Li v. Hayes

Filing 68

Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy: ORDER entered granting 38 Motion to Dismiss the original complaint; denying 44 Motion to Amend Complaint. (Belpedio, Lisa)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

SHAOGUANG LI,
Plaintiff,
v.
ELIZABETH HAYES,
Defendant.

)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)

CIVIL ACTION
NO. 14-40117-DHH

ORDER
June 10, 2015
Hennessy, M.J.
This order addresses the pending motion by pro se Plaintiff Shaoguang Li for
leave to amend his complaint. (Docket #44).1 The Defendant, Elizabeth Hayes, opposed
the motion. The parties appeared at a hearing on April 15, 2015. (Docket #64).
Thereafter, this court issued an Order denying Li’s motion for leave to amend as to three
of the four claims proposed by Li, because pleading defects in these proposed claims
would make amendment futile. (Docket #65). With respect to the fourth proposed claim,
which alleges intentional infliction of emotional distress, the court determined that before
it could consider the merits of the proposed claim, the court must first be satisfied that Li
had alleged facts with sufficient particularity that indicate that it is not a legal certainty
that the claim involves less than the $75,000 jurisdictional threshold set out at 28 U.S.C.

1

Li filed his motion without a supporting memorandum, or a proposed amended complaint. Li
was ordered to file these. (Docket #51). On April 8, 2015, Li filed a memorandum in support of
his motion, with the proposed amended complaint attached as an exhibit. (Dockets #59, and
#59-1).
1

§ 1332.2 See Abdel-Aleem v. OPK Biotech LLC, 665 F.3d 38, 41 (1st Cir. 2012). Li
filed an affidavit in support of the amount-in-controversy requirement. (Docket #67).
Having reviewed the affidavit, this court is satisfied that Li has established the
jurisdictional basis for bringing suit in federal court.
Turning then to the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, alleged at
paragraph 5(d) of the proposed amended complaint (Docket #59-1), in order to assess whether
leave to amend the complaint should be granted, this court is guided by Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a),
which requires that leave to amend a complaint “shall be freely given when justice so requires.”
In practice, this means that a motion to amend should be granted unless it is apparent that it
would be futile or reward undue or intended delay.3 Resolution Trust Corp. v. Gold, 30 F.3d
251, 253 (1st Cir. 1994). Where, as here, leave to amend is sought prior to the completion of
discovery and motions for summary judgment, the standard for futility is whether the complaint,
as amended, would survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). See Villanueva v. U.S.,
662 F.3d 124, 127-28 (1st Cir. 2011) (affirming district court’s dismissal of complaint where
proposed amended complaint did not establish subject matter jurisdiction); Adorno v. Crowley
Towing and Transp. Cor., 443 F.3d 122, 126 (1st Cir. 2006).
Whether dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is warranted turns on the complaint’s compliance
with Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007); see

2

See Feliciano v. Rullan, 303 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2002) (“[T]he preferred – and often the
obligatory – practice is that a court, when confronted with a colorable challenge to its subjectmatter jurisdiction should resolve that question before weighing the merits of a pending
action.”); see also Ne. Erectors Ass’n of the BTEA v. Sec’y of Labor, 62 F.3d 37, 39 (1st Cir.
1995) (“When faced with motions to dismiss under both 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), a district court,
absent good reason to do otherwise, should ordinarily decide the 12(b)(1) motion first.”).
3

This court has previously found that the motion for leave to amend is not based on bad faith or
dilatory motive, or offered with undue delay. See Forman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962).
2

Ocasio-Hernandez v. Fortuno-Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2011) (discussing Twombly). Rule
8(a)(2) requires that every complaint contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing
that the pleader is entitled to relief.” This pleading requirement is intended to “give the
defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Twombly, 550
U.S. at 555 (citation omitted). In Twombly, the Court explained that this requirement does not
demand “detailed factual allegations,” but it does demand that a plaintiff provide enough by way
of factual allegations to show that the pleader is entitled to relief. Id. A complaint makes this
showing when its factual allegations are “enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative
level on the assumption that all of the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in
fact).” Ocasio-Hernandez, 640 F.3d at 8 (quoting Twombly). A complaint fails to make this
showing when it depends on “labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements
of the cause of action.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. “[S]omething beyond the mere possibility of
loss causation must be alleged lest a plaintiff with a largely groundless claim be allowed to take
up the time of a number of other people, with the right to do so representing an in terrorem
increment of the settlement value.” Id. quoting Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, 554 U.S.
336, 347 (emphasis original) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Twombly illustrates the application of this standard. There, in assessing the sufficiency
of a complaint alleging a combination in restraint of trade, in violation of antitrust law, the Court
disregarded allegations that the defendant Baby Bells had “entered into a contract, combination
or conspiracy,” and had “agreed not to compete with one another.” 550 U.S. at 564-65. These
allegations, the Court found, were merely legal conclusions that depended on other allegations of
parallel conduct, id., and allegations of parallel conduct fail to conclusively establish an illegal
agreement. Id., at 556-57. Similarly, in Ashcroft v Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), the Court

3

separated from the sufficiency calculus, and disregarded, Iqbal’s allegations that the defendants
“knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject [the plaintiff] to harsh
conditions of confinement as a matter of policy, solely on account of his religion, race, and/or
national origin,” because these were legal conclusions and not factual allegations. Id. at 680
(alteration omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court reasoned that such general,
conclusory allegations, which did nothing more than parrot the legal standard for the claims
asserted, should be rejected. Id. at 681. The Court emphasized that in assessing a Rule 12(b)(6)
challenge, a court must look only to those well-pleaded non-conclusory allegations to determine
whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief. Id.
Applying these principles here to the only remaining claim in the proposed amended
complaint -- for intentional infliction of emotional distress -- a plaintiff must allege facts
showing:
(1) that the defendant intended to inflict emotional distress, or knew or should
have known that emotional distress was the likely result of his conduct, but also
(2) that the defendant’s conduct was extreme and outrageous, beyond all possible
bounds of decency and utterly intolerable in a civilized community, (3) the
actions of the defendant were the cause of the plaintiff’s distress, and (4) the
emotional distress suffered by the plaintiff was severe and of such a nature that no
reasonable person could be expected to endure it.
Tetrault v. Mahoney, Hawkes, & Goldings, 425 Mass. 456, 466 (1997) (quoting Payton
v. Abbott Labs, 386 Mass. 540, 555 (1982)). Here, Li’s proposed amended complaint alleges the
following:
The Plaintiff has a legal case in Worcester Superior Court, and had a
hearing on January 24, 2013. The Plaintiff asked for a transcript of this
hearing, and the defendant handled this work. In her preparation of the
hearing transcript, the Defendant deliberately altered the content of the
January 24, 2013 court hearing in Worcester Superior Court to help to
cover up a lie by the defense attorney in that Worcester Superior Court
case. As a result, the defendant caused severe financial physical and
spiritual damages to the Plaintiff.
4

(Docket #59-1, par. 4). Based on these general allegations, Li alleges that
The Defendant clearly knew that forging or falsifying the January 24,
2013 court hearing transcript was to cause harm to the Plaintiff, and in
fact, the Defendant’s illegal act has caused severe financial physical and
spiritual damages to the Plaintiff.
(Id., par. 5(d)). Li’s proposed amended complaint fails to allege enough to raise the claim from
speculative to plausible. Among other things, the amended complaint does not describe what
was at stake in Li’s Superior Court case. It fails to describe what statement or statements -assuming there was more than one -- in the proceedings the Defendant altered, or the materiality
of the alterations to the transcript. Such minimal factual pleading would show whether the
alterations could cause the severe emotional distress Li alleges and nudge the claim across the
line of plausibility. The allegation that the Defendant Hayes altered the transcript of the
proceeding to “help cover up a lie by the defense attorney” is insufficient. It is a bare assertion
lacking any factual support. In many ways, it is akin to the conclusory allegations the Court
disregarded in Twombly and Iqbal in assessing the sufficiency of the complaints in those cases.
While such an allegation can “provide the framework of a complaint,” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679, Li
fails in his obligation to provide factual allegations to support this assertion. Certainly, one can
imagine that a deliberate mis-transcription of a material matter that is intended to conceal a lie by
an officer of the court could cause severe emotional distress to a litigant. But, as drafted, the
proposed amended complaint “stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of
entitlement to relief.” Twombly, 550 U.S at 557. In sum, the Rule 8 statement, even when
submitted by a pro se plaintiff, must “give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim
is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Phelps v. Local 0222, No. 09-11218-JLT, 2010 WL
3342031, at *5 (D. Mass. Aug. 20, 2010) (quoting Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506,

5

512 (2002)). Li’s complaint fails in this regard, and unfairly exposes the Defendant to the
expense of litigation on the basis of a proposed complaint that, at the end of the day, simply does
nothing more than allege the possibility of liability. Accordingly, insofar as the amended
complaint proposed by Li does not contain well-pleaded factual allegations, this court finds that
justice does not require allowing the amendment; thus, leave to amend is denied.
Moreover, for the same reasons discussed above, Defendant’s motion pursuant to Fed. R.
Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (Docket #38) to dismiss the original complaint filed by Li (Docket #1) is
GRANTED. The allegations, which are identical to the allegations in the proposed amended
complaint, are insufficient to state a plausible claim or show Li is entitled to relief. It is simply
impossible for the Defendant to have fair notice of what she is alleged to have done.
Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 512.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the motion for leave to amend the complaint (Docket #44) to
include the claim alleged at paragraph 5(d) is DENIED. The defendant’s motion to dismiss the
original complaint (Docket #38) is GRANTED. This case shall be dismissed with prejudice.

/s/ David H. Hennessy
David H. Hennessy
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

6