; Morton County and its
commissioner; Burleigh County Social Services; Bismarck and
Mandan Public Schools; Pioneer Elementary School; Mandan
Middle School; North Dakota Supreme Court Justices Gerald
Vande Wall, Daniel Crothers, Lisa McEvers, Jerod Tufte, and
Jon Jenson; State District Court Judges Cynthia Feland, Gail
Hagerty, Bruce Romanick, and Sonna Anderson (deceased);
President Donald Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo;
Attorney General William Barr; and the United States
Department of Justice. Although not entirely clear, she
appears to take issue with state district court restraining
orders, a divorce decree and amendments to it, a custody
decrees and amendments to them, the North Dakota Supreme
Court's affirmance of these decrees, her conviction in
state court of the offense of removal of a child from the
state in violation of a custody decree, the state court's
revocation of her probation, the suspension of her
driver's license by the North Dakota Department of
Transportation, what she perceives as local law
enforcement's failure to investigate her reports of
criminal activities by others, and what she asserts is the
fabrication of certain evidence and the destruction of other
evidence by local law enforcement and/or prosecutors. In so
doing, she asserts, amongst other things, that her rights
under the First through Eleventh, Tenth, Eleventh, Thirteenth
through Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-First Amendments to
the United States Constitution have been violated, that local
schools and/or the state kidnaped her children, that the
Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act is
unconstitutional, and that she has been assaulted and
battered, maliciously prosecuted, falsely imprisoned,
enslaved, trafficked, defamed, subjected to emotional
distress, denied her right to privacy, denied equal access to
justice, and otherwise denied her rights under Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act, the Violence Against Women Act, Title
IX of the Education Amendments Act, the Geneva Convention,
the ''Palermo Protocols," and various state
statutes.
II.
DISCUSSION
A.
Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis
Proceedings
in forma pauperis are governed by 28 U.S.C. §
1915, which provides that the court may authorize the
commencement of a suit without prepayment of fees by a person
submitting a financial affidavit evincing an inability to
pay. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(1).
I find
that Horst has met the burden of showing that she is
financially unable to pay the filing fee. Consequently, I
shall waive the civil filing.
B.
1915(e)(2) screening
Notwithstanding
any paid filing fee, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) provides
“the court shall dismiss the case at any time if the
court determines that . . . the action (i) is frivolous or
malicious; (ii) fails to state a claim on which relief may be
granted; or (iii) seeks monetary relief against a defendant
who is immune from such relief.” This' 1915(e)(2)
screening, and the authority to dismiss claims arising
thereunder, includes non-prisoner pro se complaints. Key
v. Does, 217 F.Supp.3d 1006, 1007 (W.D. Ark. 2016). With
regard to frivolousness under' 1915(e)(2)(i), “the
Supreme Court explained that an action is frivolous if
'it lacks an arguable basis either in law or in
fact.'” Aziz v. Burrows, 976 F.2d 1158,
1159 (8th Cir. 1992) (quoting Neitzke v. Williams,
490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989)). “An action is malicious if
it is undertaken for the purpose of harassing the named
defendants and not for the purpose of vindicating a
cognizable right.” Williamson v. Corizon,
Inc., No. 1:15CV220, 2016 WL 5933982 at *1 (E.D. Mo.
October 12, 2016). A complaint fails to state a claim if it
does not plead “enough facts to state a claim to relief
that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atlantic Corp.
v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); see also
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-84 (2009)
(“Iqbal”).
In
applying' 1915(e)(2), the court must give the pro se
complaint the benefit of a liberal construction.
See, e.g., Federal Express Corp. v.
Holowecki, 552 U.S. 389, 402 (2008); Solomon v.
Petray, 795 F.3d 777, 787 (8th Cir. 2015) (“When
we say that a pro se complaint should be given liberal
construction, we mean that if the essence of an allegation is
discernible . . . then the district court should construe the
complaint in a way that permits the layperson's claim to
be considered within the proper legal framework.”)
(internal quotation marks omitted). This does not mean,
however, that the pro se litigant is excused from satisfying
the plausibility standard established in Twombly and
further amplified by the Supreme Court in Iqbal.
See Story v. Foote, 782 F.3d 968, 969 (8th Cir.
2015).
1.
Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
As an
initial matter, Horst's Complaint does not comply with
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a), which requires
“a short and plain statement of the claim
showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(1) (emphasis added). The purpose of this
short and plain statement is to provide defendants with
“fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds
upon which it rests.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at
545.
Horst's
Complaint contains maze of constitutional, statutory, and
common law claims against approximately one-hundred thirteen
named and unnamed defendants. The shotgun style of her
Complaint does not provide all of the defendants with fair
notice of the nature of all of the claims against them as it
is virtually impossible to discern which allegations are
intended to support which claims, let alone how these
allegations relate to each defendant. Many of the
allegations, the vast majority of which are nothing more than
unsubstantiated legal conclusions, have little to do with the
specifics of a given claim, leaving the court and the
litigants to ferret through the thirty- nine pages of
pleadings ...