Stephen Lynch Murray v. Phil Archer, et al.

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-13155
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
STEPHEN LYNCH MURRAY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
PHIL ARCHER,
a natural person,
CHRIS SPROWLS,
a natural person,
OKEECHOBEE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE,
an entity,
GOVERNOR, STATE OF FLORIDA,
PINELLAS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE,
an entity,
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-13155
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cv-14355-JEM
____________________
Before N EWSOM , GRANT, and B RASHER , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Stephen Lynch Murray, proceeding pro se, appeals the dis-
trict court’s order dismissing his complaint as an impermissible
“shotgun” pleading. The district court permitted Murray to rem-
edy the complaint’s deficiencies in an amended complaint, but
Murray filed this appeal instead. After careful review, we affirm.
I.
Murray filed a pro se complaint against several Florida state
officials and two Sheriff’s Offices. The complaint spans 74 pages,
including 180 numbered paragraphs and 11 exhibits. It did not cite
any law or allege any separate claims against defendants. All de-
fendants moved to dismiss. A magistrate judge recommended the
court dismiss the complaint as a shotgun pleading, and the district
court adopted the recommendation in full.
The complaint begins by telling the story of Murray’s ac-
quaintance, who was convicted for the murder of a strip club
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22-13155 Opinion of the Court 3
manager in 2016. Murray alleges that State Attorney Phil Archer
and his employees committed perjury and tampered with evidence
to secure the conviction. Murray then sent “thousands of emails”
about the case and other general grievances to Archer, every Re-
publican candidate for public office listed on Florida’s Department
of State website, and a handful of congresspeople in D.C. He cre-
ated the website cops2prison.org, a YouTube channel, and other
social media accounts to “make a permanent home for these policy
observations and arguments.”
In early January, while viewing Florida Speaker Chris
Sprowls’s Twitter feed, he found Speaker Sprowls’ wife’s account
and a picture of Sprowls’s wife with former President Donald
Trump on Air Force One. Murray, who “thought it was vain,”
tweeted the picture of Sprowls’ wife with Bible verses about vanity.
Murray admits he then emailed the picture of Speaker Sprowls’s
wife to State Attorney Archer with the message: “omg, is pimping
legal in Florida? Because I am going to make this bitch my whore.”
Later that month, Murray drove to Pinellas County—the county
where Speaker Sprowls and his wife live—as he alleges, to pass out
flyers at Stetson University College of Law “to educate law stu-
dents” and “drive traffic to his website.” A warrant was issued for
Murray’s arrest based on his threat about Speaker Sprowls’s wife, a
list of other threatening emails and Twitter posts, and his travel to
the Sprowls’s county of residence. Murray was then arrested for
cyberstalking, which he alleges was a wrongful arrest in retaliation
for his online activity.
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-13155
Seven months later, Murray submitted a complaint to the
Florida Inspector General that State Attorney Archer and Speaker
Sprowls were sending sheriffs to harass him. The next day, Murray
alleges officers confronted him at a gas station as ordered by Gov-
ernor Ron DeSantis. A week later, Murray was stopped for speed-
ing and subjected to a sobriety test. Murray believes both stops oc-
curred in retaliation for his exercise of free speech in emails, his
website, and various social media platforms. The complaint seeks
$2 million for the deprivation of his right “to have unabridged
speech and publish and address grievances” and for his loss of
productivity and peace of mind.
II.
We review the dismissal of a shotgun pleading for failure to
comply with Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and 10(b) for
abuse of discretion. See Weiland v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff's Off., 792
F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015). Although we construe pro se com-
plaints liberally, we nevertheless require that pro se litigants adhere
to the same governing rules and procedures as litigants represented
by attorneys. See Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir.
2007).
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require “a short and
plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), and that such claims are “in num-
bered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set
of circumstances,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). A shotgun pleading
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22-13155 Opinion of the Court 5
“violates either Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) or Rule
10(b), or both.” Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1324 (11th Cir.
2021).
We have identified four categories of shotgun pleadings: (1)
“a complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts
the allegations of all preceding counts”; (2) a complaint that is “re-
plete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously
connected to any particular cause of action”; (3) a complaint that
fails to “separate into a different count each cause of action or claim
for relief”; and (4) a complaint that “assert[s] multiple claims
against multiple defendants without specifying which of the de-
fendants are responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of
the defendants the claim is brought against.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at
1321−23. The unifying trait among the categories is that each com-
plaint fails “to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims
against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.” Id.
at 1323.
Murray’s complaint commits at least three of the fatal pitfalls
of shotgun pleadings.
First, Murray’s complaint is “replete with conclusory, vague,
and immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular
cause of action,” because it was written in sprawling, narrative
form in which his political musings and opinions were intermin-
gled with accusations against the defendants, making it difficult to
follow. Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1321−23. For example, five pages of
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the complaint tell the story of Murray’s acquaintance convicted of
murder under the heading “Pimping in Florida.”
Second, Murray did not separate each cause of action into
separate counts. In fact, Murray did not cite any law or allege any
separate claims against defendants. Instead, the complaint is bro-
ken into the headings including the following: “Grievances on
Checks And Balances, Compound Jurisdiction, Anarchy, And The
Bill Of Rights”; “Cops2Prison.Org”; “Culture, Morals, Equality of
Men, And The First Amendment.”
Third, any claims that Murray made against the defendants
were intermingled with each other and scattered throughout his
factual narrative. As the magistrate judge explained, “The allega-
tions are sometimes connected to a particular Defendant or set of
Defendants but sometimes not, making it virtually impossible to
understand who did what and when.”
There is no question Murray’s complaint is a shotgun plead-
ing. The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing it
in violation of Rules 8 and 10.
When a complaint fails as a shotgun pleading, we generally
require that the district court allow the litigant at least one chance
to remedy its deficiencies. See Wagner v. First Horizon Pharm. Corp.,
464 F.3d 1273, 1280 (11th Cir. 2006). The district court did just that:
it advised Murray to file an amended complaint within twenty
days, cautioning him that “even though he is a pro se litigant, he
must follow the Local Rules and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
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22-13155 Opinion of the Court 7
Murray declined the opportunity, allowing the twenty days to
lapse and filing this appeal instead.
We AFFIRM.
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