Miguel v. Abbott ( 2023 )

Case: 22-50413 Document: 00516849572 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/08/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
____________
August 8, 2023
No. 22-50413 Lyle W. Cayce
____________ Clerk
Samuel San Miguel,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Greg Abbott, Texas Governor; Marsha McLane, Texas Civil
Commitment Center Office, Executive Director; Michael Searcy, Texas
Civil Commitment Center Office, Operation Spec.; Jessica Marsh, Texas
Civil Commitment Center Office, Deputy Director; Wellpath Recovery
Solutions; Management Training Corporation,
Defendants—Appellees.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. 1:21-CV-566
______________________________
Before Duncan and Wilson, Circuit Judges, and Schroeder, District
Judge. *
Per Curiam: †
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*
District Judge of the Eastern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
†
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-50413 Document: 00516849572 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/08/2023
No. 22-50413
Plaintiff-Appellant Samuel San Miguel, proceeding pro se and in forma
pauperis, appeals the district court’s grant of motions to dismiss filed by
Defendants-Appellees Greg Abbott, Marsha McLane, Michael Searcy,
Jessica Marsh, Wellpath Recovery Solutions, and Management Training
Corporation (collectively, “Defendants”). San Miguel also appeals the
district court’s orders denying his motion for preliminary injunction and his
motion to alter or amend the judgment.
I.
In 2002, San Miguel pled guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual
assault of a child and was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. Near the end
of San Miguel’s imprisonment, the State of Texas filed a petition to have him
civilly committed as a sexually violent predator (“SVP”) under the Texas
Sexually Violent Predator Act (“SVPA”). See Tex. Health & Safety
Code §§ 841.001–.153. 1 Following a jury trial, San Miguel was civilly
committed under the SVPA.
In 2021, San Miguel sued Defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
alleging that the SVPA is so punitive that it constitutes a criminal—rather
than civil—statute, which violates his constitutional rights. Defendants
subsequently moved to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). San Miguel moved for a preliminary injunction. The
district court granted Defendants’ motions and dismissed San Miguel’s
complaint with prejudice pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), explaining that San
Miguel failed to “allege that there are no circumstances under which the
SVPA would be valid, and the Texas state courts have found both the original
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1
The SVPA permits the civil commitment of SVPs who have committed multiple
sexually violent offenses and are found to suffer from behavioral abnormalities that make
them likely to commit additional sexually violent offenses. Tex. Health & Safety
Code §§ 841.001, .003(a).
2
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No. 22-50413
and amended SVPAs to be non-punitive.” It also denied San Miguel’s
motion for preliminary injunction as he could not “show he is substantially
likely to succeed on the merits.” San Miguel then filed a motion to alter or
amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). The
district court denied this motion too, and San Miguel timely appealed.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to
dismiss, accepting well-pled facts as true and viewing those facts in the light
most favorable to the plaintiff. Dorsey v. Portfolio Equities, Inc., 540 F.3d 333,
338 (5th Cir. 2008). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must
contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief
that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(quotation and citation omitted). We construe a pro se litigant’s brief
liberally, but the litigant “must still brief the issues and reasonably comply
with the standards” outlined in Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28.
Grant v. Cuellar, 59 F.3d 523, 524 (5th Cir. 1995) (per curiam).
III.
On appeal, San Miguel contends that the district court erred in
(1) granting Defendants’ motions to dismiss, (2) denying his motion for
preliminary injunction, and (3) denying his Rule 59(e) motion. At the
threshold, we note that San Miguel’s brief fails to comply with Rule 28 by
failing to include a jurisdictional statement or a summary of the argument
identifying the district court’s purported errors. See Fed. R. App. P.
28(a)(4), (7). Nonetheless, we have “considered a pro se appellant’s brief
despite its technical noncompliance with the Rules of Civil Procedure when
it at least argued some error on the part of the district court.” Grant, 59 F.3d
at 524–25. Construed liberally, we understand San Miguel’s brief to contend,
with respect to Defendants’ motions to dismiss and his motion for
3
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preliminary injunction, that the district court erred by failing to consider
certain arguments, case law, and legislative history. As such, we will consider
San Miguel’s brief to the extent it bears on the district court’s disposition of
those motions. 2 Id.We specifically consider San Miguel’s argument that the district court
erred in granting Defendants’ motions to dismiss and that the SVPA is a
criminal statute that violates his constitutional rights. San Miguel contends
that this challenge to the SVPA is not facial. However, “to categorize a
challenge as facial or as-applied we look to see whether the ‘claim and the
relief that would follow . . . reach beyond the particular circumstances of the
[] plaintiff[].’” Cath. Leadership Coal. of Tex. v. Reisman, 764 F.3d 409, 426
(5th Cir. 2014) (first alteration in original) (quoting Doe v. Reed, 561 U.S. 186,
194 (2010)). Because his requested relief extends beyond his own
circumstances and would invalidate the SVPA in its entirety, we conclude
that San Miguel lodges a facial challenge. Id.To sustain a facial constitutional challenge to a statute, “the
challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the
[law] would be valid.” United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987). San
Miguel, however, has not properly alleged that there is no set of
circumstances in which the SVPA would be valid. For this reason, we
conclude he fails adequately to allege a facial challenge to the SVPA, and that
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2
San Miguel “fails to advance arguments in the body of [his] brief in support of”
his contention that the district court erred in failing to grant his Rule 59(e) motion. See
Justiss Oil Co. v. Kerr-McGee Refin. Corp., 75 F.3d 1057, 1067 (5th Cir. 1996). Accordingly,
“we consider [this] issue[] abandoned” and decline to consider its merits. Id.; see also
Rollins v. Home Depot USA, 8 F.4th 393, 397 (5th Cir. 2021) (“A party forfeits an
argument . . . by failing to adequately brief the argument on appeal.”).
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the district court did not err in granting Defendants’ motions to dismiss. 3 See
Ctr. for Individual Freedom v. Carmouche, 449 F.3d 655, 662–63 (5th Cir.
2006).
Separately, in the light of the district court’s judgment denying
permanent injunctive relief, as well as our affirmance of the district court’s
Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of San Miguel’s claims, we conclude that San
Miguel’s appeal of his motion for preliminary injunction is moot. See Koppula
v. Jaddou, 72 F.4th 83, 84 (5th Cir. 2023) (“[T]here is no need for a
preliminary injunction to preserve the status quo during the pendency of trial
court proceedings that are now over,” as a “denial of permanent relief moots
the appeal from a denial of preliminary relief.”); see also La. World Exposition,
Inc. v. Logue, 746 F.2d 1033, 1037–38 (5th Cir. 1984) (citing Payne v. Fite, 184
F.2d 977, 978 (5th Cir. 1950)).
AFFIRMED in part; DISMISSED in part as moot.
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3
To the extent San Miguel challenges the SVPA as applied based on his conditions
of confinement, we conclude that he has forfeited this argument by failing to address the
district court’s conclusion that our precedent in Brown v. Taylor, 911 F.3d 235, 243–44 (5th
Cir. 2018) (per curiam), precludes such a challenge. See Rollins, 8 F.4th at 397; see also
Washington v. Scott, 786 F. App’x 483, 485 (5th Cir. 2019) (per curiam) (collecting cases
and holding that a pro se appellant “waived his ability to challenge” a district court’s
decision by “not address[ing] the basis of the . . . decision”).
5