EL v. WEHLING et al

Filing 91

MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 8/25/2015. (TH, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

AEMER K. C. EL,

HONORABLE JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Plaintiff,
Civil Action
No. 12-7750 (JBS/JS)

v.
LYNN A. WEHLING et al.,

MEMORANDUM OPINION
Defendants.

SIMANDLE, Chief Judge:
In this action, Plaintiff Aemer K. C. El1 principally asserts
a series of constitutional claims arising from his allegedly
unlawful arrest by members of the Cumberland County Police
Department, the City of Vineland Police Department, and the New
Jersey State Police and subsequent prosecution for weapons and
drug offenses in Vineland Municipal Court. This matter is before
the Court upon Plaintiff’s motion to amend or correct the case
caption [Docket Item 69], as well as eight separately filed
motions for reconsideration [Docket Items 70, 72, 73, 74, 75,
77, 78 & 80].2 Plaintiff’s motions for reconsideration are

1

Plaintiff also requests his name be changed on the docket to
reflect his new name, as discussed at pp. 9-10, below.
2 Plaintiff filed his motions for reconsideration at various
times over a four-month period from April, 2015 to July, 2015.
Only Plaintiff’s motion filed on April 30, 2015 [Docket Item 70]
is timely under Local Civil Rule 7.1(i). This alone provides a
basis to deny Plaintiff’s other untimely motions for
reconsideration filed more than 14 days after entry of the
Court’s April 23, 2015 Order. See Mitchell v. Twp. of

directed at the Court’s April 23, 2015 Opinion and Order [Docket
Items 64 & 65], screening Plaintiff’s Fifth Amended Complaint
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2), in which the Court permitted only
Plaintiff’s claims for unlawful search and seizure, excessive
force, false arrest, and malicious prosecution to proceed. See
El v. Wehling, Civ. 12-7750 (JBS/JS), 2015 WL 1877667, at *1
(D.N.J. Apr. 23, 2015). The Court finds as follows:
1.

The Court recounted the extensive procedural history

of this case in its April 23, 2015 Opinion. See El, 2015 WL
1877667, at *4. It is not repeated in this opinion. It is
sufficient to note that Plaintiff filed his initial Complaint on
December 18, 2012. [Docket Item 1.] Judge Joseph E. Irenas
dismissed Plaintiff’s Complaint, as well as three subsequent
motions to amend. Plaintiff appealed and upon remand was
permitted to file a Fourth Amended Complaint. [Docket Item 31.]

Willingboro Mun. Gov’t, 913 F. Supp. 2d 62, 78 (D.N.J. 2012)
(noting that motion for reconsideration filed outside 14-day
period prescribed by L. Civ. R. 7.1(i) may be denied on this
ground alone). Plaintiff’s total submissions seeking
reconsideration are far in excess of the 15-page limit for such
briefs under L. Civ. R. 7.2(b). Nevertheless, the Court has
considered Plaintiff’s submissions in their entirety, which
exceed 475 pages in total. Plaintiff is hereby warned explicitly
to follow the rules. If Plaintiff continues to file submissions
upon the docket in disregard of the rules, his claims will be
subject to dismissal. It is Plaintiff who invoked the authority
of this Court in order to seek compensation from Defendants whom
he has named; it is Plaintiff who must submit pleadings, briefs,
and other documents that are pertinent, concise, and compliant
with the governing laws and rules of procedure, or this case
will not proceed.
2 

Ultimately, the case was reassigned to the undersigned and this
Court permitted Plaintiff to proceed in forma pauperis. [Docket
Item 59.] The Court directed the Clerk to file Plaintiff’s Fifth
Amended Complaint pending screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1915(e)(2).
2.

In a 46-page decision dated April 23, 2015, the Court

discussed at length Plaintiff’s 537-page Fifth Amended
Complaint. This was an enormous undertaking, complicated by
Plaintiff’s refusal to set forth a short, plain statement of his
claims against each defendant including a plausible factual
basis of the grounds on which he relies, and nothing more, as
required by Rule 8, Fed. R. Civ. P. The Court recounted the
central facts of the case and attempted to distill from
Plaintiff’s 49 “counts” certain possibly viable claims pursuant
to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and under New Jersey law. This opinion will
not repeat that lengthy and complicated analysis. The Court
noted that “[t]he majority of Plaintiff’s claims appear to arise
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 including claims for excessive force,
false arrest, malicious prosecution, as well as claims for
violations of his constitutional rights under the First, Fourth,
Eight, and Fourteenth Amendments.” El, 2015 WL 1877667, at *5.
The Court broke Plaintiff’s voluminous pleading into the
following discrete claims: (1) unlawful search and seizure; (2)
unlawful strip search; (3) excessive force; 4) false arrest; (5)
3 

malicious prosecution; (6) municipal liability; (7) violations
under the Fourteenth Amendment; (8) violation of the Sixth
Amendment; (9) violation of the First Amendment; and (10)
violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Court permitted only the
following four § 1983 claims to proceed: (1) unlawful search and
seizure (against Defendants Lynn A. Wehling, Steven O’Neill Jr.,
Gamaliel “Gami” Cruz, and Kenneth Sirakides); (2) excessive
force (against Defendant Steven O’Neill Jr.); (3) false arrest
(against Defendants Wehling, O’Neill, Cruz, and Sirakides); and
(4) malicious prosecution (against Defendants Jennifer WebbMcRae, Jonathan M. Flynn, John Riley, Inez Accosta, and Edward
Duffy). Id. at *16. The Court dismissed any tort claims
Plaintiff may attempt to assert for failure to comply with the
notice requirements of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act. Id.
3.

Plaintiff purports to bring these “Motion[s] For

Relief Upon Reconsideration And To Alter Or Amend Judgment To
Prevent Manifest Injustice” pursuant to Rules 59 and 60, Fed. R.
Civ. P.3 Rule 60(b) may be invoked to seek relief from a “final
judgment, order, or proceeding” upon such terms as are “just.”
Rule 60(b) seeks “to strike a proper balance between the

3

Plaintiff also purports to bring the instant motions pursuant
to “Common Law, 8 Stat. 100-105 (1786), 8 Stat. 484-487 (1836),
14 Stat. 27 (1866), 16 Stat. 140 (1870), 17 Stat. 13 (1871), 18
Stat. 335 (1875), F. R. CIV. P. 18, F. R. Civ. P. 52(b)[, and]
F. R. Civ. P. 54(b)[,]” all of which are patently inapplicable.
4 

conflicting principles that litigation must be brought to an end
and that justice must be done.” Boughner v. Sec’y of Health,
Educ. & Welfare, 572 F.2d 976, 977 (3d Cir. 1978). Regardless of
how Plaintiff has styled his motions, they are for
reconsideration of the April 23, 2015 Opinion and Order, and
therefore L. Civ. R. 7.1(i) governs the Court’s analysis. L.
Civ. R. 7.1(i) provides that a party moving for reconsideration
must set forth “concisely the matter or controlling decisions
which the party believes” the Court “overlooked” in its prior
decision. L. Civ. R. 7.1(i). “As such, a party seeking
reconsideration must satisfy a high burden, and must rely on one
of three grounds: (1) an intervening change in controlling law;
(2) the availability of new evidence not available previously;
or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or prevent
manifest injustice.”4 Altana Pharma AG v. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc.,
Civ. 04–2355, 2009 WL 5818836, at *1 (D.N.J. Dec. 1, 2009)
(citing Max's Seafood Café ex rel. Lou–Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros,
176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999)).
4.

As this Court has noted, “A motion for reconsideration

. . . constitutes an extremely limited procedural vehicle, and
does not provide the parties with an opportunity for a second

4

These are the same factors that govern analysis of a motion
pursuant to Rule 59(e), Fed. R. Civ. P. See Wiest v. Lynch, 710
F.3d 121, 128 (3d Cir. 2013) (quoting Lazaridis v. Wehmer, 591
F.3d 666, 669 (3d Cir. 2010)).
5 

bite at the apple, nor a vehicle to relitigate old matters or
argue new matters that could have been raised before the court
made its original decision.” Grant v. Revera Inc./Revera Health
Sys., Civ. 12-5857 (JBS), 2015 WL 794992, at *2 (D.N.J. Feb. 24,
2015) (quotations and citations omitted). Moreover, “mere
disagreement with the Court will not suffice to show that the
Court overlooked relevant facts or controlling law and should be
dealt with through the normal appellate process.” Id.
(quotations and citations omitted).
5.

Plaintiff’s submissions do not identify any of the

bases for reconsideration recognized by L. Civ. R. 7.1(i).
Plaintiff’s submissions, instead, consist of lengthy discussions
of inapplicable legal principles and laws such as joinder, the
New Jersey Personal Liberty law, and the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights; the history of the Moors and Western
colonialism; the evolution of modern policing; and events in
Durham, North Carolina and Ferguson, Missouri. Just like
Plaintiff’s Fifth Amended Complaint, his motions for
reconsideration are replete with discursions on slavery and race
in America without any apparent connection to the factual
allegations underlying his claims. The Court’s analysis is
further complicated by Plaintiff’s attempt to reassert the
factual basis of his purported claims without any reference to
the Fifth Amended Complaint. As such, it is nearly impossible to
6 

discern a legal or factual basis for his challenge to the
Court’s April 23 Opinion and Order. Although Plaintiff
identifies supposed errors in the Court’s Opinion as to certain
Defendants, including Wehling and Hogan, Plaintiff has not
identified an intervening change in controlling law; the
availability of new evidence not previously available; or the
need to correct a clear error of law or prevent manifest
injustice, as required under L. Civ. R. 7.1(i).
6.

To the extent Plaintiff argues that the Court erred

in requiring him to provide nine copies of his 537-page
Complaint for service, such an argument is moot as it appears
that Plaintiff has complied with the Court’s directive and
provided such copies for service. (See Docket Item 85.) Given
the nature of Plaintiff’s Fifth Amended Complaint, there was no
practical way to excise only the portions relevant to the four
claims that the Court permitted to proceed. Requiring Plaintiff
to provide copies of his extraordinarily lengthy Complaint was
the only administratively reasonable approach to a problem of
Plaintiff’s own creation. Nor was it error for the Court to
decline to consider documents entered on the docket nearly eight
months after his Fifth Amended Complaint. See El, 2015 WL
1877667, at *1 n.1 (quoting Rogers v. Morrice, Civ. 12-7910
(JBS/KMW), 2013 WL 5674349, at *3 (D.N.J. Oct. 16, 2013)).

7 

7.

Moreover, the Court’s April 23, 2015 decision directly

addressed the claims and arguments Plaintiff attempts to
reallege and recapitulate in these motions for reconsideration,
including his claims for false arrest [Docket Item 73], state
created danger [Docket Item 74], and those based on violations
under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the
Fourteenth Amendment [Docket Item 72 & 75] and the First
Amendment [Docket Item 78]. The Court in its April 23 Opinion
did not discuss at length Plaintiff’s supposed claims under the
Thirteenth Amendment,5 18 U.S.C. § 1595,6 and 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)7
because they lack any factual or legal basis as alleged in the
Fifth Amended Complaint. Nevertheless, the Court acknowledged
and discussed the purported factual basis for these claims,
including Plaintiff’s alleged refusal to provide his social
security number while in police custody and the alleged
confiscation of his Moorish ID, El, 2015 WL 1877667, at *15, as
well as his varied allegations regarding human trafficking and
slavery. See, e.g., Id. at *11.

5

The Thirteenth Amendment states:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.
U.S. Const. amend. XIII. The Thirteenth Amendment does not give
rise to a private cause of action, but may be asserted as the
underlying constitutional claim for a violation of § 1983. See
8 

8.

In light of the foregoing, the Court finds that

Plaintiff’s motions for reconsideration are merely a sweeping
expression of disagreement with the Court’s prior decision.
See, e.g., Ezeiruaku v. Bull, Civ. 14-2567, 2014 WL 7177128
(D.N.J. Dec. 16, 2014); Grant v. Revera Inc./Revera Health Sys.,

Joynes v. Meconi, Civ. 05-332, 2006 WL 2819762, at *10 (D. Del.
Sept. 30, 2006); Kaveney v. Miller, Civ. 93-0218, 1993 WL
298718, at *2 (E.D. Pa. July 30, 1993). The Court does not find,
nor does Plaintiff identify, any allegations in the Fifth
Amended Complaint that could be construed as constituting
“involuntary servitude” as defined by the Supreme Court. See
United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931, 952 (1988); Channer v.
Hall, 112 F.3d 214, 217 (5th Cir. 1997). This is, in short, a
legally frivolous claim.
6 This section of the Trafficking Victims Protection Action
(“TVPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1595, provides the following:
An individual who is a victim of a violation of this chapter
may bring a civil action against the perpetrator (or whoever
knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of
value from participation in a venture which that person knew
or should have known has engaged in an act in violation of
this chapter) in an appropriate district court of the United
States and may recover damages and reasonable attorneys fees.
18 U.S.C. § 1595(a). Under the TVPA, it is a federal crime to
knowingly:
recruit[ ], entice[ ], harbor[ ], transport[ ], provide[ ],
obtain[ ] or maintain[ ] by any means a person ... knowing,
or in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of force,
threats of force, fraud, coercion . . . or any combination of
such means will be used to cause the person to engage in a
commercial sex act.
18 U.S.C. § 1591(a). See also Ditullio v. Boehm, 662 F.3d 1091,
1094 (9th Cir. 2011). The Court does not find, nor does
Plaintiff identify, any allegations in the Fifth Amended
Complaint that are actionable under the TVPA. Again, Plaintiff
has propounded a legally frivolous claim.
7 This section of the Code provides general guidance to agencies
of the federal government. Its relevance to this action is thus
entirely unclear. There are no federal agencies alleged to have
been involved in Plaintiff’s local arrest and prosecution.
9 

Civ. 12-5857 (JBS), 2015 WL 794992, at *3 (D.N.J. Feb. 24,
2015). Plaintiff fails to specifically identify errors in the
Court’s Opinion or allegations in the Fifth Amended Complaint
which the Court overlooked. As such, Plaintiff has not
identified any valid ground for reconsideration. The Court
accordingly finds Plaintiff’s arguments meritless for the
reasons stated in the Court’s April 23, 2015 Opinion. Therefore,
the Court will deny Plaintiff’s motions for reconsideration in
their entirety.
9.

The Court will, however, grant Plaintiff’s motion to

amend or correct the case caption. Plaintiff represents that he
adopted the name El Aemer al-Mansur El Mujaddid in 2013 as part
of his religious faith and requests that the case caption
reflect this change, which he expresses as “El Aemer El
Mujaddid.” The Court will grant Plaintiff’s request. An
accompanying Order will be entered.

August 25, 2015
Date

s/ Jerome B. Simandle
JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Chief U.S. District Judge

10