Rodgers v. Atkins

Filing 4

OPINION AND ORDER Granting IFP Application and Summarily DISMISSING CASE. Signed by District Judge Paul D. Borman. (DTof)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
ARNETTE RODGERS,
Case No. 17-11959
Plaintiff,
Paul D. Borman
United States District Judge

v.
MARYLIN ATKINS,

R. Steven Whalen
United States Magistrate Judge

Defendant.
______________________________/
OPINION AND ORDER:
(1) GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S APPLICATION TO PROCEED IN
DISTRICT COURT WITHOUT PREPAYMENT OF FEES OR COSTS
(ECF NO. 2); AND
(2) SUMMARILY DISMISSING THE COMPLAINT PURSUANT TO
28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) (ECF NO. 1)
Now before the Court is Plaintiff Arnette Rodgers’s Application to Proceed
in District Court without Prepaying Fees or Costs. (ECF No. 2.) For the reasons
below, the Court will grant Plaintiff’s Application to Proceed without Prepaying
Fees or Costs, but will dismiss the Complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)
because it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(1), a court may allow commencement of a civil
action without the prepayment of fees or costs if the applicant submits an affidavit
demonstrating that he or she is “unable to pay such fees or give security therefor.”
In the instant action, Plaintiff has supplied an affidavit regarding her financial

obligations and income. (ECF No. 2.) Based on this information, the Court will
grant Plaintiff’s Application to Proceed without Prepayment of Fees or Costs.
At the same time, the Court is required to dismiss a complaint filed without
prepayment of fees when it “fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted.”
28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). To avoid dismissal for this reason, the complaint
must “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief
that is plausible on its face. A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads
factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal
citations and quotation marks omitted). “[A] plaintiff’s obligation to provide the
‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief’ requires more than labels and conclusions .
. . . Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the
speculative level . . . .” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (internal citations omitted). The
Court is aware that a pro se litigant’s complaint must be liberally construed and
held to “less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Haines
v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972); Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007)
(per curiam). Still, the plaintiff must provide more than just “bare assertions of
legal conclusions.” Grinter v. Knight, 532 F.3d 567, 577 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting
Scheid v. Fanny Farmer Candy Shops, Inc., 859 F.2d 434, 436 (6th Cir. 1988)).

2

In this action, Plaintiff seeks a $5,000,000 judgment against Defendant
Marylin Atkins on the grounds that “Defendant acted in ‘Reckless Disregard’ to
Plaintiff’s due process rights, thereby entitling Plaintiff to Punitive Damages”
pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (ECF No. 1, Compl. at 3.) Plaintiff states by way of
factual background that “[t]he district court decided on July 17, 2015 that
defendant violated Plaintiff’s right to due process.” (Id.)
What Plaintiff refers to is an action that was litigated before another court in
this District between 2010 and 2016. See Rodgers, et al. v. Atkins, et al., E.D.
Mich. Case. No. 10-cv-11799 (“Rodgers I”). Rodgers I was a lawsuit filed by a
group of former employees of Michigan’s 36th Judicial District Court (including
Plaintiff), who alleged that the 36th Judicial District Court and its Chief Judge
Marylin E. Atkins terminated their employment without due process in violation of
the Fourteenth Amendment.
By 2015, the parties in Rodgers I had been winnowed down to four plaintiffs
and one defendant—including the Plaintiff and Defendant in this action. Rodgers I
came to an end at the district court level in July 2015 when the court denied the
defendant’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the plaintiffs’ “procedural
due process rights were violated by virtue of the unreasonable delay in their receipt
of a constitutionally-sufficient post-termination hearing.” Rodgers v. Atkins, No.
3

10-CV-11799, 2015 WL 4425899, at *17 (E.D. Mich. July 17, 2015). At the same
time, the court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to nominal damages only, see
id. at *14-16, and therefore awarded $100 in damages to each of the remaining
four plaintiffs. See id. at *17.
Two months and one day later, on September 18, 2015, Plaintiff filed a
motion for reconsideration, requesting that the court revisit its decision on three
substantive grounds. (Rodgers I, ECF No. 93.) The court determined that the
motion was untimely, as the local rules require such motions to be filed “within 14
days after entry of the judgment or order.” (Rodgers I, ECF No. 94 at 2 (citing E.D.
Mich. L.R. 7(h)(1).) In view of Plaintiff’s pro se status, the court considered
whether it could evaluate the motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e),
which provides for motions to alter or amend judgments, or alternatively under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which requires a court to relieve a party
from judgment in certain enumerated circumstances. Even so, the court concluded
that Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration was still untimely if construed as a Rule
59(e) motion, and that it did not implicate any of the circumstances specified in
Rule 60(b). The court therefore denied the motion.1 (See id. at 2-4.)
Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal on October 13, 2015. (ECF No. 95.) The
1

Besides the brief allegations quoted above, the Complaint in this action is
comprised of excerpts from the Rodgers I court’s summary judgment opinion,
accompanying judgment, and denial of Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration.
(Compl. at 4-18 (excerpting Rodgers I, ECF Nos. 91, 92, and 94).)
4

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered Plaintiff to show
cause why her appeal should not be dismissed on the basis of a late notice of
appeal regarding the district court’s judgment.2 (Rodgers v. Atkins, 6th Cir. Case
No. 15-2243, ECF No. 3.) Plaintiff responded to that order. (Rodgers v. Atkins, 6th
Cir. Case No. 15-2243, ECF No. 10.) Then, on February 3, 2016, the Sixth Circuit
ruled that Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration did not toll the appeal period for
the district court’s judgment, and therefore held that the notice of appeal was late
as to that judgment. And because the case did not merit tolling of the appeal period
under one of the enumerated exceptions in Fed. R. App. P. 4, the Sixth Circuit
concluded that Plaintiff’s appeal was limited to issues related to the district court’s
denial of Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, and not the judgment itself.
(Rodgers I, ECF No. 100.)
With the scope of her appeal limited in this way, Plaintiff filed her appellate
brief on March 10, 2016, and Defendant filed hers on April 25. (Rodgers v. Atkins,
6th Cir. Case No. 15-2243, ECF Nos. 14, 19.) On September 7, 2016, the Sixth
Circuit entered an order affirming the district court’s denial of Plaintiff’s motion

2

Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a), Plaintiff had 30 days from the
entry of an order or judgment to appeal that particular determination. The judgment
was entered on July 17, 2015; Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration was denied on
September 21, 2015; and Plaintiff’s notice of appeal was filed on October 13,
2015. (Rodgers I, ECF Nos. 92, 94, 95.) So while the notice of appeal was not
untimely as to the district court’s denial of her motion for reconsideration, it was
untimely as to the judgment.
5

for reconsideration. (Rodgers I, ECF No. 101) In that order, the Sixth Circuit held
that the only one of Plaintiff’s arguments on appeal that did not allege errors in the
district court’s judgment itself—which, the Sixth Circuit had already established, it
lacked jurisdiction to review—was that the district court should have granted
Plaintiff relief under Rule 60(b). The appellate court rejected this argument,
however, after finding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying
Plaintiff relief under Rule 60(b) for the reasons that the district court stated in its
order denying the motion for reconsideration, and that the other factual bases for
Rule 60(b) relief that Plaintiff presented were waived because they had not been
presented to the district court. (See id. at 2-3.)
All of the foregoing establishes two things: (1) the district court’s
determination of Plaintiff’s damages became final when the summary judgment
opinion and accompanying judgment were entered on July 17, 2015; and (2) the
district court’s denial of Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration of those damages
became final when the Sixth Circuit affirmed it on September 7, 2016.
Accordingly, the doctrine of res judicata precludes this Court from
adjudicating the claim that Plaintiff asserts in this action, which really amounts to a
request that the Court set aside the prior determinations of the district court in
Rodgers I. That doctrine, which is also referred to as “claim preclusion,” provides
that a final judgment on the merits of an action “precludes the parties or their
6

privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised” in the prior
action when four elements are present:
(1) a final decision on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction;
(2) a subsequent action between the same parties or their privies; (3)
an issue in the subsequent action which was litigated or which should
have been litigated in the prior action; and (4) an identity of the causes
of action.
Kane v. Magna Mixer Co., 71 F.3d 555, 560 (6th Cir. 1995) (internal quotation
marks omitted) (citing Sanders Confectionery Prods., Inc. v. Heller Fin., Inc., 973
F.2d 474, 480 (6th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1079 (1993)).
There is no question that the first two elements are present in the instant
case: there was a final judgment in Rodgers I, and this is a subsequent action
between the same parties. That the causes of action are identical is apparent from
the fact that besides the conclusory statements to the effect that Defendant acted in
“Reckless Disregard” to violate Plaintiff’s due process rights (Compl. at 3), the
Complaint is made up only of excerpts from the district court’s determinations in
Rodgers I.
Finally, the issue of damages was litigated (and decided) in the summary
judgment briefing in Rodgers I, and even if the Court were to regard the
availability of punitive damages as a wholly separate issue from the question of
damages generally, there is no indication that that issue could or should not have
been litigated in the earlier proceeding. Res judicata “precludes litigation of claims
7

that ‘were previously available to the parties, regardless of whether they were
asserted or determined in the first proceeding.’” E.E.O.C. v. Frank's Nursery &
Crafts, Inc., 177 F.3d 448, 462–63 (6th Cir. 1999) (quoting Brown v. Felsen, 442
U.S. 127, 131 (1979)). The summary judgment motion that the Rodgers I court
adjudicated on July 17, 2015 sought summary judgment for the defendant on all
claims, but also requested, in the alternative, summary judgment limiting the
plaintiffs to nominal damages. (Rodgers I, ECF No. 73.) (The district court, of
course, ultimately granted the latter but not the former request.) The issue of
punitive damages was certainly available to Plaintiff then; in fact, she raised it,
albeit briefly, in her brief in opposition to the summary judgment motion:
The defendant's conduct, which was clearly based upon unlawful
factors, and their persistent failure to remedy the situation, is
extremely offensive and demonstrates complete indifference to my
constitutional right to due process.
In the Pucci case, the jury awarded plaintiff compensatory damages,
economic loss, and noneconomic loss; the jury also assessed punitive
damages for the violation of plaintiff’s right to due process of law
(See Pucci v Nineteenth District Court, 628 F.3d 752, 765 (6th
Cir.2010)).
(Rodgers I, ECF No. 73 at 9.)
For the reasons articulated above, all of the res judicata elements are present
in this case, and this Court is precluded from litigating the Rodgers I court’s
determination of damages.
8

Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff Arnette Rodgers’s Application to
Proceed without Prepayment of Fees or Costs (ECF No. 2) but DISMISSES
Plaintiff’s Complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) for failure to state a claim
on which relief may be granted (ECF No. 1).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
s/Paul D. Borman
Paul D. Borman
United States District Judge
Dated: July 21, 2017

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
The undersigned certifies that a copy of the foregoing order was served upon
each attorney or party of record herein by electronic means or first class U.S. mail
on July 21, 2017.
s/D. Tofil
Deborah Tofil, Case Manager

9