MILLER v. LANIGAN et al

Filing 3

OPINION filed. Signed by Judge Michael A. Shipp on 4/23/2013. (eaj)

NOT FOR PUBLICA nON
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

LIONELL G. MILLER,
Plaintiff,
Civil Action No. 12-4470 (MAS)
v.

OPINION

GARY M. LANIGAN et aI,
Defendants.

Shipp, District Judge:
This matter comes before the Court upon Plaintiffs submission of a 91-page
compilation of documents, which included, inter alia, Plaintiffs application to proceed in
this matter in forma pauperis. For the reasons expressed below, Plaintiff will be granted

in forma pauperis status, and his submission will be dismissed. Such dismissal will be
without prejudice, and he will be allowed an opportunity to replead his claims in
accordance with the guidance provided herein.
I.

Background
A.

Miller v. Ricci

On February 15, 2011, Plaintiff commenced his other currently litigated civil
action in this District, Miller v. Ricci, 11-0859 (FL W). The Hon. Freda L. Wolfson,
U.S.DJ., presiding over that matter, screened Plaintiffs complaint and dismissed some
of his claims with prejudice, while allowing the remainder of his claims to proceed. See
id. ECF Nos. 5 and 6.

In conjunction with the same, Judge Wolfson: (a) detailed to Plaintiff the standard
of review utilized at the sua sponte screening stage; (b) explained substantive invalidity
of his challenges asserting failure to respond to his grievances; and (c) clarified the
substantive tests applicable to failure-to-protect and retaliation claims. See id. ECF No.
5. The defendants in Miller v. Ricci were duly served.
Immediately thereafter, Plaintiff appealed Judge Wolfson's decision, see id. ECF
No.8; his appeal was dismissed as interlocutory. See id. ECF No. 18. In response,
Plaintiff filed a motion raising additional claims having no relevance to the challenges
asserted in his Miller v. Ricci pleading. See id. ECF No. 24. Judge Wolfson denied that
motion. See id. ECF No. 29, at 2 ("Plaintiff's Motion asserted a panoply of new claims
ensuing from the events which ... had no transactional relation with the ... altercation
[alleged in the pleading]").

In alternative, "constru[ing] Plaintiff's [m]otion as an

amended complaint," id. at 4, Judge Wolfson explained to Plaintiff the operations of
Rules 18 and 20 and pointed out that Plaintiff could not assert in any pleading, be it an
initial complaint or an amended one, clusters of unrelated transactions. See id. at 4-7.

B.

Instant Action

Plaintiff's instant matter followed.

Here, Plaintiff submitted for filing a

compilation consisting of 91 pages. (ECF Nos. 1 and 1-1 to 1-4.) Specifically, Plaintiff
included:
1. A document containing a caption naming nineteen Defendants, including
Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, the warden of Plaintiff's current
facility, the administrator of that facility, the assistant warden, numerous correctional
officers, and an unidentified John Doe, see id. at 1-2;

2. A page stating conclusory allegations lacking any factual predicate, see id. at 2­

3. His in Jorma pauperis application, see id. at 3-8; and
4. Three sets of exhibits replicating Plaintiffs letters to various prison officials
and his administrative grievances. See ECF Nos. 1-1 to 1-4.

II.

Discussion
Based on Plaintiff s affidavit of indigence and the absence of three qualifying

dismissals within the meaning of 28 U.S.c. § 1915(g), the Court will grant his application
to proceed in Jorma pauperis, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a), and will order the Clerk to
file Plaintiff's sUbmission. 2

However, the submission will be dismissed without

prejudice, for failure to comply with the requirements of Rules 8, 18 and 20.
A.

Rule 8

Judge Wolfson already detailed to Plaintiff the requirements of Rule 8, and
another reiteration of the same appears superfluous. Therefore, it shall suffice to merely
state that the court conducting a sua sponte review is obligated to disregard any
1 Plaintiff asserted that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when, on an unspecified date, he was
attacked by an unspecified inmate. From that, Plaintiff concluded, without explaining the basis for his
conclusion, that said inmate must have "act[ed] on the behest of [unspecified] correctional staff." Plaintiff
also alleged that "his meals [must have been] tampered" with, without clarifying the mode of alleged
tampering, the particular meals, the dates when that alleged tampering occurred or the alleged wrongdoers
who performed those acts. He also claimed that his First Amendment rights were violated by unspecified
acts of unspecified persons committed on unspecified dates. In addition, he alleged that his free exercise
rights were violated by taking of his Bible and Qur'an, without clarifying who performed such taking or the
circumstances of the alleged taking, or his religious beliefs that prompted his to consider himself a
Christian and a Muslim simultaneously, or all other means to worship his Christian-Muslim beliefs allowed
to him (besides reading the allegedly taken books). He also stated that some unspecified property of his
was taken by unspecified individuals on an unspecified date, and that he was placed in administrative
segregation under unspecified circumstances on unspecified date and for an unspecified period of time.
(ECF No . J.)

Granted the content of Plaintiffs series of documents docketed as ECF No. I, the Court cannot deem
that filing an actual complaint. However, in order to exercise its jurisdiction mover this matter, the Court
will deem the first fee pages of that set of documents a quasi-complaint so to direct the Clerk's filing of the
same.
2

conclusory allegations proffered in the complaint. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
675 (2009); Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210-11 (3d Cir. 2009).

For

example, the court must ignore legal conclusions or factually unsupported accusations
which merely state that "the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678
(citation omitted).

In other words, "a pleading must indicate 'the who, what, when,

where, and how: the first paragraph of any newspaper story. '" Imoore v. Gasbarro, 12­
2605,2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73114, at * 16 (D.N.J. May 24,2012) (citing Advanta Corp.

Sec. Litig., 180 F.3d 525, 534 (3d Cir. 1999), and quoting DiLeo v. Ernst & Young, 901
F.2d 624, 627 (7th Cir. 1990)). Moreover, the facts suggesting the "mere possibility of
misconduct" are insufficient, since they fail to assert a plausible claim showing that the
plaintiff is entitled to relief. Fowler, 578 F.3d at 211 (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679).
Therefore, in his amended pleading, Plaintiff shall not offer any conclusions that
his rights were violated; rather, he shall assert the factual predicate of his claims detailing
the circumstances of the transaction(s) at issue, when the transaction(s) took place, who
were the particular persons involved in the transaction(s), and the actual acts these
persons perfonned. 3
B.

Rules 18 and 20

In addition, Plaintiff shall select, among the challenges he wishes to litigate, only
those transactions that meet the requirements of Rules 18 and 20, which were already
extensively detailed to Plaintiff by Judge Wolfson. Plaintiffs current list of Defendants
and the sheer volume of the transactions suggested by his exhibits show that his

3

Plaintiffs 83 pages of exhibits do not cure the deficiencies of his pleading: Plaintiff is expected to state

his facts, under oath, and cannot expect the Court to sift through his exhibits and guess the challenges
Plaintiff wishes to raise. See Lindell v. Houser, 442 FJd 1033, 1035 n.1 (7th Cir. 2006) ("A District courts
should not have to read and decipher tomes disguised as pleadings").

challenges violate these Rules.

Plaintiff cannot lump all his challenges in a single

pleading. Accord Murakush Caliphate of Amexem Inc. v. New Jersey, 790 F. Supp. 2d
241,266 (D.N.J. May 13,2011) ("To put the [span of these challenges] in perspective, it
is much like [Plaintiffs] version of Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace"') (quoting Mann v.
GTCR Golder Rauner, L.L.C, 483 F. Supp. 2d 884, 891 (D. Ariz. 2007)). Rather, he
must select a set of transactionally related events that caused his legal injury and assert
only those events, and then duly join defendants in accordance with Rule 18.
C.

4

Facially Insufficient Claims Shall Not be Reasserted

Furthermore, Plaintiff shall not re-allege the claims based on failure to respond to
his grievances or letters. As Judge Wolfson already explained to him, such claims do not
state a challenge of constitutional magnitude.

Also, Plaintiff shall not name, as

Defendants in this action, those individuals whose sole "involvement" was limited to
holding supervisory positions over the persons who actually committed the alleged acts.
Supervising officials cannot be held liable for the actions of their subordinates unless the
litigant asserts facts showing these supervisors' personal involvement in the alleged
wrongs. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662; Monell v. Department ofSocial Services, 436 U.S. 658
(1978); Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362 (1976); Durmer v. O'Carroll, 991 F.2d 64, 69 n.14
(3d Cir. 1993). Finally, while Plaintiff might name, as defendants in this matter, the
individuals whose names he does not know without conducting discovery, he must define
these unidentified defendants with a sufficient degree of precision and state the facts
showing how each such defendant was involved in the particular alleged wrongs. See
Favoroso v. New Jersey, 11-5061,2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55185, at *17-18 (D.N.J. Apr.
4 Since "[P]laintiff is the 'master of the claim,'" Miller v. N.J. Dep'l o/Corr., 10-0817,2012 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 35115, at *7 (D.N.J. Mar. 14,2012), this Court is not in the position to guess which claims he might
wish to litigate from the panoply of transactions suggested by Plaintiff's exhibits.

17, 2012) ("even if the litigant's claims are not based on the doctrine of respondeat

superior, the litigant still must assert specific facts implicating defendants: personal
involvement by a defendant in the alleged wrongs is an indispensable element of a valid
legal claim") (citing, inter alia, Baker v. Monroe Township, 50 F.3d 1186, 1190-91 (3d
Cir. 1995), and quoting Mimms v. UN.I.Co.R., 386 F. App'x 32, 35 (3d Cir. 2010) (the
district court "properly dismissed the claims against [those defendants with regard to
whom plaintiff] failed to state [factual] allegation").

III.

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff will be granted in forma pauperis status, and

the Clerk will be directed to file his submission. The submission (ECF Nos. 1, 1-1 to 1­
3) will be dismissed. Plaintiff will be granted leave to file an amended pleading.
An appropriate Order accompanies this Opinion.

l~tldl?
Shi~

Michael A.
United States District Judge

Dated: