Opinion
Civil Action No. 04-823.
September 17, 2004
MEMORANDUM
Presently before the court is the motion of defendants, Montgomery County Prothonotary William E. Donnelly and Montgomery County, to dismiss plaintiff's complaint under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In deciding this motion to dismiss, "[w]e accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations in the plaintiff's complaint and all reasonable inferences therefrom." Beverly Enterprises, Inc. v. Trump, 182 F.3d 183, 186 (3d Cir. 1999). We may consider "only the allegations contained in the complaint, exhibits attached thereto, and matters of public record." Id. at 190 n. 3.;Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. White Consol. Indus. Inc., 998 F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir. 1993).
The complaint alleges that defendants "would not allow" plaintiff's appeal from an order entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County to be heard, in violation of his rights to equal protection and due process. Specifically, he alleges that defendant Prothonotary Donnelly did not file plaintiff's notice of appeal and that defendant Montgomery County did not have "an ordinance for check and balance relating to [this] Defendant." Compl. at ¶¶ 4, 6.
The complaint also makes claims against the Honorable S. Gerald Corso and the Attorney General, Michael Fisher, but these claims were dismissed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A in an order by this court dated March 15, 2004.
In the state court action, defendants to that action had filed preliminary objections to the complaint on the grounds that plaintiff had failed properly to serve them and that the statute of limitations had run. Plaintiff filed a response. The state court sustained the preliminary objections and dismissed plaintiff's state court action. It is that order from which plaintiff attempted to appeal. It is undisputed that plaintiff's appeal was never filed.
Those defendants were Michael V. Horn, Robert S. Bitner, Donald T. Vaughn, C. Bruback, and William Howard. None of those defendants is named in the present action.
Defendants first maintain that under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine this court does not have jurisdiction over the present action. Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, this court is precluded from exercising jurisdiction over "claims that were actually litigated or `inextricably intertwined' with adjudication by a state's courts." Parkview Assocs. P'ship v. City of Lebanon, 225 F.3d 321, 325 (3d Cir. 2000). This court is precluded from "entertain[ing] a proceeding to reverse or modify" a state court judgment, as a district court has "no authority to review final judgments of a state court in judicial proceedings."Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 416 (1923);District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482 (1983). Rather, "district courts have only original jurisdiction; the full appellate jurisdiction over judgments of state courts in civil cases lies in the Supreme Court of the United States." Parkview Assocs. P'ship, 225 F.3d at 329. If our adjudication of plaintiff's claims would require a determination of whether the state court was right or wrong, then his claims are inextricably intertwined with the state court action and we cannot decide them. See id. at 326.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is inapplicable here. The claims brought before this court are not the same as those brought before the state court — indeed, this case involves different defendants. Further, plaintiff's action before this court is not for modification of the state court judgment, but for a judgment against Prothonotary Donnelly and Montgomery County for their wrongful conduct in not filing his appeal of that prior judgment. Therefore the claims are not inextricably intertwined with his state court action.
Defendant Donnelly next argues that plaintiff's claim against him under § 1983 should be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) because it is evident from public records that plaintiff's state court action was properly dismissed as time-barred.
Defendants argue that although the original action was in the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, plaintiff captioned his appeal in error as an action in "the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania." They maintain that plaintiff's misdesignation likely prevented the filing of his appeal, rather than any error on the part of defendant Prothonotary Donnelly. It is undisputed that no appeal is reflected on the state court docket. We note that although there is no copy of the appeal on the record before us, some, if not all, of the documents filed by plaintiff in his state court action were captioned "In the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, Montgomery County." As the record does not contain a copy of the appeal plaintiff attempted to file, we make no determination as to whether plaintiff's appeal was properly captioned or not, or whether such error excused any failure on the part of the prothonotary.
After reviewing the pleadings and the docket in the state court action, we agree that plaintiff's action clearly was time-barred because the state court complaint was not filed within the applicable two-year statue of limitations. See 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 5524. The complaint claims the alleged misconduct took place on April 29, 1999. However, the complaint was not filed until June 19, 2001, more than two years later. Under Pennsylvania law, it is evident from the face of the complaint that the time for instituting the action before the state court had clearly expired. Id. Thus, the claim against Donnelly must be dismissed.
Defendant Donnelly also argues that plaintiff has not sufficiently pleaded his personal involvement in the alleged harm. We agree, insofar as the claim against him is in his individual capacity.
Finally, defendant Montgomery County moves to dismiss plaintiff's claim against it under Rule 12(b)(6). Defendants argue that local governments may not be held liable under a theory of respondeat superior for the constitutional torts of their employees and officials. Instead, a plaintiff seeking to impose liability on a local government for a constitutional tort must identify a policy or custom of the local government that caused his injury. See Monell v. N.Y. City Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1974). Plaintiff has not identified any such policy or custom.
Based on the foregoing, we will grant the motion of defendants to dismiss the complaint.
ORDER
AND NOW, this __ day of September, 2004, for the reasons set forth in the accompanying Memorandum, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion of defendants William E. Donnelly and Montgomery County to dismiss plaintiff's complaint is GRANTED.