Mikkilineni v. Gibson-Thomas Engineering Co.

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 09-3542
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M.R. MIKKILINENI
v.
GIBSON-THOMAS ENGINEERING COMPANY;
EDWARD SCHMITT; MARK GERA; MCDONALD,
SNYDER AND LIGHTCAP; JOHN P. MERLO;
BANK OF AMERICA; GARY P. CARUSO;
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civ. No. 09-cv-01026)
District Judge: Honorable Arthur J. Schwab
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
May 11, 2010
Before: SLOVITER, CHAGARES and WEIS, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: May 12, 2010)
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OPINION
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PER CURIAM.
Appellant M.R. Mikkilineni initiated a pro se civil action in United States
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District Court for the District of Columbia against Gibson-Thomas Engineering Company
(“GTE”) and two of its employees, Edward Schmitt and Mark Gera, among others. After
the action was transferred to the Western District of Pennsylvania and docketed at D.C.
Civ. No. 04-cv-00491, the District Court dismissed the complaint sua sponte in an order
entered on April 21, 2004. The court reasoned that Mikkilineni had previously been
determined to have engaged in vexatious litigation against the named defendants, and that
the instant complaint contained claims identical to those previously litigated.1 The
complaint was wholly insubstantial, frivolous, and completely devoid of merit, and thus
the District Court dismissed it for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). See Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. v. Oneida County,
N.Y., 414 U.S. 661, 666 (1974) (some federal questions are “so insubstantial,
implausible, foreclosed by prior decisions of this Court, or otherwise completely devoid
of merit as not to involve a federal controversy within the jurisdiction of the District
Court”). The District Court directed the Clerk not to accept any other pro se complaints
from Mikkilineni unless he obtained prior authorization from the court. Mikkilineni filed
a response to the court’s order but he did not file a notice of appeal.
On April 9, 2009, Mikkilineni filed a Rule 60(b) motion in D.C. Civ. No.
04-cv-00491, which the District Court denied in an order entered on April 13, 2009. On
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The District Court noted that Mikkilineni had filed over 100 cases in courts
throughout the land.
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May 11, 2009, Mikkilineni filed a motion for reconsideration of that order, which the
District Court also denied. Mikkilineni has separately appealed the April 13, 2009 order
of the District Court denying his Rule 60(b) motion, see C.A. No. 09-2434. On June 23,
2009, Mikkilineni filed an application for leave to file a complaint with new causes of
action and additional parties. After GTE filed a response asserting that the proposed
action was related to Mikkilineni’s history of vexatious litigation, the District Court, in an
order entered on June 26, 2009, denied the application as an impermissible attempt to
harass GTE and circumvent the court’s previous rulings. Mikkilineni has separately
appealed the June 26, 2009 order of the District Court, see C.A. No. 09-2997.
Undeterred, on July 19, 2009, Mikkilineni filed a brand new civil rights
action in United States District Court for the District of Columbia against GTE and its
employees, among others. Just as he had in his Rule 60(b) motion, motion for
reconsideration, and application for leave to file a complaint with new causes of action,
Mikkilineni asserted that a bank account he held for a nonprofit at Bank of America had
been attached improperly by GTE in July, 2008 to satisfy a judgment against him in the
amount of $140,000.00. Fearing that Mikkilineni was forum-shopping to avoid the
Western District of Pennsylvania’s injunction, the District of Columbia transferred the
action to the Western District of Pennsylvania.
GTE then filed a response, asserting that Mikkilineni’s new complaint had
been filed in violation of the District Court’s April 21, 2004 order enjoining him from
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filing any further litigation without prior authorization from the court. Construed as an
application for leave to file a complaint, it was impermissibly designed to collaterally
attack a valid state court judgment related to Mikkilineni’s history of vexatious litigation.
In an order entered on August 17, 2009, the District Court concluded that
the complaint, which Mikkilineni originally filed in the District of Columbia, was a
“blatant attempt” to circumvent the court’s prior order enjoining him from filing any
further complaints without prior authorization from the court. Accordingly, the District
Court dismissed the complaint and did not separately construe it as an application for
leave to file a new complaint. Mikkilineni appeals.
We will affirm. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Insofar as
the District Court previously enjoined Mikkilineni from filing any further complaints in
the Western District of Pennsylvania unless he obtained prior authorization from the
court, and Mikkilineni filed the instant complaint without seeking leave of court, the
District Court did not err in dismissing the complaint as having been filed in violation of a
valid court order.
We will affirm the order of the District Court dismissing the complaint as
having been filed in violation the court’s order enjoining Mikkilineni from filing any
further complaints in the Western District of Pennsylvania without leave of court.
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