O'Quinn v. Anderson et al
Filing
112
ORDER granting 97 Defendant's Motion for Sanctions to the extent that this case is dismissed without prejudice, with instructions to the Clerk; denying 108 Plaintiff's request for sanctions and compensatory relief; if Plaintiff chooses to initiate another case based upon the same or similar facts/issues, he is precluded from proceeding in forma pauperis in such case, with further instructions. Signed by Judge Brian J. Davis on 8/23/2018. (LDO)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
JACKSONVILLE DIVISION
JOSEPH O'QUINN,
Plaintiff,
vs.
Case No. 3:16-cv-1478-J-39PDB
LIEUTENANT SIKES,
Defendant.
ORDER
I.
Status
Plaintiff Joseph O'Quinn, an inmate of the Florida Department
of Corrections (FDOC), initiated this case by filing a pro se Civil
Rights Complaint Form (Complaint) (Doc. 1).1
He is proceeding on
an Amended Complaint (Amended Complaint) (Doc. 37). In the Amended
Complaint, Plaintiff named as Defendants Warden Anderson, Assistant
Warden Mallard, Lieutenant Sykes [sic], Captain T. Ford, Sgt.
Swift, Sgt. McNeil, Officer Sikcier, Officer Grimes, and Officer
Morris.
At this juncture, the remaining Defendant is Lieutenant
Sikes.
Defendant Sikes' Motion to Sanction Plaintiff (Motion) (Doc.
97) is pending before the Court.
1
In the Motion, Defendant Sikes
In this opinion, the Court references the document and page
numbers designated by the electronic filing system.
asserts Plaintiff intentionally forged a document and submitted it
to the Court.
Moreover, Defendant Sikes contends this submission
was not a mistake, but was a deliberate act.
Plaintiff did not
file a response to the Motion, and the Court directed Plaintiff to
show cause, by July 24, 2018, why the sanction of dismissal of the
case and other sanctions should not be imposed.
Order (Doc. 102).
In response to this Order, Plaintiff filed his Response (Doc. 108)
and Declaration (Doc. 109).
He denies the fraud allegation and
makes a counterclaim for sanctions and compensatory relief for
having to address the Motion.
(Doc. 108 at 5).
The Court will provide a brief history of the case in order to
provide context for the Motion.
In his original Complaint,
Plaintiff named both Lieutenant Sykes [sic] and Glen Sikcier as
Defendants, as well as other FDOC employees.
Complaint at 1.
Attached to the Complaint is a copy of Plaintiff's grievance, No.
215-1509-0046, dated September 2, 2015, and the Response, dated
September 8, 2015.
(Doc. 1 at 9).
Thus, Plaintiff had a true copy
of the original document from the inception of the case.
In pertinent part, the Request states:
I grieve that in the month of July 2015,
and the month of August 2015, several requests
to Lt. Sykes (the housing officer), were filed
where I requested that I/M Diaz, and myself to
be separated.
I got no reply, and was not
separated.
Because of this I was attacked,
and cut with a razor.
2
Id.
The Request bears Plaintiff's signature and his FDOC inmate
number.
Id.
The Response reads as follows: "[o]n September 28, 2015 you
were
placed
in
H1-112L
Administrative
Confinement
pending
disposition of an investigation initiated by Captain T. Ford." Id.
The grievance is marked "[a]pproved."
Id.
This approval is
followed by the printed name of the official signing the document:
"Glenn Sikes Lt[,]" followed by his signature and the date of
response.2
Id.
Plaintiff submitted this document to the Court on two other
occasions: with the Amended Complaint (Doc. 37-1 at 1), filed on
April 19, 2017, and with his Pretrial Narrative Statement (Doc. 901 at 1). Notably, Defendants attached the document to their Motion
to Dismiss (Doc. 42-1 at 2).
The record shows Glenn Sikes acknowledged receipt of service
of process for "Lt. Sykes" on January 19, 2017 (Doc. 20) upon
service of the Complaint.
After Plaintiff filed his Amended
Complaint, Glenn Sikes mistakenly acknowledged receipt of service
2
A factor which contributed to the Court's confusion over the
signature, is Glenn Sikes actually signed the return of service for
"Glen Sikcier" (Doc. 45), as well as his own return of service
(Doc. 20). The Court, in its Order (Doc. 94), mistakenly construed
Defendant Sikes' signature as the signature of Glen Sikcier. See
Order (Doc. 94) at 2.
The Court notes that Glenn Sikes, in
institutional documents, signs his name, closely followed by his
position "Lt[.]"
3
for "Glen Sikcier" (Doc. 45) on May 10, 2017.3
Notably, Glenn
Sikes printed the name "Glenn Sikes" and signed the document.
Id.
Defendants Anderson, Grimes, Ford, McNeil, Morris, and Sykes4
[sic] filed a Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 42) the Amended Complaint.
In Plaintiff's Objection to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Doc.
51), Plaintiff first submitted the questionable document to the
Court (Doc. 51-1).
Upon a closer review, although the Request
portion of the document contains the same words as the actual
grievance, the words are not perfectly aligned with those of the
actual grievance.
More importantly, in comparing the Response
portion of the document (Doc. 51-1) to the actual grievance, there
are glaring alterations.
Plaintiff marked out "September" and
wrote "August" 28, 2015 (Doc. 51-1).
Even more disconcerting
however, is Plaintiff changed the signature line, both printing and
signing the name "Glen Sikcier[.]"
Plaintiff repeated this conduct when he responded to the
Motion to Dismiss filed by Mallard, Sikcier, and Swift (Doc. 56).
Plaintiff, in his Objection to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss
(Doc. 61), included the altered document as an exhibit to the
response (Doc. 61-1).
3
Defense counsel did not bring Glenn Sikes' mistake to the
attention of the Court. Instead, defense counsel filed a Motion to
Dismiss on behalf of Defendant Sikcier (Doc. 56), which was granted
by the Court. See Order (Doc. 64).
4
Plaintiff referred to Defendant Glenn Sikes as "Lt. Sykes"
in both the original and amended complaints (Docs. 1 & 37).
4
In
its
inquiry,
the
Court
undertakes
a
review
of
the
allegations in the Amended Complaint and asks how the alteration of
the grievance document impacts the case. In the Amended Complaint,
Plaintiff
names
"Lieutenant
Sikcier" as Defendants.
Sykes
(Housing
Ofc.)"
Amended Complaint at 3-4.
and
"Ofc.
In numbered
paragraphs 36 and 37 of the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff alleges
the following:
In the months of July, and August the
plaintiff filed three request[s] to Lt. Sykes,
and made him aware of the altercations between
the two I/M's, and requested to be seperated
[sic] before the problem got worst[sic]. Lt.
Sykes did not reply to the request, and
[plaintiff] was left in harms way.
Ofc. Sikcier, who was in charge of making
Lt. Sykes aware of the problem, did not pass
the paperwork to Lt. Sykes, or did not. I'm
not sure where the request[s] went after
plaintiff put them in the request box.
Id. at 9 (paragraph enumeration omitted).
Therefore, Plaintiff alleged Defendant Sikcier was responsible
for picking up grievances or requests from a box, but he failed to
provide the requests to the housing officer, Lieutenant Sikes.
As
noted by Defendant Sikes, Plaintiff's case against Sikes might
fail, or be weakened, if the person responsible for ensuring that
inmate grievances reached the appropriate corrections official was
fictitious or not employed at Hamilton Correctional Institution
(HCI).
Motion at 2.
5
Of import, HCI did not employ anyone by the name of "Glen
Sikcier" or "Glenn Sikcier" from June through September 2015.
See
Defendants' Exhibit A, Declaration of Donna Kay Blanton, the Human
Resource Consultant by the FDOC at HCI (Doc. 97-1).
As such,
Plaintiff's submission of altered documents, with the name Glen
Sikcier printed and signed on the signature line of the form,
amounts to fraud upon the Court.
Plaintiff, in his Response, attempts to justify his actions,
by stating that when he filed his response to the motion to dismiss
(Doc. 61), he was up against a deadline, and he had no choice but
to make and submit to the Court a handwritten copy of the document
(Doc. 61-1). Response at 2. The Court considers this statement to
be an admission by Plaintiff that he wrote and signed the document
(Doc. 61-1).
The Court finds Plaintiff's excuse for writing the
altered document not only weak, but utterly indefensible.
The
record demonstrates Plaintiff previously submitted copies of the
actual grievance to the Court as attachments to the Complaint (Doc.
1 at 9) and the Amended Complaint (Doc. 37-1 at 1).
Therefore, all
Plaintiff had to do was simply refer to his previously submitted
documents
contained
in
the
record
before
the
Court
when
he
responded to the motion to dismiss.5
5
Defendants submitted the actual grievance to the Court (Doc.
42-1 at 2), and Plaintiff could have referenced that document as
well.
6
Plaintiff, in an apparent attempt to downplay the change he
made to the Response portion of the grievance, states he only put
a single line through the month of September and wrote August, but
it was done without malicious intent.
Response at 4.
The Court
deems Plaintiff's actions inexcusable. The Court will not tolerate
the submission of false documents in support of any pleading filed
for consideration by the Court.
Here, Plaintiff intentionally
wrote a document, altered its content, and created the signature of
a fictitious individual (or an individual not employed at HCI),
whom Plaintiff claimed worked at HCI at the time of the alleged
events.6
Apparently, Plaintiff submitted these altered documents
in his responses to potentially dispositive motions in a misguided
and dishonest attempt to support the allegations raised in the
Complaint and Amended Complaint, bolster his claims against the
Defendants, and strengthen the case.
See Motion at 2.
Defendant Sikes asks that this Court sanction Plaintiff for
submitting this false and misleading information to the Court. Id.
at 3.
The Court recognizes:
The court has the authority to control
and manage matters such as this pending before
it, and plaintiff's pro se status does not
excuse him from conforming to acceptable
standards in approaching the court. If the
6
Of note, there may be an individual named Glen Sikcier, but
such a person was not employed at HCI at the time of the events
alleged in the Complaint and Amended Complaint, and he did not sign
the response to the altered grievance response, as Plaintiff admits
he signed it.
7
court cannot rely on the statements or
responses made by the parties, it threatens
the quality of justice. The court will not
tolerate false responses or statements in any
pleading or motion filed before it.
Paulcin v. McNeil, No. 3:09CV151/LAC/MD, 2009 WL 2432684, at *3
(N.D. Fla. Aug. 6, 2009).
As noted by Defendant Sikes, Plaintiff is a life-sentenced
inmate in close custody confinement,7 who will likely be undeterred
by threats of institutional disciplinary sanctions or the loss of
gain-time.
Motion at 5.
However, the Court may dismiss the case
as frivolous or malicious pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform
act.
28 U.S.C. ยง 1915(e)(2)(B)(i).
Indeed, a case may be subject
to dismissal based on a plaintiff's actions taken in bad faith or
otherwise through use of "manipulative tactics." Bratton v. Sec'y,
DOC, No. 2:10-cv-517-FtM-29DNF, 2012 WL 2913171, at *1 (M.D. Fla.
July 16, 2012) (citation omitted).
Here, Plaintiff's manipulative
tactic of submitting a fraudulent document to the Court constitutes
an abuse of judicial process and the case is due to be dismissed as
malicious.
Alternatively, this Court may dismiss the case pursuant to
Rule 41(b), Fed. R. Civ. P., because "there is a clear record of
willful conduct and the court finds 'that lesser sanctions are
inadequate to correct such conduct.'"
7
Mathews v. Moss, 506 F.
See Corrections Offender Network, Florida Department of
Corrections, available at http://www.dc.state.fl.us/AppCommon/
(last visited August 9, 2018).
8
App'x 981, 984 n.4 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (quoting Zocaras
v. Castro, 465 F.3d 479, 483 (11th Cir. 2006)).
Plaintiff
submitted
a
document/grievance
The record shows
response
purportedly
written and signed by a corrections officer named Glen Sikcier,
when it was actually written and signed by the Plaintiff.
See
Smith v. Bruster, No. 2010 WL 1407763, at *2 (N.D. Fla. Mar. 3,
2010) (report and recommendation) ("Forgery of another individual's
name on a legal document is a very serious matter.") report and
recommendation adopted by 2010 WL 1407722 (N.D. Fla. Apr. 5, 2010),
aff'd by 424 F. App'x 912 (11th Cir. 2011).
Not only did Plaintiff
write and sign the document, he altered the contents of the
original grievance response, changing the month and the name of the
signing party.
confusion.
This conduct evinces more than negligence or
See Zocaras, 465 F.3d at 483.
Upon careful consideration of the documents before the Court,
the Court finds sanctions are warranted. The Court will not impose
the
sanction
prejudice.
of
last
resort:
a
dismissal
of
the
case
with
See Parcher v. Gee, No. 8:09-CV-857-T-23TGW, 2016 WL
7446630, at *9 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 19, 2016) (recounting the factors
considered in determining whether a dismissal with prejudice is the
appropriate sanction for committing fraud, including "(1) the
degree of actual prejudice to the defendant; (2) the amount of
interference with the judicial process; (3) the centrality of the
fraud
to
the
matters
at
issue
9
in
the
litigation;
(4)
the
culpability of the litigant and whether his actions were willful,
intentional or in bad faith; (5) the due process/warning given to
the offending party that dismis[s]al of the action would be a
likely sanction; (6) the efficacy of lesser sanctions; and (7) the
public interest in the integrity of the judicial system"), report
and recommendation adopted by 2016 WL 7440922 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 27,
2016).
In
this
regard,
Plaintiff's
actions
have
"deviated
the
defendants from the defense of the case generally, and delayed
progression of the case." Id. It has also caused undue confusion,
to both the Defendant and the Court.
Plaintiff's actions have
caused significant prejudice to Defendant Sikes, requiring him to
expend resources to establish that Plaintiff submitted a fraudulent
document to the Court.
Plaintiff has interfered with the judicial
process, wasting both the Defendant's time and the Court's valuable
and limited resources.
The fraud goes to matters at issue in the
litigation, as Plaintiff alleges in the Amended Complaint Defendant
Glen Sikcier was "in charge of making Lt. Sykes [sic] aware of the
problem,"
and
Plaintiff's
officer.
Glen
Sikcier
was
grievances/requests
responsible
were
provided
for
to
seeing
the
that
housing
Amended Complaint at 9.
Plaintiff's actions were willful, as he admits he wrote the
document and altered its content. Although there is no evidence of
a much larger scheme by the Plaintiff to defraud the Defendant and
10
the Court, Plaintiff has certainly disrupted these proceedings,
caused undue confusion and unnecessary delay, and has
presented
false and misleading evidence to the Court for its consideration.
On July 10, 2018, this Court put Plaintiff on notice that the
sanction of dismissal and other sanctions were being considered,
and directed him to show cause why the sanctions should not be
imposed.
Order
(Doc.
102).
The
Court
gave
Plaintiff
an
opportunity to respond and warned Plaintiff that failure to respond
would result in the dismissal of the case without further notice.
Id.
Plaintiff submitted a response (Doc. 108).
The Court has considered Plaintiff's response and the efficacy
of lesser sanctions than dismissal with prejudice.
In considering
lesser sanctions, the Court concludes the following: monetary
sanctions are generally ineffectual against an inmate proceeding
pro se and in forma pauperis; striking the document and allowing
the case to proceed is insufficient punishment and would invite
abuse of the judicial process and other manufactured evidence; a
lesser sanction than dismissal of the case without prejudice would
not
sufficiently
protect
the
integrity
of
the
Court
or
the
interests of the Defendant(s); and finally, a lesser sanction than
dismissal without prejudice would not be sufficient to reprimand
Plaintiff or to deter him and others from trampling upon the
integrity of the Court.
11
Although there is no doubt the document at issue was executed
by Plaintiff as he readily admits he executed the document, the
grievance response was not signed under penalty of perjury, and the
Court
finds
dismissal
without
prejudice
with
the
additional
imposition of the sanction of not allowing Plaintiff to re-file the
case as a pauper are sufficient sanctions under these circumstances
and will sufficiently deter similar conduct.
Parcher,
Plaintiff
has
not
developed
Additionally, unlike
a
clear
pattern
of
contumacious conduct, and will therefore not be subjected to the
most extreme sanction of dismissal with prejudice.
The integrity
of the judicial system will be adequately maintained by the
imposition
of
the
less
severe
sanction
of
dismissal
without
prejudice in this action, while hopefully deterring future parties
from engaging in such conduct.
The
Court
has
considered
lesser
sanctions,
other
than
dismissal without prejudice, and has concluded they will not
suffice under the circumstances presented.
Under these particular
circumstances, where Plaintiff was allowed to initiate his case
without the pre-payment of the entire filing fee, the Court finds
an additional sanction is appropriate; if Plaintiff chooses to
refile his action, he is precluded from proceeding
pauperis.
Finally,
Plaintiff's
request
for
in forma
sanctions
and
compensatory relief, contained in his Response (Doc. 108), is due
to be denied.
12
Therefore, it is now
ORDERED:
1.
Plaintiff's
request
for
sanctions
and
compensatory
relief, contained in his Response (Doc. 108), is denied.
2.
Defendant Sikes's Motion to Sanction Plaintiff (Doc. 97)
is granted to the extent that this case is dismissed without
prejudice due to Plaintiff's submission of an altered document
bearing a falsified signature to the Court.
3.
The Clerk shall enter judgment accordingly, terminate all
pending motions, and close the case.
4.
If Plaintiff chooses to initiate another case based upon
the same or similar facts/issues, he is precluded from proceeding
in form pauperis in such case. If Plaintiff initiates another case
based upon the same or similar facts/issues, he must provide a copy
of this Order with the complaint filed in the new case, and he must
simultaneously submit the full $400 filing fee or face additional
sanctions.
DONE AND ORDERED at Jacksonville, Florida, this 23rd day of
August, 2018.
13
sa 8/10
c:
Joseph O'Quinn
Counsel of Record
14
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