Greene v. SampsonGreene v. Sampson
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Philip M. Halpern
PHILIP M. HALPERN, United States District Judge:
Plaintiff Kivia C. Greene (“Plaintiff”), proceeding pro se, brings claims under the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and
For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ motions to dismiss.
Plaintiff commenced this action on July 5, 2018. (Doc. 1). On July 13, 2018, Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint which removed one defendant and added two more, but otherwise included the same allegations as her original complaint. (Doc. 4, “AC”). Plaintiff, who resides in Wappingers Falls in Dutchess County, New York, alleges that her next-door neighbors, Diane and Sean Sampson and their two children, have harassed her over the extended period of September 2, 2011 through June 5, 2018. (AC at 6-10).3 She states that their dogs enter her property, they played the song “the wicked witch is dead” for thirty minutes, their children were shooting BB guns into the vinyl siding of her home, and they hung a “black belted noose” from a tree outside her window when she returned from vacation. (Id. at 6-9). Plaintiff alleges that she has repeatedly called the police but is dissatisfied with their efforts. (Id. at 8, ¶ 28 (referring to “years of exhaustion from calling the EFPD.”)).
Plaintiff also alleges, without more, that she has sought “help and relief outside the East Fishkill Judicial System: Wappingers Falls Central School District; John Hickman: East Fishkill Town Supervisor; Marcus J. Molinaro: Dutchess County Executive, Human Rights Commission.” (Id. at 9). She alleges that “a pattern of racism has been established.” (Id.at 10).4 Plaintiff seeks a refund of the school and property taxes she paid for the past ten years; as well as an award of $10 million in “punitive damages.” (Id. at 11).
On May 1, 2020, counsel for the Sampsons advised that their clients had been discharged in bankruptcy and thus the stay of this action could be lifted. (Doc. 62). Counsel sought also to press the prior motions to dismiss. (Id.). The Court issued an Order on May 14, 2020, noting that the motions to dismiss which were pending previously before Judge Karas had been terminated, explaining that the stay imposed by Judge Karas was vacated by its own terms, and directing the parties to comply with the letter exchange required by its Individual Practices. (Doc. 64). Defendants complied with the letter exchange requirement, and on June 5, 2020, the Court issued an Order which specifically advised Plaintiff that she was permitted leave to amend her complaint by July 6, 2020. (Doc. 76). On July 20, 2020, the Court issued an Order noting that Plaintiff had not filed any amended pleading, and accordingly, set a briefing schedule for the motions to dismiss. (Doc. 80).
Defendants filed their motions to dismiss in accordance with the briefing schedule. (Docs. 81, 86, 87). Plaintiff filed her opposition to the motions on September 24, 2020, in which she incorporated by reference the opposition she filed in connection with the earlier, terminated
STANDARD OF REVIEW
A Rule 12(b)(6) motion enables a court to consider dismissing a complaint for “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
“When there are well-ple[d] factual allegations [in the complaint], a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679. Thus, the court must “take all well-ple[d] factual allegations as true, and all reasonable inferences are drawn and viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Leeds v. Meltz, 85 F.3d 51, 53 (2d Cir. 1996). However, the presumption of truth does not extend to “legal conclusions, and threadbare recitals of the elements of the cause of actions.” Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 72 (2d Cir. 2009) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662). Therefore, a plaintiff must provide “more than labels and conclusions” to show entitlement to relief. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.
A complaint submitted by a pro se plaintiff, “however inartfully ple[d], must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976) (quoting Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Because pro se plaintiffs are often unfamiliar with the formalities of pleading requirements, courts must apply a more flexible standard in determining the sufficiency of a pro se complaint than they would in reviewing the complaint of an individual represented by counsel. Smith v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 218 F. Supp. 2d 357 (W.D.N.Y. 2002). While “[p]ro se complaints are held to less stringent standards than those drafted by lawyers, even following Twombly and Iqbal . . . dismissal of a pro se complaint is nevertheless appropriate where a plaintiff has clearly failed to meet minimum pleading requirements.” Thomas v. Westchester Cty., No. 12-CV-6718, 2013 WL 3357171, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. July 3, 2013) (internal citations omitted); see also Chavis v. Chappius, 618 F.3d 162, 170 (2d Cir. 2010) (“Even in a pro se case, [ ] ‘although a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint, that tenet is inapplicable to legal conclusions, and threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.’” (quoting Harris, 572 F.3d at 72)).
Therefore, while the Court is “obligated to draw the most favorable inferences that [a plaintiff’s] complaint supports, [it] cannot invent factual allegations that [the plaintiff] has not pled.” Chavis, 618 F.3d at 170. The Court also has a duty to interpret the pleadings of a pro se plaintiff liberally “to raise the strongest arguments that they suggest.” McPherson v. Coombe, 174 F.3d 276, 280 (2d Cir. 1999) (quoting Burgos v. Hopkins, 14 F.3d 787, 790 (2d Cir. 1994)).
I. Plaintiff’s Claims
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
A. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
With respect to the Civil Rights Act, Plaintiff does not identify under which of the eleven Titles comprising the Act she seeks relief: Title I (voting rights); Title II (barring discrimination in public accommodations); Title III (desegregation of public facilities); Title IV (desegregation of public education); Title V (powers of the Commission on Civil Rights); Title VI (nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs); Title VII (equal employment opportunity); Title VIII (compilation of voting statistics); Title IX (removal of civil rights cases to federal court);
Examining her claims with the “special solicitude” required for pro se litigants, Shibeshi v. City of N.Y., 475 F. App’x 807, 808 (2d Cir. 2012), and drawing the most favorable inferences that the Amended Complaint supports, Chavis, 618 F.3d at 170, the Court finds that Plaintiff has simply failed to allege any violation under any of the Titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.6 There are no facts which can be construed to create any claim, much less a viable claim, for relief under any of the separate Titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Separately, individual liability is generally precluded under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, foreclosing the possibility of a private right of action against each of the individually named Defendants. See, e.g., Spiegel v. Schulmann, 604 F.3d 72, 79 (2d Cir. 2010) (Title VII); Goonewardena v. New York, 475 F. Supp. 2d 310, 328 (S.D.N.Y. 2007) (Title VI). As noted, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint presses claims against individually named Defendants, only. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are dismissed.
With respect to Plaintiff’s § 1983 claim, that law provides, in pertinent part, that “[e]very person who, under color of any statute . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured . . . .”
The government generally has no duty under the Fourteenth Amendment to protect an individual against harm from other private citizens. See DeShaney v. Winnebago Cty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195-96 (1989). A person does not have a constitutional right to have a complaint accepted for investigation by a government agency, nor a protected constitutional interest in having another person prosecuted. Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973); Tyk v. Surat, 675 F. App’x 40, 42 (2d Cir. 2017); Kellier v. Acosta, No. 20-CV-1058, 2020 WL 1435003, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 23, 2020); Bernstein v. New York, 591 F. Supp. 2d 448, 460 (S.D.N.Y. 2008).
In this case, although Plaintiff has invoked § 1983 in order to state claims against Defendants, she does not address what constitutional violations are being alleged, and does not allege what these individual Defendants personally did or failed to do that violated her rights, or that a policy or custom of East Fishkill or Wappingers Falls caused any violation of her rights. Absent any allegations concerning the violation of a constitutionally protected right, or allegation that these Defendants were personally involved in, or responsible for, the allegedly unlawful conduct complained of, Plaintiff’s pleading isinsufficient to state a claim against Defendants under
Accordingly, Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants under
C. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Plaintiff requested in her opposition to “remove the 1983 Civil Rights Law and replace it with Human Rights Law 1948.” (Doc. 47 at 2 (emphasis omitted)). Even were the Court to consider Plaintiff’s original opposition papers as an amendment to her pleading, which it does not, the claim she seeks to assert would not survive. It is well established that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a non-binding resolution and does not create federal claims for relief. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 735 (2004); Greenland v. Municipality of Westchester Cty., No. 18-CV-3157, 2019 WL 4640061, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 24, 2019).
CONCLUSION
Defendants’ motionsto dismiss pursuant to
The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to terminate Nicholas D’Alessandro, Matthew Orsino, Jose Carrion, and Marcus Molinaro as defendants herein, and to terminate the pending motions (Docs. 81, 86, 87). The Clerk of Court is further requested to mail copies of this Memorandum Opinion and Order to the pro se parties herein.
SO ORDERED:
Dated: New York, New York
February 2, 2021
Philip M. Halpern
United States District Judge