REARDON v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA et al

Filing 80

MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 10/15/2018. (dmr)

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

JOHN E. REARDON,
HONORABLE JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Plaintiff,
Civil Action No.
17-5868 (JBS-KMW)

v.
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, et al.,

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Defendants.

SIMANDLE, District Judge:
In this matter, Plaintiff pro se John E. Reardon
(“Plaintiff”) alleges that certain government officials violated
his constitutional rights in connection with a 1990 arrest and
subsequent criminal proceedings in state court. Pending before
the Court is Defendant State of New Jersey’s motion to dismiss
the Amended Complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) and
12(b)(6) [Docket Item 65] and Plaintiff’s motion for leave to
amend. [Docket Item 73.] For the reasons discussed below, the
motion to amend will be denied and the motion to dismiss will be
granted. The Court finds as follows:
1.

Factual and Procedural Background.1 In the early 1990s,

Plaintiff was charged with and convicted by a jury of third-

1

The facts alleged are drawn from the Amended Complaint [Docket
Item 41], which the Court must accept as true for purposes of
this motion. As discussed in n.3, infra, the Amended Complaint
has superseded the initial Complaint. [Docket Item 1.] The Court
also takes judicial notice of its own records and facts elicited

degree possession of a destructive device in violation of
N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-3a, second-degree possession of explosive
material with intent to use it against another in violation of
N.J.S.A. § 2C:30-4b, and second-degree possession of a
destructive device with intent to use it against another in
violation of N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-4c, in the Superior Court of New
Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, under Indictment No. 90-082331. On February 13, 1992, Plaintiff was sentenced to eight
years in prison with three years of parole ineligibility. Id. He
appealed his conviction, which was affirmed by the New Jersey
Appellate Division. State of New Jersey v. John E. Reardon, No.
A-3254-91 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Apr. 28, 1995). In 2009, he
filed a petition for post-conviction relief (“PCR”), which was
denied as untimely and subsequently affirmed by the New Jersey
Appellate Division. State v. Reardon, No. A-0794-10T1, 2012 WL
10800, at *1-2 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Jan. 4, 2012). Shortly
thereafter, Plaintiff filed a federal suit against the United
States, the State of New Jersey, and various state court judges
in the District of New Jersey alleging that his 1992 conviction
and subsequent denial of his PCR petition were unconstitutional,
which was dismissed by the Honorable Noel L. Hillman on grounds
of sovereign and judicial immunity and, in the alternative,

in related cases. See Davis v. Power, 2009 WL 777384, at *1 n.3
(D.N.J. Mar. 19, 2009).
2

under the Heck and Rooker-Feldman doctrines. Reardon v. New
Jersey, No. 13-cv-5363, 2014 WL 2921030, at *3-5 & n.3 (D.N.J.
June 27, 2014).
2.

On August 8, 2017, Plaintiff filed the present case in

federal court against Defendants the United States of America2
and the State of New Jersey. [Docket Item 1.] With leave of
Court [Docket Item 40], Plaintiff subsequently amended the
Complaint and added as Defendants Rev. John Bohrer, Lois Sahina,
Dana McGarvey, Daniel B. Zonies, Lawrence Luongo, Esq., Sgt.
A.L. Simon, Gilbert “Whip” Wilson, Joseph Ripa, James Farmer,
Kevin Walshe, and Judge Robert Zane. [Docket Item 41.] In the
operative Amended Complaint,3 Plaintiff asserts various
constitutional violations involving his 1992 conviction and the
related state-court proceedings. [Id. at ¶¶ 9-18.]

2

The Court previously dismissed the United States with prejudice
for lack of jurisdiction. [Docket Item 63.]
3

In this Circuit, an “amended complaint supersedes the original
and renders it of no legal effect” unless the amended complaint
“specifically refers to or adopts the earlier pleading.” West
Run Student Housing Assocs., LLC v. Huntington Nat'l Bank, 712
F.3d 165, 171 (3d Cir. 2013) (internal quotations omitted).
Here, the Amended Complaint does not specifically refer to or
adopt the Complaint. Thus, the Amended Complaint supersedes the
Complaint. See e.g., NL Indus., Inc. v. Old Bridge Twp, 2015 WL
12866996, at *1 (D.N.J. Feb. 27. 2015); Call v. Czaplicki, 2011
WL 2532712, at *9 n.9 (D.N.J. June 23, 2011). Mr. Reardon,
although representing himself pro se, has filed over two-dozen
civil suits in this Court over the years and is held to
reasonable compliance with the rules, including this one
regarding serial pleadings.
3

3.

Defendant State of New Jersey filed a motion to

dismiss the Amended Complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). [Docket Item 65.] Plaintiff opposes this
motion. [Docket Items 68 & 71.] Plaintiff has also filed a
motion to amend the Amended Complaint. [Docket Item 73.] The
motion to dismiss and motion to amend are ripe for decision, and
the Court decides these motions without oral argument pursuant
to Fed. R. Civ. P. 78.
4.

Standard of Review. Under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(1), a party may move to dismiss a complaint for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Because federal courts are
courts of limited jurisdiction, the party seeking to invoke the
court’s jurisdiction bears the burden of proving the existence
of subject matter jurisdiction. See Kokkonen v. Guardian Life
Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). Under Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(1), the court’s jurisdiction may be challenged either
facially (based on the legal sufficiency of the claim) or
factually (based on the sufficiency of a jurisdictional fact).
Gould Elecs. v. U.S., 220 F.3d 169, 178 (3d Cir. 2000); see also
A.D. v. Haddon Heights Bd. of Educ., 90 F. Supp. 3d 326, 334
(D.N.J. 2015) (explaining the same distinction). On a facial
attack, the Court considers only the allegations of the
complaint and documents referenced therein, construing them in
the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Pearson v. Chugach
4

Gvt. Svcs. Inc., 669 F. Supp. 2d 467, 469–70 (D. Del. 2009). On
a factual attack, “no presumptive truthfulness attaches to
plaintiff’s allegations, and the existence of disputed material
facts will not preclude the trial court from evaluating for
itself the merits of jurisdictional claims. Moreover, the
plaintiff will have the burden of proof that jurisdiction does
in fact exist.” Mortensen v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n, 549
F.2d 884, 891 (3d Cir. 1977).
5.

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the

court must “accept all factual allegations as true, construe the
Complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and
determine whether, under any reasonable reading of the
Complaint, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief.” Fleisher v.
Standard Ins. Co., 679 F.3d 116, 120 (3d Cir. 2012) (internal
citations omitted). In applying this standard to pro se
pleadings and other submissions, as here, the Court must
liberally construe the well-pleaded allegations, and draw all
reasonable inferences in favor of the pro se litigant. Higgs v.
Atty. Gen. of the U.S., 655 F.3d 333, 339 (3d Cir. 2011);
Capogrosso v. The Supreme Court of New Jersey, 588 F.3d 180, 184
(3d Cir. 2009). Despite this liberality, however, a pro se
complaint must still “contain sufficient factual matter,
accepted as true,” to “state a [plausible] claim to relief.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl.
5

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)); see also Marley v.
Donahue, 133 F. Supp. 3d 706, 714 (D.N.J. 2015) (explaining the
same concept).
6.

New Jersey’s Motion to Dismiss. Defendant State of New

Jersey has filed a motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint
pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). [Docket Item
65.] The Court finds that, construing the Amended Complaint
liberally and giving the pro se plaintiff all reasonable
benefits of the doubt, the Amended Complaint amounts to little
more than an effort by Mr. Reardon to relitigate a federal case
he lost in 2014 regarding his 1992 state-court conviction. See
Reardon v. New Jersey, 2014 WL 2921030. As Judge Hillman held
then with respect to Defendant State of New Jersey specifically,
“[a]s a general proposition, a suit by parties seeking to impose
liability which must be paid from public funds in a state
treasury is barred from federal court by the Eleventh Amendment,
unless Eleventh Amendment immunity is waived by the state itself
or by federal statute . . . . The State of New Jersey has not
waived its immunity and this Court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction over plaintiff’s claims.” Id. at *3-4.
Alternatively, Judge Hillman explained, “[t]o the extent
plaintiff seeks to challenge the ultimate judgment of his state
court criminal conviction, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars his
claim,” and “[i]n addition, plaintiff’s § 1983 claims would also
6

be barred by the Heck doctrine [because] . . . [he] has not
demonstrated that his conviction has been invalidated. To the
contrary it was affirmed on appeal and his [PCR] was denied in
the state court proceedings.” Id. at n.3; cf. Reardon v. Zonies,
730 F. App’x 129, 131-32 (3d Cir. Apr. 11, 2018). The same holds
true four years later and, for these reasons, Plaintiff’s claims
against Defendant State of New Jersey must again be dismissed
with prejudice. This federal court emphatically lacks
jurisdiction to review Mr. Reardon’s 1992 conviction or to award
money damages arising from an allegedly-wrongful conviction,
unless that conviction has been set aside in a court of
competent jurisdiction, which has not happened. For Mr. Reardon
to continue to claim otherwise is not only lacking in legal
merit, but it has also become frivolous and malicious upon its
repetition.
7.

Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend. Plaintiff has also filed

a motion to amend the Amended Complaint and a Proposed Second
Amended Complaint [Docket Item 73], wherein he raises a litany
of claims challenging the constitutionality of, inter alia: (1)
N.J.S.A. 2C:21-22, a New Jersey statute that prohibits the
unauthorized practice of law, under the Sixth, Ninth, and
Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and Art. 1,
Clauses 10 and 21 of New Jersey’s Constitution; (2) N.J.S.A.
Title 37, the New Jersey statutes regulating, among other
7

things, the issuance of marriage licenses, under the First
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; (3) the U.S. Government and
State of New Jersey’s alleged practice of “trying legal matters
on less than the plain and solemn averment of at least 2
witnesses, when eyewitness testimony is the only evidence [that
is] constitutional since it is a violation of the Common Law and
Biblical Law;” (4) New Jersey’s alleged practice of “deny[ing]
all criminal defendants their right to a speedy trial within 1
year of their charges contrary to the [Sixth], [Ninth], and
[Fourteenth] Amendments of the U.S. Constitution;” (5) New
Jersey’s alleged practice in Camden County of “denying the
accused of his right to be present in all significant hearings
in his criminal case as it deals with the Right to be present at
bail hearings and the right to be informed of the right and
importance of appealing, immediately, any bail findings of the
court;” (6) New Jersey’s alleged practice of “having public
defenders that do not assert or protect the constitutional
rights of the accused and that said counsel is also inadequate
since they do not instruct the accused, if said counsel is
stand-by counsel, of the types of questions that should be asked
of a witness and thus that said counsel is inadequate and
violates the right to adequate of assistance of Counsel under
the [Sixth], [Ninth], and [Fourteenth] Amendments;” (7) New
Jersey’s alleged practice of “setting bail, and denying the
8

accused of proof of the alleged crime(s) at the outset of the
alleged offenses since it allows bail to be arbitrarily set and
without proof of the charges and deprives the accused of his
liberty and impacts his/her life significantly;” and (8) New
Jersey’s practice of “allowing Police and Judges to bring search
warrant requests, and approving said requests by judges that
have a personal animus against an accused and allowing said
biased judge to be sought out, knowing of this bias, by police
officers to retaliate against an accused by seeking a favorable
Judge who knows he/she has had extrajudicial contact with an
accused who is interest in retaliating against, or venting is
spleen on such an accused.”
8.

After amending once as a matter of course, a plaintiff

may amend a pleading only with leave of court or the written
consent of the opposing party, and “[t]he court should freely
give leave when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a).
Despite these liberal standards, however, a district court may
deny leave to amend or add a party when amendment would
be futile. See Smith v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 139
F.3d 180, 190 (3d Cir. 1998), rev'd on other grounds, 525 U.S.
459 (1999). An amendment is futile if the amended complaint
would not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a
claim upon which relief could be granted. Alvin v. Suzuki, 227
F.3d 107, 121 (3d Cir. 2000).
9

9.

Here, the Court finds that allowing Plaintiff to file

the Proposed Second Amendment would be futile for several
reasons. First, to the extent Plaintiff seeks injunctive relief
against Defendant State of New Jersey, such relief is barred by
the doctrine of sovereign immunity. See Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S.
123, 159-60 (1908); see also Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159,
167 n.14 (1985) (“Unless a State has waived its Eleventh
Amendment immunity or Congress has overridden it, . . . a State
cannot be sued directly in its own name regardless of the relief
sought.”); Doe v. Div. of Youth & Family Servs. 148 F. Supp. 2d
462, 483 (D.N.J. 2001) (“[T]he judicial doctrine of Ex Parte
Young . . . allows suits against States in federal court seeking
prospective injunctive relief to proceed only against state
officials acting in their official capacities . . . in order to
end continuing violations of federal law.”) Second, Plaintiff
lacks standing to bring claims for prospective relief where, as
here, he has not shown a “real and immediate threat of repeated
injury.” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 495 (1974); see also
Brown v. Fauver, 819 F.2d 395, 400 (3d Cir. 1987). Third,
Plaintiff’s nonsensical 37-page Proposed Second Amended
Complaint, which is based largely on conclusory allegations and
unrelated, generalized grievances with various state laws or
practices, fails to satisfy the Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)
requirement that a complaint contain “a short and plain
10

statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
relief” or the Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d) requirement that “[e]ach
allegation must be simple, concise, and direct.” See also In re
Westinghouse Secs. Litig., 90 F.3d 696, 702 (3d Cir. 1996)
(“Taken together, Rules 8(a) and 8([d])(1) underscore the
emphasis placed on clarity and brevity by the federal pleading
rules.”). Simply, the Court cannot discern what, specifically,
Mr. Reardon is alleging and what relief he is actually seeking.
Because amendment would be futile, the Court will deny
Plaintiff’s motion to amend.
10.

The Court has also considered whether these

deficiencies may be cured if Plaintiff were given an opportunity
to file a Third Amended Complaint. The answer, succinctly, is
no. This federal court is empowered to hear only “cases or
controversies” in accordance with Article III of the U.S.
Constitution. This means that a plaintiff must allege facts
demonstrating that he has suffered a particularized harm for
which a court can provide a remedy. To meet the minimal
constitutional mandate for Article III standing a plaintiff must
show: (1) an “injury in fact;” (2) “a causal connection between
the injury and the conduct complained of;” and (3) that the
injury will “likely” be “redressed by a favorable decision.”
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992). An
“injury in fact” is defined as “an invasion of a legally
11

protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized . .
. and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.”
Id. at 560. This also means that this Court is not empowered to
hear a plaintiff’s generalized grievances, such as the
plaintiff’s personal disagreement with a public policy or
practice that has not actually caused cognizable injury to the
plaintiff (or for which such individual injury is threatened and
imminent). See Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Americans United
for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 474-75
(1982) (“[E]ven when the plaintiff has alleged redressable
injury sufficient to meet the requirements of Art. III, the
Court has refrained from adjudicating ‘abstract questions of
wide public significance’ which amount to ‘generalized
grievances,’ pervasively shared and most appropriately addressed
in the representative branches.”) (internal citation omitted).
11.

In the present case, Plaintiff expresses his

dissatisfaction with many perceived aspects of the State of New
Jersey’s practices or procedures in the fields of criminal
justice, regulation of the legal profession, and issuance of
marriage licenses. Yet nowhere does he state any specific facts
pointing to an individualized injury that he has suffered due to
some person’s violation of his constitutional rights while
acting under color of state law. Given Mr. Reardon’s welldocumented history of filing “an abundance of frivolous motions,
12

complaints which are without merit, and actions which are
defective procedurally,” Reardon v. Steinberg, No. 89-cv-223,
1989 WL 22416, at *1 (D.N.J. Mar. 14, 1989), the Court does not
surmise that Plaintiff would be able to cure these threshold
deficiencies and lack of Article III standing in a future
pleading in this case. Accordingly, the dismissal of the claims
against Defendant State of New Jersey in the Amended Complaint
and the denial of leave to file a Second Amended Complaint will
be with prejudice.
12.

Conclusion. For the foregoing reasons, Defendant State

of New Jersey’s motion to dismiss will be granted and
Plaintiff’s motion to amend will be denied. An appropriate Order
will be entered.

October 15, 2018
Date

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

13

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

JOHN E. REARDON,
HONORABLE JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Plaintiff,
Civil Action
17-5868 (JBS-KMW)

v.

ORDER

STATE OF NEW JERSEY, et al.,
Defendants.

This matter having come before the Court by way of the
State of New Jersey’s motion to dismiss [Docket Item 65] and
Plaintiff’s motion to amend [Docket Item 73]; the Court having
considered the parties’ submissions; for the reasons explained
in the Memorandum Opinion of today’s date; and for good cause
shown;
IT IS this

15th

day of

October

, 2018, hereby

ORDERED that the State of New Jersey’s motion to dismiss
[Docket Item 65] shall be, and hereby is, GRANTED WITH
PREJUDICE; and is further
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s motion to amend [Docket Item 73]
shall be, and hereby is, DENIED WITH PREJUDICE.

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