Wang v. Jobs et al

Filing 22

ORDER GRANTING 12 MOTION TO DISMISS. Signed by Judge Claudia Wilken on 12/19/2013. (Attachments: # 1 Certificate/Proof of Service)(ndr, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 12/19/2013)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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LI FENG WANG,
Plaintiff,

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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No. C 13-4190 CW
ORDER GRANTING
MOTION TO DISMISS
(Docket No. 12)

v.
STEVE JOBS, STEVE JOBS’ ESTATE
EXECUTOR, LAURENE POWELL JOBS, et
al.,
Defendants.
________________________________/

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Plaintiff Li Feng Wang, proceeding pro se, brought this
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action against Defendants Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs’ Estate Executor,
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Laurene Powell Jobs, and “General Agency.”

Laurene Powell Jobs

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moves to dismiss the complaint.

Plaintiff opposes the motion.

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The Court took the matter under submission without oral argument
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and now grants the motion without leave to amend.
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BACKGROUND
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Plaintiff’s complaint is somewhat garbled but is nevertheless
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sufficiently intelligible to discern the basic factual allegations
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underlying her claims.

In short, Plaintiff alleges that some

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unknown corporation or organization -- which she calls, “General
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Agency” -- subjected her to mind-reading and mind-altering
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technology without her consent in the fall of 2011.

Docket No. 1,

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Compl. ¶¶ 12-13, 18-19.

According to her complaint, her exposure

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to this technology caused her to become obsessed with Steve Jobs,
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the late co-founder of Apple Inc., and to begin to have visions of
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him in her sleep.

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alleges that Jobs himself helped design the mind-reading and mind-

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altering technology and therefore should be liable, along with his

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estate and General Agency, for the severe “emotional distress and

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depression” she suffered as a result of her exposure to that

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technology.

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Id. ¶¶ 20-24, 41, 43.

Plaintiff further

Id. ¶ 47.

Plaintiff asserts three causes of action against Defendants:

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(1) a violation of her First Amendment rights; (2) negligence; and

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(3) professional malpractice or products liability.

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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She seeks three million dollars in damages.

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Id. ¶¶ 51-78.

Id. ¶ 82.

LEGAL STANDARDS
I.

Failure to State a Claim
A complaint must contain a “short and plain statement of the

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claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”

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Civ. P. 8(a).

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state a claim, dismissal is appropriate only when the complaint

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does not give the defendant fair notice of a legally cognizable

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claim and the grounds on which it rests.

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Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).

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complaint is sufficient to state a claim, the court will take all

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material allegations as true and construe them in the light most

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favorable to the plaintiff.

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896, 898 (9th Cir. 1986).

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to legal conclusions; “threadbare recitals of the elements of a

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cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements,” are not

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taken as true.

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(citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555).

Fed. R.

On a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to

Bell Atl. Corp. v.

In considering whether the

NL Indus., Inc. v. Kaplan, 792 F.2d

However, this principle is inapplicable

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)

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When granting a motion to dismiss, the court is generally
required to grant the plaintiff leave to amend, even if no request

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to amend the pleading was made, unless amendment would be futile.

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Cook, Perkiss & Liehe, Inc. v. N. Cal. Collection Serv. Inc., 911

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F.2d 242, 246–47 (9th Cir. 1990).

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amendment would be futile, the court examines whether the

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complaint could be amended to cure the defect requiring dismissal

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“without contradicting any of the allegations of [the] original

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complaint.”

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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Cir. 1990).

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II.

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In determining whether

Reddy v. Litton Indus., Inc., 912 F.2d 291, 296 (9th

Subject Matter Jurisdiction
Subject matter jurisdiction is a threshold issue which goes

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to the power of the court to hear the case.

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matter jurisdiction must exist at the time the action is

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commenced.

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Equalization, 858 F.2d 1376, 1380 (9th Cir. 1988).

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court is presumed to lack subject matter jurisdiction until the

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contrary affirmatively appears.

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Tribes, 873 F.2d 1221, 1225 (9th Cir. 1989).

Federal subject

Morongo Band of Mission Indians v. Cal. State Bd. of
A federal

Stock W., Inc. v. Confederated

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Dismissal is appropriate under Rule 12(b)(1) when the

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district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the claim.

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Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1).

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attack the sufficiency of the pleadings to establish federal

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jurisdiction, or allege an actual lack of jurisdiction which

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exists despite the formal sufficiency of the complaint.

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Publ’g Co. v. Gen. Tel. & Elecs. Corp., 594 F.2d 730, 733 (9th

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Cir. 1979); Roberts v. Corrothers, 812 F.2d 1173, 1177 (9th Cir.

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1987).

A Rule 12(b)(1) motion may either

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Thornhill

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DISCUSSION

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A.

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Plaintiff alleges that Defendants’ use of mind-reading and

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mind-altering technologies “significantly minimized and chilled

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[her] freedom of thought, speech and expression” under the First

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Amendment.

First Amendment Violation (First Cause of Action)

Compl. ¶ 51.

“In order to demonstrate a First Amendment violation, a

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plaintiff must provide evidence showing that ‘by his actions [the

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defendant] deterred or chilled [the plaintiff’s] political speech

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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and such deterrence was a substantial or motivating factor in [the

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defendant’s] conduct.’”

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192 F.3d 1283, 1300 (9th Cir. 1999) (alterations in original;

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citing Sloman v. Tadlock, 21 F.3d 1462, 1469 (9th Cir. 1994)).

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The plaintiff must also allege that the defendant is a state

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actor.

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Cir. 1989) (affirming dismissal of First Amendment claim brought

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against private actors).

Mendocino Envtl. Ctr. v. Mendocino Cnty.,

Dworkin v. Hustler Magazine Inc., 867 F.2d 1188, 1200 (9th

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Here, Plaintiff has not alleged that Defendants intended to

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chill or deter her political speech nor has she alleged that any

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Defendant is a state actor.

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explicitly that Defendants are not state actors.

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(“Defendants’ MindReading conducts are not under Governmental

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[sic] system.”).

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mind-altering technologies Defendants used.1

In fact, Plaintiff appears to allege
Compl. ¶ 54

She has also failed to specify what type of
Although “several

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The complaint alludes to a mind-control system involving some
combination of vehicles, robots, videos, cell phones, and
supercomputers, Compl. ¶¶ 71-76, but fails to describe this system
coherently and, more importantly, fails to allege that Defendants used
this system on Plaintiff herself.

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courts have found that compulsory treatment with mind-altering

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drugs may invade a patient’s First Amendment interests in being

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able to think and communicate freely,” Lojuk v. Quandt, 706 F.2d

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1456, 1465 (7th Cir. 1983), Plaintiff here has not alleged that

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Defendants administered any such drugs to her or otherwise sought

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to treat her as a patient.

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plausible facts that suggest that Defendants sought to read or

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alter her thoughts.

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(D.D.C. 2009) (dismissing complaint and noting implausibility of

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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plaintiff’s allegations that defendants were “using mind-reading

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technology to (among other things) monitor his thoughts, intrude

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upon his private affairs, turn others against him, and destroy his

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livelihood”); Glasser v. Central Intelligence Agency, 2003 WL

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21209705, at *2 (N.D. Cal.) (dismissing action with prejudice

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under 28 U.S.C. § 1915 where the complaint “contained fantastical

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allegations of the CIA’s ‘mind control’ over the Plaintiff”

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because such “allegations are too implausible to be credible”).

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As such, she has not alleged any

Cf. Riles v. Geithner, 693 F. Supp. 2d 1, 3

Accordingly, Plaintiff has failed to state a claim under the

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First Amendment.

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a valid claim without contradicting her earlier allegation that

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Defendants are not state actors, her First Amendment claim is

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dismissed with prejudice.

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v. Di Vittorio, 658 F.3d 1090, 1101 (9th Cir. 2011) (recognizing

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that, while courts must “construe pro se complaints liberally,”

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they may nevertheless “dismiss a pro se complaint for failure to

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state a claim if ‘it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can

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prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle

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him to relief’”).

Because she cannot amend her complaint to state

Reddy, 912 F.2d at 296; see also Silva

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B.

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Plaintiff alleges that Defendants behaved negligently in

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Negligence (Second Cause of Action)

conducting mind-reading experiments on her.
To state a valid negligence claim, the plaintiff must allege

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that (1) the defendant owes a legal duty of care to the plaintiff;

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(2) the defendant breached that duty; (3) the plaintiff was

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injured; and (4) the plaintiff’s injuries resulted from the

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defendant’s breach.

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Cal. 3d 508, 513 (1978).

Hoyem v. Manhattan Beach City Sch. Dist., 22
“The legal duty of care may be of two

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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general types: (a) the duty of a person to use ordinary care in

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activities from which harm might reasonably be anticipated, or

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(b) an affirmative duty where the person occupies a particular

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relationship to others.”

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Dist., 57 Cal. App. 4th 1011, 1016–17 (1997).

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McGettigan v. Bay Area Rapid Transit

Plaintiff has failed to identify any affirmative duty that

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Defendants owed her and failed to explain how they might have

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breached their ordinary duty of care.

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above, Plaintiff’s allegations of mind-reading and mind-control

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are not plausible.

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these allegations were plausible, Plaintiff has not provided

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adequate detail about Defendants’ specific conduct to state a

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claim against them.

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claim must be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6).

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Moreover, as explained

See Riles, 693 F. Supp. 2d at 3.

And, even if

For all of these reasons, her negligence

In addition, the claim must also be dismissed under Rule

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12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

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for federal jurisdiction that Plaintiff has identified here is

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federal question jurisdiction over her First Amendment claim and

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supplemental jurisdiction over her other two claims, which both
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The only basis

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arise under state law.

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1367).

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dismissed with prejudice for the reasons outlined above, Plaintiff

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cannot rely on that claim as a basis for exercising supplemental

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jurisdiction over her other claims.

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exercise subject matter jurisdiction over her negligence claim.2

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Because amendment of the claim would not cure this jurisdictional

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defect, Plaintiff’s negligence claim is dismissed without leave to

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amend, but without prejudice to filing in state court.

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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Compl. ¶¶ 1-3 (citing 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331,

However, because her First Amendment claim must be

The Court therefore may not

See Silva,

658 F.3d at 1101.

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C.

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Professional Malpractice or Products Liability (Third
Cause of Action)

As with her negligence claim, Plaintiff has failed to allege
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any plausible facts to support her malpractice or products
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liability claim.

Furthermore, she has failed to identify a basis

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for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over this state law claim
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in light of the dismissal of her First Amendment claim.

Thus,

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this claim, like her negligence claim, must be dismissed without
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leave to amend, but without prejudice to filing in state court.
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Id.
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Ordinarily, the “decision whether to continue to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims after all federal claims
have been dismissed lies within the district court’s discretion.”
Foster v. Wilson, 504 F.3d 1046, 1051 (9th Cir. 2007). However, the
Ninth Circuit has specifically cautioned district courts against
exercising jurisdiction over pendent state claims when the dismissed
federal claims are “absolutely devoid of merit or obviously frivolous.”
Gilder v. PGA Tour, Inc., 936 F.2d 417, 421 (9th Cir. 1991).
Plaintiff’s First Amendment claim falls squarely within this category
because it is based on implausible factual allegations and brought
against non-state actors. Accordingly, it is inappropriate to retain
supplemental jurisdiction over her state law claims in this action.

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CONCLUSION

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For the reasons set forth above, Defendant Laurene Powell

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Jobs’ motion to dismiss (Docket No. 12) is GRANTED.

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other Defendants have not joined the motion, the claims against

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them are dismissed, as well.

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Treasury, 644 F.2d 1341, 1345 (9th Cir. 1981) (“A District Court

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may properly on its own motion dismiss an action as to defendants

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who have not moved to dismiss where such defendants are in a

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position similar to that of moving defendants or where claims

Although the

See Silverton v. U.S. Dep’t of

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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against such defendants are integrally related.”).

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amendment would be futile, the complaint is dismissed without

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leave to amend but without prejudice to re-filing in state court.

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Because

Plaintiff’s motion for permission to file electronically

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(Docket No. 7) is DENIED as moot and her motion for leave to

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submit “IBM Research Center News” (Docket No. 15) is DENIED

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because it seeks to present irrelevant information not contained

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in the complaint.

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Defendant Laurene Powell Jobs shall recover her costs.

The

clerk shall enter judgment and close the file.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

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Dated:

12/19/2013

CLAUDIA WILKEN
United States District Judge

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