Silva v. Thornton et al

Filing 12

ORDER adopting 4 Report and Recommendations and dismissing the 1 Complaint; denying as moot 2 Motion for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis, 5 Motion for Writ, 6 Motion for Writ, and 8 Motion for Writ. So Ordered by Chief Judge William E. Smith on 6/20/2018. (Jackson, Ryan)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
___________________________________
)
)
)
Plaintiff,
)
)
v.
)
)
SARAH A. THORNTON, et al.,
)
)
Defendants.
)
___________________________________)
WAYNE A. SILVA,

C.A. No. 18-095 WES

ORDER
WILLIAM E. SMITH, Chief Judge.
On April 3, 2018, Magistrate Judge Sullivan filed a Report
and Recommendation (“R&R”) (ECF No. 4) recommending that the Court
dismiss

Plaintiff’s

Complaint

(ECF

No.

1)

and

deny

as

moot

Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Proceed in Forma Pauperis (ECF No.
2).

Although not labeled as such, on April 12, 2018, Plaintiff

filed an objection to the R&R.

(See Pl.’s Mot. for Writ of

Execution, ECF No. 6.)
While barely comprehensible, Plaintiff, pro se, in a cursory
fashion,

appears

to

attack

Magistrate

Judge

Sullivan’s

recommendations that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction
under

the

Rooker-Feldman

doctrine,

that

the

doctrine

of

res

judicata bars the action, and that venue is not proper in this
Court.

(See id. at 3-4.)

Plaintiff’s objections, to the extent

that this Court can discern them, are meritless.

For instance,

citing supposed “Venue Rule 4.1(b),” Plaintiff suggests that venue
is proper over all defendants within one-hundred miles of this
Court.

(See id. at 4.)

Plaintiff’s

reference,

The only rule this Court can extract from
Rule

4

of

the

Federal

Rules

of

Civil

Procedure, which deals with establishing personal jurisdiction
over a defendant through service of process, is of no assistance
to Plaintiff.

This Rule applies only to joinder of third-party

defendants (Rule 14) or required parties (Rule 19), both absent
here.

And it does nothing to alter the conclusion that venue is

not proper in this district.

See, e.g., Colonna’s Shipyard, Inc.

v. City of Key West, 735 F. Supp. 2d 414, 420 (E.D. Va. 2010)
(“[S]ervice of process requirements do not determine whether venue
is appropriate[.]”); 4 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller &
Adam N. Steinman, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1063 (4th ed.
2015) (“Conversely, service in accordance with the federal rules
will not prevent dismissal for improper venue if the suit is in
the wrong district . . . .”).
Although “[a] document filed pro se is ‘to be liberally
construed,’ and ‘a pro se complaint, however inartfully pleaded,
must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleading
drafted by lawyers,” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007)
(citation omitted), “pro se status does not relieve [a plaintiff]
of the obligation to meet procedural requirements established by
2

law.”

Lattimore v. Polaroid Corp., 99 F.3d 456, 464 (1st Cir.

1996) (citing United States v. Michaud, 925 F.2d 37, 41 (1st Cir.
1991)).

Here, as Magistrate Judge Sullivan outlines, Plaintiff

encounters multiple, threshold procedural requirements which are
fatal to his Complaint.
The Court, therefore, ACCEPTS the R&R (ECF No. 4) in its
entirety and adopts its recommendations and reasoning.

For the

reasons articulated by the Magistrate Judge, Plaintiff’s Complaint
(ECF No. 1) is DISMISSED with prejudice.

Plaintiff’s Motion for

Leave to Proceed in Forma Pauperis (ECF No. 2) is DENIED as moot.
Plaintiff’s remaining filings, labeled as Motions for Writ of
Execution (ECF Nos. 5, 6, 8), which lack merit and have no bearing
on this Order or the R&R, are DENIED as moot.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

William E. Smith
Chief Judge
Date: June 20, 2018

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
WAYNE A. SILVA,
Plaintiff,
v.
SARAH A. THORNTON, et al.,
Defendants.

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:
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:
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:
:

C.A. No. 18-95WES

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
PATRICIA A. SULLIVAN, United States Magistrate Judge.
On February 27, 2018, Plaintiff Wayne A. Silva filed pro se a one-page, handwritten
complaint against two unnamed Massachusetts county sheriffs and three Massachusetts
residents, Sarah A. Thornton, John G. Gomes and Francis J. Trapasso. The complaint recites
that the case belongs in this Court based on federal question jurisdiction derived from the
Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. It references an action apparently filed in
Massachusetts state court in 2013, and lists “defaults” against four of the five defendants on
various dates in 2014 for amounts exceeding $2 million each (one of the four is listed as
“$12,600,113.53”). Accompanying the complaint is a motion for leave to proceed in forma
pauperis (“IFP”), ECF No. 2, which has been referred to me for determination. Because of the
IFP motion, this complaint is subject to screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e).
With the exception of the name of the court in the heading, Plaintiff’s complaint is a
verbatim copy of a pleading he filed in the United States District Court for the District of
Massachusetts, which was dismissed on January 3, 2018. Silva v. Thornton, Civil Action No.
17-12106-FDS, ECF No. 5 (D. Mass. Jan. 3, 2018) (Final Order of Dismissal). In ordering that
the case must be dismissed at screening, the Massachusetts court performed a thorough and
thoughtful analysis, including a review of the relevant public database containing Massachusetts

state court case filings. Id. at ECF No. 4 (M. & O. of Jan. 3, 2018). Based on this review, the
court concluded that, to the extent that anything coherent can be divined the pleading, Plaintiff
was trying to relitigate or reopen a Massachusetts state court case in which the public record
established that judgment had entered against him in 2014. Id. at 1-2. Accordingly, the court
held that the complaint failed to state a claim because it lacked the “short and plain statement of
the claim” required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) and failed to “give the defendant fair notice of
what the plaintiff’s claim is.” 1 Id. at 3 (citing Calvi v. Knox Cty., 470 F.3d 422, 430 (1st Cir.
2006)). It further found that, to the extent that the action appeared to be an attempt to invoke
federal jurisdiction over a case lost in state court, the federal court lacks jurisdiction pursuant to
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. 2 Id. at 4 (citing Geiger v. Foley Hoag LLP Ret. Plan, 521 F.3d 60,
65 (1st Cir. 2008)).
Finding that the pleading failed to state a claim and that the court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction, the Massachusetts district court dismissed the action. Civil Action No. 17-12106FDS, ECF No. 4 at 3, 4. After Plaintiff persisted, filing a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60 motion for relief
from judgment, the court entered an Order barring him from filing any other papers in the action

1

Rule 8(a) requires that a complaint must include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader
is entitled to relief” in order to “give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it
rests.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 680 (2009)
(complaint must nudge claims from conceivable to plausible). The complaint must afford the defendant(s) a
“meaningful opportunity to mount a defense.” Diaz-Rivera v. Rivera–Rodriguez, 377 F.3d 119, 123 (1st Cir. 2004).
“[I]n a civil rights action as in any other action . . . , the complaint should at least set forth minimal facts as to who
did what to whom, when, where, and why.” Educadores Puertorriquenos en Accion v. Hernandez, 367 F.3d 61, 68
(1st Cir. 2004). Although “the requirements of Rule 8(a)(2) are minimal . . . [,] ‘minimal requirements are not
tantamount to nonexistent requirements.’” Id. (quoting Gooley v. Mobil Oil Corp., 851 F.2d 513, 514 (1st
Cir.1988)).
2

Based on District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983), and Rooker v. Fidelity Trust
Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars “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.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S.
280, 284 (2005). It applies when a plaintiff explicitly or implicitly seeks review of a state-court judgment. See
Federación de Maestros v. Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo de P.R., 410 F.3d 17, 24 (1st Cir. 2005).

2

except for a notice of appeal. Civil Action No. 17-12106-FDS, ECF No. 7 at 2. Among the
grounds for the Order, the court referenced Plaintiff’s “history of filing numerous post-judgment
motions that are without merit.” Id. (citing Silva v. United States, 07-11133-DPW (D. Mass.),
and Silva v. City of New Bedford, C.A. No. 01-10918-RWZ (D. Mass.)).
The verbatim copy of the same flawed pleading filed in this Court suffers from all the
same defects; accordingly, it is subject to dismissal for all the same reasons. Further, since it is
now the subject of final judgment in Massachusetts, to the extent that the dismissal was for
failure to state a claim, it is now barred from being relitigated in another District by the doctrine
of res judicata. AVX Corp. v. Cabot Corp., 424 F.3d 28, 30 (1st Cir. 2005) (“a dismissal for
failure to state a claim is treated as a dismissal on the merits”); Koolen v. Mortg. Elec.
Registration Sys., Inc., 953 F. Supp. 2d 348, 352 (D.R.I. 2013) (“The law . . . is clear that the
dismissal for failure to state a claim does constitute a final judgment for res judicata purposes”)
(citation omitted). In addition, this Court is not an appropriate venue for a case where all
defendants (as well as Plaintiff) reside in Massachusetts and the events giving rise to the claim
are based on a Massachusetts state court proceeding, with no events or properties in issue that are
linked to the District of Rhode Island. Therefore, the case is subject to dismissal because the
venue is improper. 3 28 U.S.C. §§ 1391(b), 1406(a); Cox v. Rushie, C.A. No. 13-11308-PBS,
2013 WL 3197655, at *4 (D. Mass. June 18, 2013) (action dismissed on venue grounds under §
1915 when “improper venue is obvious from the face of the complaint and no further factual
record is required to be developed”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Finally, the Court takes
note of the post-dismissal Order that was entered by the Massachusetts district court prohibiting

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When venue is improper, the Court may dismiss or transfer the action. 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). Because
Massachusetts is the proper venue and the Massachusetts district court has already dismissed the identical pleading,
“the interest of justice” tips decisively against transfer and in favor of dismissal. Id.

3

Plaintiff from filing anything further in the Massachusetts case except for a notice of appeal.
Thus, Plaintiff’s complaint appears to have been filed in this District for the improper purpose of
circumventing the Order entered in Massachusetts. Uzamere v. United States, No. 13-505 S,
2013 WL 5781216, at *14 (D.R.I. Oct. 25, 2013), aff’d, (1st Cir. Apr. 11, 2014) (deliberate and
tactical manipulation of venue renders case subject to dismissal as malicious).
Based on the foregoing, I recommend that the complaint be summarily dismissed because
it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, because this Court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, because the action is barred by res
judicata to the extent that the pleading fails to state a claim, because venue in this Court is
improper and because the filing is an attempt to avoid compliance with an Order issued by the
District of Massachusetts. Consistent with this recommendation, I further recommend that the
IFP motion be denied as moot.
Any objection to this report and recommendation must be specific and must be served
and filed with the Clerk of the Court within fourteen (14) days after its service on the objecting
party. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2); DRI LR Cv 72(d). Failure to file specific objections in a
timely manner constitutes waiver of the right to review by the district judge and the right to
appeal the Court’s decision. See United States v. Lugo Guerrero, 524 F.3d 5, 14 (1st Cir. 2008);
Park Motor Mart, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 616 F.2d 603, 605 (1st Cir. 1980).

/s/ Patricia A. Sullivan
PATRICIA A. SULLIVAN
United States Magistrate Judge
April 3, 2018

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