Opinion
Cause No. 1:02-CV-53
June 4, 2002
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER
On March 1, 2002, Plaintiff Gregory W. Treece ("Treece"), filed a complaint against John W. Whiteleather ("Whiteleather") and Darlene Rose ("Rose"). Treece's pro se complaint asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Whiteleather and Rose had deprived him of his rights under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments by requiring him to overpay child support and by prosecuting him for failure to pay adequate child support. Treece states that as a result of these actions, he has had to file bankruptcy, has lost his place of residence, and has been sentenced to one year in jail.
On May 10, 2002, the defendants, by counsel, moved to dismiss this action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). On May 13, 2002, the Clerk of this Court sent Treece a notice, pursuant to Lewis v. Faulker, 689 F.2d 100 (7th Cir. 1982), notifying Treece of his obligation to respond to the Defendants' motion to dismiss and granting him until May 30, 2002 to respond. To date, Treece has not responded to Defendants' motion to dismiss. For the reasons set forth herein, the Defendants' motion to dismiss will be GRANTED.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Treece's Complaint alleges as follows: Treece has made several requests for a hearing to modify a child support order in state court, all of which were denied. He alleges that the support order required him to overpay his child support for the last two years and that the imposition of the court order has caused him great financial hardship. Namely, Treece has had to file bankruptcy and has lost his place of residence. In addition, Treece was convicted of a Class D felony for failure to pay child support and sentenced to one year in jail.
APPLICABLE LEGAL STANDARD
In considering a motion to dismiss, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has said that courts are to "read a complaint liberally and `accept as true the well pleaded allegations of the complaint and the inferences that may be reasonably drawn from those allegations.'" Sapperstein v. Hager, 188 F.3d 852, 855 (7th Cir. 1999) (citing Panaras v. Liquid Carbonic Indust. Corp., 74 F.3d 786, 791 (7th Cir. 1996)). All well-pleaded facts and allegations in the plaintiff's complaint must be taken to be true, see Ed Miniat, Inc. v. Globe Life Ins. Group, Inc., 805 F.2d 732, 733 (7th Cir. 1986), and the plaintiff is entitled to all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom.
On a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the plaintiff has the burden of establishing jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. See Commodity Trend Service, Inc. v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n, 149 F.3d 679, 685 (7th Cir. 1998); Manos v. Caira, 162 F. Supp.2d 979, 986 (N.D.Ill. 2001).
On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, this Court considers whether relief would be possible under any set of facts that could be established consistent with the allegations in the complaint. See Venture Associates Corp. v. Zenith Data Systems, 987 F.2d 429, 432 (7th Cir. 1993). Generally, "mere vagueness or lack of detail does not constitute grounds for a motion to dismiss." See Strauss v. City of Chicago, 760 F.2d 765 (7th Cir. 1985).
In essence, on any motion to dismiss, "[t]he issue is not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether he is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims." Sapperstein, 188 F.3d at 855. With this posture, the Court reviews the various grounds upon which Defendants base their Motion to Dismiss.
DISCUSSION I. Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are clear that whenever a federal court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the court must dismiss the action. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(3). The Rooker-Feldman doctrine dictates that lower federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction to review state court judgments, even if the state court judgment was erroneous or unconstitutional. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482 n. 16 (1983). The United States Supreme Court alone may review such judgments. Feldman, 460 U.S. at 482.
In this case, Treece is essentially claiming that the Whitley County Circuit Court's initial support order was erroneous and that the denial of this requests for a support modification hearing was in error. Therefore, Treece has attempted to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court for the purpose of challenging the judgments of a state court. As discussed above, this challenge is prohibited if the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies.
To determine whether Rooker-Feldman applies, this Court follows the methodology set forth in Centres, Inc. v. Town of Brookfield, Wisconsin, 148 F.3d 699 (7th Cir. 1998). In that case, the Seventh Circuit "set forth the basic analytical methodology to be employed" in analyzing the Rooker-Feldman doctrine as follows:
[The Court must determine] whether the injury alleged by the federal plaintiff resulted from the state court judgment itself or is distinct from that judgment. If the injury alleged resulted from the state court judgment itself, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine dictates that federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction. . . . By contrast, if the alleged injury is distinct from the state court judgment and not inextricably intertwined with it, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply. . . .
Id. at 702 (internal citations omitted).
Here, Treece alleges the following injuries in his complaint: overpayment of child support, financial hardship resulting in bankruptcy and the loss of his home, and a felony conviction for failure to pay child support resulting in a one year jail sentence. Treece alleges that each of these "injuries" was the result of the state court's support order and denial of his requests for a child support modification proceeding. Therefore, this Court believes that the injuries Treece alleges are inextricably linked with the state court orders. Accordingly, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies and this case must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
II. Failure to State a Claim
With respect to Treece's claims stemming from the one year jail sentence imposed for failure to pay child support, Treece has failed to state a claim for which this Court may grant him relief. In Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, the United States Supreme Court stated that a section 1983 action may not be brought "to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction of imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid" unless the plaintiff proves "that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such a determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus." Id. at 486-87.
As a result, to sustain his claim that his one year jail sentence violates his constitutional rights, Treece must show that his conviction or sentence has been invalidated in some manner. In this case, Treece has not alleged, much less proven, that his criminal conviction was reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, invalidated by a state tribunal, or called into question by a federal court's grant of a writ of habeas corpus. Furthermore, by entering a judgment for damages in Treece's favor, this Court would imply that his conviction for non-support was invalid. This the Court cannot do. Accordingly, Treece has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss is hereby GRANTED. The Clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment in favor of the defendants.