Brackens v. Best Cabs, Inc. , 151 F. App'x 659 ( 2005 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
October 12, 2005
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
Clerk of Court
STACEY W. BRACKENS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 05-3039
(D.C. No. 04-CV-1259-JTM)
BEST CABS, INC.; WALGREEN’S (D. Kan.)
INC.; WESLEY MEDICAL CENTER;
BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS OF SEDGWICK
COUNTY, KANSAS; GARY STEED,
Individually and in his official
capacity as Sheriff of Sedgwick
County, Kansas; REBECCA
PILSHAW, Individually and in her
official capacity as Judge of Sedgwick
County, Kansas; STATE OF
KANSAS; AMY MCCLELLAN;
EDWARD SIMS,
Defendants-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HENRY, ANDERSON , and TYMKOVICH , Circuit Judges.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Stacey W. Brackens, appearing pro se, appeals from the district court’s
order dismissing his claims against defendants Best Cabs, Inc. and Amy
McClellan. Upon the recommendations of the magistrate judge to whom the case
was initially assigned, the district court sua sponte dismissed the claims under
28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted. Because we conclude that all claims were properly dismissed, we affirm.
I.
We review a § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) dismissal de novo. McBride v. Deer, 240
F.3d 1287, 1289 (10th Cir. 2001). “‘[I]n reviewing the dismissal of a complaint,
all well-pleaded facts, as distinguished from conclusory allegations, must be taken
as true. In addition, we will take the allegations in the plaintiff’s objections to
the magistrate’s report and recommendation as true.’” Id. (quoting Dunn v.
White , 880 F.2d 1188, 1190 (10th Cir. 1989) (brackets and italics omitted)). We
review the district court’s discretionary decision to dismiss a plaintiff’s pendent
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state-law claims for abuse of that discretion. See Baker v. Bd. of Regents, 991
F.2d 628, 634 (10th Cir. 1993).
II.
Since 2002, Mr. Brackens has sued Best Cabs and Ms. McClellan at least
three times each. 1
In November 2002 he sued Best Cabs for retaliation and
discrimination under Title VII. 2
In February 2004 and August 2004 he sued Best
Cabs, Ms. McClellan, and most of the other defendants listed in the instant case
for retaliation, discrimination, defamation, harassment, and false imprisonment.
The suits filed in 2004 relate to Mr. Brackens’s challenge to three temporary
restraining orders (TROs) issued in 2003 that prohibit his contact with three
women: Ms. Abushikha (who leases a taxi from Best Cabs) on June 20, 2003;
Ms. McClellan (Mr. Brackens’s next-door neighbor with whom he and his wife
have been feuding for over three years) on July 21, 2003; and Ms. Fleming (who
is allegedly Ms. McClellan’s friend) on October 9, 2003. According to his 2004
complaints, Mr. Brackens was arrested and sentenced to sixty days in jail for
contempt of court for violating the TRO involving Ms. McClellan when he
appeared in court to challenge the TRO prohibiting contact with Ms. Fleming. He
1
Mr. Brackens also states that he has previously sued Ms. McClellan for
allegedly telling lies about him in a state small-claims court. R. Doc. 1 at 12.
2
We recently affirmed the dismissal of this case in Brackens v. Best Cabs,
Inc. , No. 04-3293, 2005 WL 1785328 (10th Cir. July 28, 2005).
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claims his arrest and confinement were unlawful because there was no probable
cause to arrest him; because he had no notice of the contempt charge, no
representation at the hearing, and no opportunity to prepare a defense; and
because the defendant state-court judge was not a neutral judge.
Although he appeals only from the dismissal of his claims against Best
Cabs and Ms. McClellan, Mr. Brackens also sued the local sheriff and the state-
court judge in both federal complaints filed in 2004, alleging violations of 42
U.S.C. § 1983 for the above-described imprisonment on the contempt charge. 3
These allegations gave the district court federal-question jurisdiction over the two
suits. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343.
Just over a week after filing his February 2004 complaint, Mr. Brackens
filed a voluntary motion to dismiss, seeking an order of dismissal with prejudice.
The district court granted the motion. Mr. Brackens then filed the instant suit in
August 2004. After reviewing both suits, the district court concluded that all of
Mr. Brackens’s claims were now barred by the doctrine of res judicata because of
the previous with-prejudice dismissal. R. Doc. 16 at 4-7. The court also
concluded that, even though Ms. McClellan had filed for an extension of the TRO
after the court had granted Mr. Brackens’s voluntary motion to dismiss the
3
Mr. Brackens moved to amend his August 2004 complaint to withdraw the
state-court judge as a defendant on October 29, 2004. R. Doc. 14. The district
court granted the motion. R. Doc. 16 at 1.
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February 2004 case, that was not an “adequate ground[] to permit [Mr. Brackens]
to open a case in which he initiated dismissal.” Id. at 6.
Mr. Brackens moved for reconsideration. He argued that, because his
August complaint asserted wrongful acts that had occurred after the filing of his
February complaint, his claims against Best Cabs and Ms. McClellan were not
precluded by res judicata. See Mitchell v. City of Moore , 218 F.3d 1190, 1202-03
(10th Cir. 2000) (holding that claim preclusion does not necessarily bar a plaintiff
from litigating a claim based on conduct occurring after the initial complaint was
filed). On reconsideration, the district court concluded that the claims against
Best Cabs merely alleged “new theories to reopen his earlier case,” and declined
to change its judgment. R. Doc. 29 at 3. As to Ms. McClellan, the district court
refused to review the “new evidence and facts” raised in the motion for
reconsideration, stating that those arguments should have been made prior to the
entry of judgment. Id. at 4. In the alternative, the district court essentially
determined that, having dismissed the § 1983 claims, it no longer possessed
federal subject-matter jurisdiction. The court held that there was no showing that
Ms. McClellan was a state actor or that she acted under color of state law such
that the court could maintain federal-question jurisdiction over her, and that there
was no diversity between the parties giving rise to diversity jurisdiction. See id.
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Mr. Brackens appeals.
III.
A. Best Cabs. In his August 2004 suit, Mr. Brackens sought
compensation from Best Cabs for retaliation, causing false imprisonment, and
stress. See R. Doc. 1 at 23. He asserted that Best Cabs was “the mother to this
whole case” because Ms. McClellan would not have filed her stalking complaint
that resulted in his imprisonment if Best Cabs had not allegedly told
Ms. Abushikha to file the first stalking complaint in retaliation for Mr. Brackens
having filed his November 2002 complaint against Best Cabs. Id. One may
wonder what Mr. Brackens’s problems with Best Cabs had to do with his
problems with his next-door neighbor, Ms. McClellan. Mr. Brackens explains
that he informed Ms. McClellan of those problems by distributing a letter in
which he complained that he had been unfairly adjudged of being
Ms. Abushikha’s stalker and accused the state-court judge of being unfit for
judicial service. He believes that his letter gave Ms. McClellan the idea “to file a
stalking complaint of her own.” Id. at 11. He claims, therefore, that his
imprisonment for contempt for violating the TRO is ultimately the result of Best
Cabs’ alleged retaliation.
We agree with the district court that, even if we accept as true the
allegations and claim of an attenuated nexus between Best Cabs’ alleged actions
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and an allegedly false imprisonment, because Mr. Brackens made the same claims
in his February 2004 suit that was dismissed with prejudice, he cannot raise them
in a new federal suit. See Semtek Int’l, Inc. v. Lockheed Martin Corp. , 531 U.S.
497, 505-06 (2001) (noting that using the words “with prejudice” in an order of
voluntary dismissal “is an acceptable form of shorthand for an adjudication upon
the merits”) (quotation marks omitted). Under Rule 41(a) of the Rules of Civil
Procedure, a dismissal with prejudice bars the plaintiff from the “refiling of the
same claim” in the same court. Semtek Int’l, Inc. , 531 U.S. at 506. Although
Mr. Brackens now argues that he “made a mistake in [his] wording” by requesting
that the case be dismissed with prejudice and that he should be relieved from the
consequences of his mistake, Aplt. Br. at 2, he never moved for relief on that
basis in the district court, so we do not address his contention raised for the first
time on appeal. See Tillman ex rel. Estate of Tillman v. Camelot Music, Inc. , 408
F.3d 1300, 1307 (10th Cir. 2005).
Mr. Brackens next asserts that two actions, which he associates with Best
Cabs and which occurred after the filing and dismissal of his February 2004
complaint, preclude dismissal of his August 2004 federal suit against Best Cabs.
First, he asserts that, in March 2004, Best Cabs’ owner’s son threatened to “kick
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[his] ***.” R. Doc. 1 at 23. 4 Second, he claims that in December 2004, a taxi
driver who leases a cab from Best Cabs left a text message on Mr. Brackens’s
wife’s phone in an effort to “upset” Mr. Brackens. Id. Even assuming the truth
of these allegations and that they state a state-law claim upon which relief may be
granted, neither allegation states a federal claim upon which relief may be
granted, and no diversity exists between the parties that would give rise to federal
jurisdiction. See Nicodemus v. Union Pac. Corp., 318 F.3d 1231, 1235 (10th Cir.
2003). The district court did not err by dismissing these pendent state-law claims,
having concluded that the federal claims against the sheriff and the judge had to
be dismissed. See United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs , 383 U.S. 715, 726
(1966) (“Certainly, if the federal claims are dismissed before trial, even though
not insubstantial in a jurisdictional sense, the state claims should be dismissed as
well.”). We conclude that the district court properly dismissed the claims against
Best Cabs.
B. Ms. McClellan . Mr. Brackens is similarly barred from raising the same
false imprisonment and harassment claims in his August 2004 suit that were
raised in the February 2004 suit against Ms. McClellan. Mr. Brackens argues that
the following claims against Ms. McClellan should not be dismissed because they
4
Mr. Brackens also used this alleged fact as a basis for his Title VII suit for
retaliation against Best Cabs. See Brackens v. Best Cabs, Inc. , No. 04-3293, 2005
WL 1785328, *2 (10th Cir. July 28, 2005) (unpublished)
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occurred after February 2004: (1) he thinks that “someone from [Ms.
McClellan’s] home” threw a rock on the hood of his car, R. Doc. 1 at 20; (2) she
told lies about him in order to request, and obtain an extension of, the TRO after a
hearing, R. Doc. 7 at 2-3; (3) she put broken glass in his driveway, R. Doc. 20 at
3; and (4) she allowed her sons to fire “bottle rockets at his front door” when no
one was home, id. We conclude that these pendent state-law claims were also
properly dismissed. See Gibbs , 383 U.S. at 726. As the district court noted,
Ms. McClellan is not a state actor, the alleged facts do not present a federal
claim, and there is no diversity between the parties.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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