Opinion
Civil Action 22-1339 (UNA)
06-09-2022
ANDREW QUINN, Plaintiff, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES et al, Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
DABNEY L. FRIEDRICH, United States District Judge.
This action, brought pro se, is before the Court on review of Plaintiff's form Civil Complaint, Dkt. 1, and application to proceed in forma pauperis, Dkt. 2. The Court will grant the application and dismiss the complaint.
Complaints filed by pro se litigants are held to less stringent standards than those applied to formal pleadings drafted by lawyers. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). Still, pro se litigants must comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Jarrell v. Tisch, 656 F.Supp. 237, 239 (D.D.C. 1987). Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a complaint contain a short and plain statement of the grounds upon which the court's jurisdiction depends, a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, and a demand for judgment for the relief the pleader seeks. Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a). It “does not require detailed factual allegations, but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Rule 8 standard ensures that defendants receive fair notice of the claim being asserted so that they can prepare a responsive answer, mount an adequate defense, and determine whether the doctrine of res judicata applies. Brown v. Califano, 75 F.R.D. 497, 498 (D.D.C. 1977). The standard also assists the court in determining whether it has jurisdiction over the subject matter.
Plaintiff, a resident of Fairfax, Virginia, has sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; county offices in Arlington, Virginia; the Transit Police in Washington, D.C.; and the FBI, for “60,000,000 million dollars.” Compl. at ECF pp. 2-4, 6. Although Plaintiff checks federal question as the basis of jurisdiction, id. at 5, he has not invoked the U.S. Constitution or a federal law or treaty to establish jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Rather, Plaintiff lists under the jurisdictional section “harassment, invasion of my privacy, stalking, and false imprisonment,” id., which is consistent with his Statement of Claim alleging only that he has “been harassed and stalk[ed] by these people for years and follow[ed] across the country,” id. at 6. Apart from the jurisdictional defect, such vague allegations fail to provide any no notice of a claim. Therefore, this case will be dismissed without prejudice. A separate order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.