Metzler v. Delaware County Clerk of Courts et al

Filing 2

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION re 1 MOTION for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis filed by Patricia Metzler in that the request for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis is GRANTED; It is RECOMMENDED that the complaint be DISMISSED for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Objections to R&R due by 2/29/2016. Signed by Magistrate Judge Terence P. Kemp on 2/12/16. (sem)(This document has been sent by regular mail to the party(ies) listed in the NEF that did not receive electronic notification.)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION
Patricia Metzler,

:

Plaintiff,

:
:

Michael Ferguson, et al.,
Defendants.

CHIEF JUDGE EDMUND A. SARGUS, JR.

:

v.

Case No. 2:16-cv-106

Magistrate Judge Kemp

:

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Plaintiff, Patricia Metzler, filed this action against
Michael Ferguson, a private attorney, Judge David Gormley, a
judge of the Delaware County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, and
the clerk of that court.

Ms. Metzler has moved for leave to

proceed in forma pauperis (Doc. 1), and the Court grants that
request.

The case is now before the Court to conduct an initial

screening under 28 U.S.C. §1915(e)(2).

For the following

reasons, it will be recommended that the complaint be dismissed
for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
I.

Legal Standard

28 U.S.C. §1915(e)(2) provides that in proceedings in forma
pauperis, "[t]he court shall dismiss the case if ... (B) the
action ... is frivolous or malicious [or] fails to state a claim
on which relief can be granted...."

The purpose of this section

is to prevent suits which are a waste of judicial resources and
which a paying litigant would not initiate because of the costs
involved.

See Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319 (1989).

A

complaint may be dismissed as frivolous only when the plaintiff
fails to present a claim with an arguable or rational basis in
law or fact.

See id. at 325.

Claims which lack such a basis

include those for which the defendants are clearly entitled to

immunity and claims of infringement of a legal interest which
does not exist, see id. at 327-28, and “claims describing
fantastic or delusional scenarios, claims with which federal
district judges are all too familiar.”

Id. at 328; see also

Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25 (1992).

A complaint may not be

dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be
granted if the complaint contains “enough facts to state a claim
to relief that is plausible on its face.”
Twombly, 550 U. S. 544, 570 (2007).

Bell Atlantic Corp. v.

Pro se complaints are to be

construed liberally in favor of the pro se party.
Kerner, 404 U.S. 519 (1972).

Haines v.

The complaint will be evaluated

under these standards.
II.
A.

Discussion
The Facts

Here are the facts pleaded in Ms. Metzler’s complaint, which
the Court must assume to be true for purposes of deciding whether
she has stated a claim which can properly be heard by this
federal court.
Ms. Metzler was involved in litigation in the Delaware
County Common Pleas Court for four years.

On October 19, 2015,

that court entered judgment in her favor in the amount of
$17,000.00.

She attempted to have the judgment enforced by

paying a $200.00 fee to the clerk of courts’ office, but the fee
was eventually returned to her and the judgment was not enforced.
Ms. Metzler was summoned to court on January 4, 2016, to
attend a status conference which had been requested by Michael
Ferguson, an attorney representing the other party to the case.
Her father-in-law had died that day, and although she told Judge
Gormley about that, he refused to vacate the conference.

She did

not get any money that day and, in fact, there was some
discussion (which she did not understand) about the amount of the
judgment being only $12,000.00 and about an interpleader action
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being filed.

Ms. Metzler claims that all of these actions, taken

together, have violated her due process right to collect on her
judgment.

She seeks an order from this Court which would

prohibit Mr. Ferguson and the Delaware County Court from taking
further actions to prevent her from collecting on her judgment,
including permitting an interpleader action to be filed or
reducing the amount of the judgment.
There are documents attached to the complaint which shed
some further light on the Delaware County proceedings.

The

defendant in the Delaware County case was Justin Murray.

His

insurance adjuster discussed settlement of the case with
Plaintiff’s counsel, Ronald Plymale, in August, 2015, and Mr.
Plymale accepted an offer of $17,000.00 to resolve the case.
Plaintiff subsequently claimed that Mr. Plymale was not
authorized to do so, but Judge Gormley disagreed and granted a
motion to enforce the settlement agreement.

It was that order

which resulted in the $17,000.00 judgment being entered.

The

insurer sent Mr. Plymale a check for $12,000.00, which he
apparently forwarded to Ms. Metzler, but she wrote to Judge
Gormley asking him to ask Mr. Ferguson to stop payment on that
check and to issue a new check for the full $17,000.00.

Lastly,

Ms. Metzler attached a transcript of the hearing on the motion to
enforce the settlement agreement which indicates that there were
some subrogated medical bills which would have to be paid from
the proceeds of the settlement, and that Mr. Plymale was also
expecting to get paid for his legal services, although he
explained that he had cut his fee substantially in order to make
the settlement work.
B.

The Law

Ms. Metzler has brought her claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and
the United States Constitution.

That is the proper way to assert

claims against state officials who allegedly have violated a
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citizen’s constitutional rights.

However, private citizens, as

Mr. Ferguson would appear to be, cannot ordinarily be sued under
that statute.
This Court has explained the concept this way:
Section 1983 “ ‘is not itself a source of substantive
rights,’ but merely provides ‘a method for vindicating
federal rights elsewhere conferred.’ ” Albright v.
Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 271, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d
114 (1994) (quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137,
144, n. 3, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979)). That
section authorizes “a party who has been deprived of a
federal right under the color of state law to seek
relief.” City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at
Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 707, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143
L.Ed.2d 882 (1999). To be successful on such a claim
under § 1983, however, a plaintiff must establish two
essential elements: (1) that a right secured by the
Constitution or laws of the United States was violated,
and (2) that the alleged violation was committed by a
“person acting under the color of state law.” West v.
Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 101 L.Ed.2d 40
(1988) (emphasis supplied).
Miller v. Countrywide Home Loans, 747 F.Supp. 2d 947, 953-54
(S.D. Ohio 2010).

As Judge Sargus (now Chief Judge Sargus) also

pointed out in the Miller decision, “in general, neither
litigants nor their counsel are ‘state actors’ for purposes of
stating a viable § 1983 claim merely because they are making use
of the state's courts and/or its laws.”

Id. at 954.

Consequently, Mr. Ferguson, who is not a state official, may not
be sued under §1983.
Turning to the other two defendants, Judge Gormley and the
Clerk of the Delaware County Common Pleas Court are both state
officials, and they can be sued under §1983.

But not every

action taken by a state official can be reviewed by a federal
court.

That is especially true for state judges and other people

associated with the state court system.
The court systems in the United States are set up so that if
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a matter is litigated in a state court, and one of the litigants
is not happy with the result, that litigant must pursue his or
her claim of error by appealing within the state court system.
If a federal constitutional violation allegedly occurs during the
state court proceeding, the way to address that is by asking the
next highest state court to fix the problem.

Eventually, if all

of the state courts deny relief, the litigant can ask the United
States Supreme Court, which hears appeals from the highest state
courts, to take the case and resolve the constitutional issue.

A

federal district court, like this one, is not involved in that
process.

Another way of saying this is that federal trial courts

have no jurisdiction (or power) to correct errors, even federal
constitutional errors, which might have occurred during the
course of a state court case.
The United States Supreme Court has consistently affirmed
this principle.

In its decision in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi

Basic Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280 (2005), that court reviewed
the history of this rule, which is known as the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine (named after two prior Supreme Court cases with those
names and involving this issue).

The Supreme Court explained

that certain types of matters, which it described as “cases
brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by
state-court judgments rendered before the district court
proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and
rejection of those judgments,” cannot be heard by a federal
district court.

Id. at 284.

That is because a federal statute,

28 U.S.C. §1257, gives the United States Supreme Court exclusive
jurisdiction to hear such cases, and to do so only after the case
has run its course through the state court system.

Consequently,

this Court simply may not review any actions taken by Judge
Gormley in the Delaware County case which led up to the entry of
the judgment; there is no federal statute that would allow it to
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do so.
However, at least part of Ms. Metzler’s complaint seems to
be asking this Court to enjoin Judge Gormley, and perhaps the
Clerk of Courts, from taking additional actions in the future,
which might interfere with Ms. Metzler’s attempts to collect on
her judgment.

Those claims are not barred by the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine because they would not involve this Court’s review of an
action already taken in the state court case, but ask for this
Court to make a decision about whether some not-yet-taken action
might violate Ms. Metzler’s rights.

See Shafizadeh v. Bowles,

476 Fed. Appx. 71 (6th Cir. April 6, 2012).

Unfortunately for

Ms. Metzler, this Court cannot issue that type of order, either.
For the most part, federal courts are not permitted to enter
orders which would interfere with the course of proceedings in a
state court.

The States are, under the federal constitutional

system, separate sovereign entities, and they are entitled to
conduct their governmental affairs without unnecessary
interference from the federal government, including the federal
courts.

In recognition of that fact, the Supreme Court has

developed a number of rules (known as “abstention doctrines,”
because they tell a federal court when it should abstain from
deciding a case brought before it) to protect the States’
interests.
As it relates to Ms. Metzler’s claims, the Supreme Court has
recognized that the States have an interest in the process by
which state court judgments have been obtained and how they are
enforced, which the Supreme Court has described as “the
importance to the States of enforcing the orders and judgments of
their courts.”
(1987).

Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 13

In that case, the Supreme Court made it clear that a

federal court should not enter an injunction which would affect a
state court’s processes for enforcing its judgment, and that a
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case seeking such relief must be dismissed.

Part of the Court’s

reasoning was, of course, that the state courts give litigants
the opportunity to raise their federal constitutional claims
within the state court system, and as long as that opportunity
exists, the state courts should be permitted to address and
correct their own errors (if they have made any).

Since Ohio

would allow Ms. Metzler to bring any or all of her claims for
constitutional violations to the attention of the state courts for example, by way of an appeal or a petition for a writ of
mandamus or prohibition - that is the proper process for her to
follow, and federal court is simply not an option for her.
The Court does note that these rules about the relationship
between the federal and state court systems are somewhat
complicated and that, at times, they are difficult even for
attorneys to understand and follow.

But they are the rules, and

they have to be applied to all cases, whether the parties are
represented by attorneys or are proceeding on their own.

See,

e.g., McKinnie v. Roadway Express, Inc., 41 F.3d 554, 558 (6th
Cir. 2003)(“[o]rdinary civil litigants proceeding pro se ... are
not entitled to special treatment”).
Finally, the Court notes that Ms. Metzler does not appear to
be asking for an award of money damages against either Judge
Gormley or the Clerk of Courts.
improper as well.

Had she done so, that would be

Judges and other members of the court system

are immune from suit under §1983 for actions taken within the
scope of their jurisdiction (or even arguably so), see Stump v.
Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978); King v. Love, 766 F.2d 962 (6th
Cir. 1985), and all of the actions described in Ms. Metzler’s
complaint relate to actions taken by those defendants in their
capacities as judge and clerk.

Consequently, there is no claim

set forth in the complaint upon which this Court might grant
relief, and the complaint should therefore be dismissed.
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III.

Recommendation

For all of the reasons stated above, it is recommended that
this case be dismissed under 28 U.S.C. §1915(e)(2)for failure to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
IV.

Procedure on Objections

If any party objects to this Report and Recommendation,
that party may, within fourteen (14) days of the date of this
Report, file and serve on all parties written objections to those
specific proposed findings or recommendations to which objection
is made, together with supporting authority for the objection(s).
A judge of this Court shall make a de novo determination of those
portions of the report or specified proposed findings or
recommendations to which objection is made.

Upon proper

objections, a judge of this Court may accept, reject, or modify,
in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made herein,
may receive further evidence or may recommit this matter to the
magistrate judge with instructions.

28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1).

The parties are specifically advised that failure to
object to the Report and Recommendation will result in a
waiver of the right to have the district judge review the
Report and Recommendation de novo, and also operates as a
waiver of the right to appeal the decision of the District
Court adopting the Report and Recommendation.

See Thomas v.

Arn, 474 U.S. 140 (1985); United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d
947 (6th Cir. 1981).

/s/ Terence P. Kemp
United States Magistrate Judge

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