Adams v. Department of Children and Families, Commissioner
Filing
52
OPINION AND ORDER granting 48 Motion to Dismiss. Signed by Judge William K. Sessions III on 8/4/2015. (pac)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE
DISTRICT OF VERMONT
BAHJI AMELIA ADAMS,
Plaintiff,
v.
GEORGIA DIVISION OF CHILD
SUPPORT SERVICES,
Defendant.
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Case No. 2:13-cv-10
OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff Bahji Amelia Adams brings this action claiming
Defendant Georgia Department of Child Support Services (“Georgia
DCSS”) denied her due process and violated her rights under the
Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Rehabilitation
Act.
Now before the Court is the Georgia DCSS’s motion to
dismiss.
The motion raises several arguments for dismissal,
including insufficient services of process; lack of personal
jurisdiction; lack of subject matter jurisdiction; Eleventh
Amendment immunity; statute of limitations; and failure to state
a claim.
For the reasons set forth below the motion to dismiss
is granted, the Georgia DCSS is dismissed without prejudice, and
this case is closed.
Factual Background1
The Amended Complaint alleges that Ms. Adams is disabled,
and that the failure of government officials to accommodate her
1
These facts were set forth in the Court’s previous Opinion and
Order docketed on March 24, 2015, and are largely repeated here.
disabilities caused her financial harm.
Her disabilities are the
result of a 2003 automobile accident in which she suffered a
traumatic brain injury.
A psychological evaluation conducted in
2005 concluded that Ms. Adams is impaired in her ability to
follow directions, perform multiple tasks, work at a reasonable
pace, and function interpersonally.2
She also allegedly suffers
from chronic lower back pain, cervical spine pain, and migraines.
In August 2005, Ms. Adams filed a complaint in Georgia
Superior Court seeking a divorce from her husband, Adam George.
In the course of that proceeding, Ms. Adams, at times proceeding
pro se, made requests for accommodations because of her inability
to process the information required for litigation.
She alleges
that the state court failed to address her requests and never
properly considered her need for accommodations.
In November
2007, the state court awarded sole legal and physical custody of
the couple’s son to Mr. George and ordered Ms. Adams to pay child
support in the amount of $601 per month.
Ms. Adams subsequently filed suit against various parties,
including her ex-husband and state officials, in the United
States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
See
Adams v. Georgia, 2007 WL 4979007, at *1 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 27,
2007); Adams v. Georgia, 2008 WL 649179, at *1 n.1 (N.D. Ga. Mar.
2
Ms. Bryant initiated this case pro se, but in light of her
representation that she is “legally incompetent” the Court appointed
counsel pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 17(c).
2
5, 2008); Adams v. State of Georgia, No. 1:08-cv-280 (N.D. Ga.
June 30, 2008).
Her claims included challenges to the state
court proceedings on the basis of due process and ADA violations.
Each of those claims was dismissed.
Despite her physical and mental impairments, Ms. Adams has
been able to work as a flight attendant.
She began work for
Comair in November 2007, and continued until her furlough in
December 2008.
She joined Comair again in July 2010, where she
worked until a second furlough in January 2012.
In August 2010, Ms. Adams discovered that she was missing
her passport.
When she tried to obtain a replacement, she
learned that in June 2009 the State of Georgia had certified her
to the U.S. State Department’s Passport Denial Program due to her
child support arrearage.
The Passport Denial Program is a joint
venture by the state and federal governments, and can be applied
to persons owing child support in an amount exceeding $2,500.
In
Georgia, the program is implemented by the Georgia DCSS.
Ms. Adams claims that she did not receive timely notice from
the State of Georgia with respect to her certification to the
Passport Denial Program, and that Georgia’s procedures for
implementing passport denial do not take into consideration a
person’s disabilities or need for accommodations.
She ultimately
found her passport, but continued to pursue the matter of
certification because her passport was set to expire in 2012.
3
In September 2010, Ms. Adams forwarded a letter from her
employer to the Georgia DCSS explaining that her employment
required possession of a valid passport.
Georgia’s procedures
for implementing the Passport Denial Program allegedly provided
an exemption where a passport is necessary in order to generate
income.
The Amended Complaint alleges that Georgia state
officials initially failed to act upon Ms. Adams’s inquiry.
The
Amended Complaint further alleges that because of the eventual
expiration of her passport, she was unable to obtain work as a
flight attendant after September 2012.
In January 2013, the Georgia DCSS informed Ms. Adams that if
she disagreed with the stated debt amount she could request an
administrative hearing.
Because of the limited basis offered for
seeking review, Ms. Adams did not request a hearing.
Ms. Adams moved to Vermont in 2010.
In March 2013, the
Vermont Office of Child Support (“Vermont OCS”) filed a
Registration of Foreign Support Order to enforce the Georgia
Superior Court’s child support order.
The Vermont OCS also
notified Ms. Adams of her child support arrearage and its own
intent to certify her to the Passport Denial Program.
The
Georgia DCSS ceased its enforcement activities in December 2013,
and the Vermont OCS is currently the only agency enforcing Ms.
Adams’s child support obligations.
Ms. Adams filed suit in this Court on January 16, 2013.
4
On
May 14, 2013, a Vermont Superior Court registered the Georgia
child support order and ruled that if Ms. Adams made a $500
payment toward her arrearage, her passport restrictions would be
released.
Ms. Adams obtained a new passport in October 2013.
The Amended Complaint sets forth claims under the ADA,
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Due Process
Clause.
In Count I, Ms. Adams alleges that the Georgia DCSS and
its Director Keith Horton failed to take her disabilities into
account when they certified her to the Passport Denial Program.
By failing to modify their procedures or provide other
accommodations, those Defendants allegedly deprived Ms. Adams of
the opportunity to gain meaningful employment.
Commissioner
Horton has been dismissed from the case for lack of personal
jurisdiction.
In Count II, Ms. Adams claims that the Vermont OCS and
Commissioner David Yacavone similarly failed to take her
disabilities into account.
Both the Vermont OCS and Commissioner
Yacavone have been dismissed from this case, and Ms. Adams
concedes that Count II is no longer at issue.
Count III claims
that the Georgia DCSS and Commissioner Horton failed to provide
due process before certifying Ms. Adams to the Passport Denial
Program.
For relief, the Amended Complaint seeks an injunction on any
further denials, revocations, or restrictions on Ms. Adams’s
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passport; an injunction on further certification to the Passport
Denial Program without considering the need for reasonable
accommodations; judgment against the Georgia DCSS in the amount
of $100,000; and attorney’s fees.
Discussion
Of the several grounds for dismissal raised by the Georgia
DCSS, the Court will first address the question of personal
jurisdiction.
See Mende v. Milestone Tech., Inc., 269 F. Supp.
2d 246, 251 (S.D.N.Y. 2003) (citing Arrowsmith v. United Press
Int’l, 320 F.2d 219, 221 (2d Cir. 1963) (“[L]ogic compel[s]
initial consideration of the issue of jurisdiction over the
defendant – a court without such jurisdiction lacks power to
dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim.”)).
On a
motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(2), the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing personal
jurisdiction.
Cir. 2012).
MacDermid, Inc. v. Deiter, 702 F.3d 725, 727 (2d
Prior to discovery, a plaintiff may defeat a
12(b)(2) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction by
“pleading in good faith, legally sufficient allegations of
jurisdiction . . . .
[T]he [P]laintiff’s prima facie showing may
be established solely by allegations.”
Dorchester Fin. Sec.,
Inc. v. Banco BRJ, S.A., 722 F.3d 81, 85 (2d Cir. 2013)
(explaining a “sliding scale” of review for 12(b)(2) motions)
(quoting Ball v. Metallurgie Hoboken-Overpelt, S.A., 902 F.2d
6
194, 197 (2d Cir. 1990)).
The Court may also consider pleadings
and affidavits, and construes them in the light most favorable to
the Plaintiff.
Id. at 84-85.
To meet her burden, Ms. Adams must plead facts sufficient to
support a finding that personal jurisdiction is proper under
Vermont’s long-arm statute and the Due Process Clause of the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In re Roman Catholic Diocese of
Albany, 745 F.3d 30, 37–38 (2d Cir. 2014).
Because Vermont’s
long-arm statute, 12 V.S.A. § 913(b), extends personal
jurisdiction to the outer limits permitted by the federal Due
Process Clause, the Court must analyze whether personal
jurisdiction comports with due process.
Id. at 38.
The Due
Process Clause requires that a defendant “purposefully
establish[] minimum contacts within the forum State . . . ‘such
that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court
there.’”
Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 476
(1985) (quoting World–Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S.
286, 297 (1980)).
Once such minimum contacts are determined, the
Court must decide whether the exercise of personal jurisdiction
is reasonable and acceptable under “traditional notions of fair
play and substantial justice.”
Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326
U.S. 310, 316 (1945).
Personal jurisdiction may be specific or general.
“Specific
jurisdiction exists when a State exercises personal jurisdiction
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over a defendant in a suit arising out of or related to the
defendant’s contacts with the forum; a court’s general
jurisdiction, on the other hand, is based on the defendant’s
general business contacts with the forum state and permits a
court to exercise its power in a case where the subject matter of
the suit is unrelated to those contacts.”
Metro. Life Ins. Co.
v. Robertson–Ceco Corp., 84 F.3d 560, 567–68 (2d Cir. 1996)
(quotation marks and citation omitted).
Here, the focus is on specific jurisdiction.
Ms. Adams has
submitted two affidavits in support of her contention that the
Court has personal jurisdiction over the Georgia DCSS.
In the
first, she attests that after moving to Vermont in 2010 she was
called “several times by individuals at the [Georgia DCSS]
related to child support payments.”
ECF No. 40-1 at 1.
In one
such conversation she allegedly spoke with Commissioner Horton
about the alleged denial of due process, and her request for “a
waiver from the Georgia Child Support Order so [she] could get
[her] passport back and get a job as a flight attendant.”
Id.
In her second affidavit, Ms. Adams states that “on at least one
occasion” Commissioner Horton called her at home in Vermont and
discussed both the “passport and alleged arrears.”
ECF No. 49-1.
Commissioner Horton has been dismissed from this case for
lack of personal jurisdiction.
In doing so, the Court found that
“[t]he minimal telephone contacts between Ms. Adams and
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Commissioner Horton are . . . insufficient to establish personal
jurisdiction.”
Id.
The Court also found that according to both
recent and longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, injuries
suffered in the forum state do not necessarily qualify as
contacts between that state and the defendant.
The Court further
noted that the burden upon Commissioner Horton of attending trial
in Vermont would be significant.
Turning to the present motion, Ms. Adams’s allegations with
regard to the Georgia DCSS are quite similar to those asserted
against the Commissioner.
While her initial affidavit suggests
that she has had several telephone calls with Georgia DCSS
personnel while living in Vermont, those calls pertained to
“child support payments.”
ECF No. 40-1 at 1.
Ms. Adams has made
clear, however, that she is not challenging her child support
obligations in this litigation.
Accordingly, those conversations
did not either “arise out of” or “relate to” her current legal
claims.
See Metro. Life Ins. Co., 84 F.3d at 567–68.
Ms. Adams claims that the Georgia DCSS denied her due
process and failed to consider her disabilities when it certified
her to the Passport Denial Program in 2009.
in Vermont at that time.
She was not living
Accepting all of her allegations in the
Amended Complaint and subsequent affidavits as true, most of her
Vermont contacts with the Georgia DCSS pertained to child support
payments.
Again, the grounds for those payment obligations are
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not being challenged in this litigation.
The allegations that Ms. Adams spoke with Commissioner
Horton on “at least” one occasion about her passport are
insufficient, for the reasons set forth in the Court’s prior
opinion.
See Fox v. Boucher, 794 F.2d 34, 37 (2d Cir. 1986) (“It
would offend ‘minimum contacts’ due process principles to force
[the defendant], a Massachusetts resident, to litigate in a New
York forum on the basis of one telephone call.”).
Moreover,
contacts between the Georgia DCSS and the State of Vermont were
exclusively the byproduct of Ms. Adams’s move, and had nothing to
do with any effort by the State of Georgia to avail itself of
Vermont’s laws.3
In Walden v. Fiore, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that
while “a defendant’s contacts with the forum State may be
intertwined with his transactions or interactions with the
plaintiff or other parties . . . .
a defendant’s relationship
with a plaintiff or third party, standing alone, is an
insufficient basis for jurisdiction.”
(2014).
134 S. Ct. 1115, 1122
In other words, “[d]ue process requires that a defendant
be haled into court in a forum State based on his own affiliation
with the State, not based on the ‘random, fortuitous, or
3
With regard to garnishment of wages, Ms. Adams asserts that
her wages were garnished from Delta Airlines. Delta Airlines is a
corporation headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. See Bracewell v.
Nicholson Air Servs., Inc., 748 F.2d 1499, 1501 (11th Cir. 1984).
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attenuated’ contacts he makes by interacting with other persons
affiliated with the State”.
Corp., 471 U.S. at 475).
Id. at 1123 (quoting Burger King
In this case, Ms. Adams alleges that
Commissioner Horton and the Georgia DCSS contacted Vermont
because she moved here.
Any injury suffered in Vermont was a
result of her unilateral actions, and not the Georgia DCSS’s
affiliation with Vermont, and thus does not support specific
jurisdiction.
Even assuming, arguendo, that minimum contacts requirements
were met, personal jurisdiction over the Georgia DCSS would not
be reasonable.
As this Court discussed in the dismissal of
Commissioner Horton, the Second Circuit applies a five-factor
test established by the Supreme Court in Asahi Metal Indus. Co.
v. Superior Court of California to assess the reasonableness of
exercising jurisdiction over a defendant.
480 U.S. 102, 113
(1987); see Metro. Life Ins. Co., 84 F.3d at 568 (citing Asahi).
These factors include “the burden on the defendant, the interests
of the forum State . . . the plaintiff’s interest in obtaining
relief . . . the interstate judicial system’s interest in
obtaining the most efficient resolution of controversies; and the
shared interest of the several States in furthering fundamental
substantive social policies.”
Asahi, 480 U.S. at 113 (quoting
World-Wide Volkswagen Corp., 444 U.S. at 291).
Here, the burden upon employees of the Georgia DCSS to
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attend trial in Vermont would, as the Court ruled previously with
regard to the Commissioner, be significant.
Vermont’s interest
in child support payments due in Georgia has been addressed in
state court.
Furthermore, the State of Vermont has shared, if
not overtaken, responsibility for collecting on Ms. Adams’s
overdue payments, and there is no indication that the transfer of
such enforcement has been inefficient.
Finally, courts have held it unreasonable for a state to
exercise jurisdiction over officials or agencies of another state
based on actions they have taken to enforce a valid state court
order.
Brown v. Reese, 2013 WL 525354, at *7 (D. Ariz. Feb. 11,
2013) (holding that, other factors aside, it would be
unreasonable to exercise jurisdiction over Georgia DHS and
officials for efforts to compel child support payments from
plaintiff in Arizona); Payne v. Cty. of Kershaw, 2008 WL 2876592,
at *5 (N.D. Tex. “July 25, 2008) (exercising jurisdiction over
out-of-state officials based on efforts to garnish wages for
spousal support would be unreasonable because it would expose
such officials to litigation throughout the country).
Similarly,
the Supreme Court has held that it would be unreasonable to
assert jurisdiction over a party to a child support agreement
merely because of the unilateral interstate movements of the
opposing party.
See Kulko v. Superior Court of Cal., City and
County of San Francisco, 436 U.S. 84, 93 (1978) (declining to
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find personal jurisdiction over divorced husband “merely because
[the plaintiff in a child support action] was residing there”)
(cited in Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122-23).
For these reasons, the Court finds that it lacks personal
jurisdiction over the Georgia DCSS, and all claims against that
Defendant are therefore dismissed without prejudice.
Conclusion
The motion to dismiss filed by Defendant Georgia DCSS is
hereby granted due to a lack of personal jurisdiction.
As all
Defendants have now been dismissed from the case, this case is
closed.
DATED at Burlington, in the District of Vermont, this 4th
day of August, 2015.
/s/ William K. Sessions III
William K. Sessions III
United States District Court Judge
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