Olivier v. City of Clarksville et al

Filing 3

MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT. Signed by District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr on 2/21/17. (xc:Pro se party by regular and certified mail.)(DOCKET TEXT SUMMARY ONLY-ATTORNEYS MUST OPEN THE PDF AND READ THE ORDER.)(am)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
MARDOCHE OLIVIER,

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Plaintiff,
v.
CITY OF CLARKSVILLE, et al.,
Defendants.

Case No. 3:16-cv-03306
JUDGE CRENSHAW

MEMORANDUM
Plaintiff Mardoche Olivier, a resident of Clarksville, Tennessee, brings this pro se, in forma
pauperis action against the City of Clarksville and Lieutenant f/n/u Koyama, alleging violations of
the Plaintiff’s civil rights. (Doc. No. 1). The Plaintiff seeks damages, attorney fees, and injunctive
relief. (Id. at p. 3).
I.

Required Screening of the Complaint
The Plaintiff is proceeding as a pauper in this action; therefore, the Court must conduct an

initial review of the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) and dismiss it or any portion of it that
is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim for which relief may be granted, or seeks monetary
relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. In assessing whether the complaint in this
case states a claim on which relief may be granted, the Court applies the standards under Rule
12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as construed by Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678-79 (2009), and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-57 (2007). See Hill v.
Lappin, 630 F.3d 468, 470-71 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding that “the dismissal standard articulated in
Iqbal and Twombly governs dismissals for failure to state a claim under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii)] because
the relevant statutory language tracks the language in Rule 12(b)(6)”).

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“Accepting all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true, the Court ‘consider[s] the
factual allegations in [the] complaint to determine if they plausibly suggest an entitlement to relief.’”
Williams v. Curtin, 631 F.3d 380, 383 (6th Cir. 2011) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 681) (alteration
in original). “[P]leadings that . . . are no more than conclusions[] are not entitled to the assumption
of truth. While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported
by factual allegations.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679; see also Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 n.3 (“Rule 8(a)(2)
still requires a ‘showing,’ rather than a blanket assertion, of entitlement to relief. Without some
factual allegation in the complaint, it is hard to see how a claimant could satisfy the requirement of
providing not only ‘fair notice’ of the nature of the claim, but also ‘grounds’ on which the claim
rests.”).
“Pro se complaints are to be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted
by lawyers, and should therefore be liberally construed.” Williams, 631 F.3d at 383 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). Pro se litigants, however, are not exempt from the
requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Wells v. Brown, 891 F.2d 591, 594 (6th Cir.
1989); see also Brown v. Matauszak, 415 F. App’x 608, 613 (6th Cir. 2011) (“[A] court cannot
create a claim which [a plaintiff] has not spelled out in his pleading”) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted); Payne v. Sec’y of Treas., 73 F. App’x 836, 837 (6th Cir. 2003) (affirming sua
sponte dismissal of complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) and stating, “[n]either this court
nor the district court is required to create Payne’s claim for her”); cf. Pliler v. Ford, 542 U.S. 225,
231 (2004) (“District judges have no obligation to act as counsel or paralegal to pro se litigants.”);
Young Bok Song v. Gipson, 423 F. App’x 506, 510 (6th Cir. 2011) (“[W]e decline to affirmatively
require courts to ferret out the strongest cause of action on behalf of pro se litigants. Not only would
that duty be overly burdensome, it would transform the courts from neutral arbiters of disputes into

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advocates for a particular party. While courts are properly charged with protecting the rights of all
who come before it, that responsibility does not encompass advising litigants as to what legal
theories they should pursue.”).
II.

Alleged Facts
According to the complaint, on an unspecified date, Lieutenant Koyama denied the Plaintiff

the opportunity to file a “complaint” regarding what the Plaintiff believes was his false arrest and
harassment by police officers. (Doc. No. 1 at p. 2). The complaint does not make clear what type
of complaint the Plaintiff intended to file. The complaint alleges that Lieutenant Koyama told the
Plaintiff that he would need to wait until the Plaintiff’s case was adjudicated to file the complaint
but, according to the Plaintiff, he previously had been instructed by the Chief of Police to file any
such complaints within thirty days. (Id.) The Plaintiff believes these actions violated his civil
rights. (Id. at p. 1.)
III.

Analysis
First, the Plaintiff has named the City of Clarksville as a Defendant to this action. While the

City of Clarksville is a suable entity, it is responsible under § 1983 only for its “own illegal acts.
[It is] not vicariously liable under § 1983 for [its] employees' actions.” Connick v. Thompson, 563
U.S. 51, 131 S. Ct. 1350, 1359, 179 L.Ed.2d 417 (2011) (internal citations and quotation marks
omitted). Under § 1983, a municipality can only be held liable if the plaintiff demonstrates that the
alleged federal violation was a direct result of the city's official policy or custom. Burgess v. Fisher,
735 F.3d 462, 478 (6th Cir.2013) (citing Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 693, 98 S.Ct.
2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)); Regets v. City of Plymouth, 568 Fed. Appx. 380, 2014 WL 2596562,
at *12 (6th Cir. 2014) (quoting Slusher v. Carson, 540 F.3d 449, 456-57 (6th Cir. 2008)). A plaintiff
can make a showing of an illegal policy or custom by demonstrating one of the following: (1) the

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existence of an illegal official policy or legislative enactment; (2) that an official with final decision
making authority ratified illegal actions; (3) the existence of a policy of inadequate training or
supervision; or (4) the existence of a custom or tolerance or acquiescence of federal rights violations.
Burgess, 735 F.3d at 478.
The inadequacy of police training only serves as a basis for § 1983 liability where the failure
to train amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the police come into
contact. Slusher, 540 F.3d at 457. To establish deliberate indifference, the plaintiff may show prior
instances of unconstitutional conduct demonstrating that the governmental entity has ignored a
history of abuse and was clearly on notice that the training in this particular area was deficient and
likely to cause injury. Id.; see also Gregory v. City of Louisville, 444 F.3d 725, 752-53 (6th Cir.
2006). In the alternative, where the constitutional violation was not alleged to be part of a pattern
of past misconduct, a supervisory official or a municipality may be held liable only where there is
essentially a complete failure to train the police force or training that is so reckless or grossly
negligent that future police misconduct is almost inevitable or would properly be characterized as
substantially certain to result. Hays v. Jefferson Cnty., Ky., 668 F.2d 869, 874 (6th Cir.1982).
Here, the allegations of the complaint are insufficient to state a claim for municipal liability
against the City of Clarksville under § 1983. The complaint does not identify or describe any of the
City’s policies, procedures, practices, or customs relating to training; it does not identify any
particular shortcomings in that training or how those shortcomings caused the alleged violations of
the plaintiff’s rights; and it does not identify any other previous instances of similar violations that
would have put the City of Clarksville on notice of a problem. See Okolo v. Metropolitan Gov’t of
Nashville, 892 F. Supp.2d 931, 944 (M.D. Tenn. 2012); Hutchison v. Metropolitan Gov’t of
Nashville, 685 F. Supp.2d 747, 751 (M.D. Tenn. 2010); Johnson v. Metropolitan Gov’t of Nashville,

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No. 3:10-cv-0589, 2010 WL 3619790, at **2-3 (M.D. Tenn. Sept. 13, 2010). In fact, the City of
Clarksville is not even mentioned in the narrative portion of the complaint. Accordingly, the Court
finds that the complaint does not contain sufficient allegations to state a claim for municipal liability
against the City of Clarksville. Any such claim will be dismissed.
Next, the Plaintiff has sued Lieutenant Koyama for the “deprivation of rights under color of
law” and/or for “conspiracy against rights” pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242.

The Sixth

Circuit has defined a civil conspiracy under 42 U.S.C § 1983 as follows:
A civil conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to
injure another by unlawful action. Express agreement among all the
conspirators is not necessary to find the existence of a civil
conspiracy. Each conspirator need not know all of the details of the
illegal plan or all of the participants involved. All that must be
shown is that there is a single plan, that the alleged co-conspirator
shared in the general conspiratorial objective, and that an overt act
was committed in furtherance of the conspiracy that caused injury to
the complainant.
Hooks v. Hooks, 771 F.2d 935, 943-44 (6th Cir. 1985). Conspiracy claims must be pled with a
degree of specificity. Hamilton v. City of Romulus, 409 Fed. Appx. 826, 835-36 (6th Cir. 2010).
Vague and conclusory allegations unsupported by material facts are insufficient, although
circumstantial evidence of an agreement among all conspirators may provide adequate proof. Id.
As to the existence of a conspiracy to violate the Plaintiff’s constitutional or civil rights,
there are no allegations in the complaint, much less any allegations with the requisite specificity to
sustain a civil conspiracy claim. Thus, to the extent that the complaint attempts to allege a civil
conspiracy claim against Defendant Koyama, any such claims will be dismissed.
As to any deprivation of the Plaintiff’s constitutional rights under § 1983, the complaint does
not make clear what type of “complaint” the Plaintiff allegedly was trying to file but was prevented
from filing by Defendant Koyama. If the Plaintiff was a pre-trial detainee at the time and he was
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attempting to file a grievance while detained, a plaintiff cannot premise a § 1983 claim on
allegations that a jail’s grievance procedure was inadequate and/or unresponsive because there is
no inherent constitutional right to an effective jail grievance procedure in the first place. See Hewitt
v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 467 (1983)(overruled in part on other grounds by Sandin v. Conner, 515
U.S. 472 (1995)); Antonelli v. Sheahan, 81 F.3d 1422, 1430 (7th Cir. 1996); Adams v. Rice, 40 F.3d
72, 75 (4th Cir. 1994); Flick v. Alba, 932 F.2d 728, 729 (8th Cir. 1991). Given that a prisoner does
not have a constitutional right to an effective or responsive grievance procedure, any claims based
on a Defendant’s failure to respond to Plaintiff’s grievances do not state a claim upon which relief
can be granted.
If the Plaintiff was attempting to file a federal or state civil lawsuit, the Plaintiff would not
be impeded by a police officer’s insistence that the Plaintiff could not file the lawsuit. Indeed, the
Plaintiff has filed many federal lawsuits in this Court since December 2016. If instead the Plaintiff
was attempting to lodge a complaint at the police station against a police officer or against the police
department, the instant complaint fails to identify any federal constitutional right of the Plaintiff to
lodge such a complaint. For these reasons, the Plaintiff’s claims against Defendant Koyama must
be dismissed.
IV.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the Court finds that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can

be granted as to both Defendants This action, therefore, will be dismissed. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2).
An appropriate order will enter.

WAVERLY D. CRENSHAW, JR.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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