Jean Dominique Morancy, et al v. Sabrina Alex Salomon, et al

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-12248
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
JEAN DOMINIQUE MORANCY,
Father,
L.M.,
a minor, by and through her father, Jean
Dominique Morancy,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
SABRINA ALEX SALOMON,
GERALD FRANCIS ZNOSKO,
ANGELA LYNN LAMBIASE,
CARLOS A. OTERO,
KEITH FRANKLIN WHITE, et al.,
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-12248
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 6:23-cv-00714-CEM-RMN
____________________
Before WILSON, J ORDAN, and L AGOA , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Appellants-Plaintiffs Jean Dominique Morancy and his
daughter, L.M., proceeding pro se, appeal the district court’s dis-
missal of their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims of racketeering and consti-
tutional rights violations. Appellants argue, inter alia, that the dis-
trict court improperly dismissed their complaint based on the
Younger abstention doctrine. We REVERSE because the district
court failed to properly construe Morancy’s “Petition to Add Par-
ties and Supplement/Pleadings” as a motion rather than as an
amended complaint.
I. Background
The facts of this case stem from a child dependency proceed-
ing in Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit. In addition to the underlying
dependency proceedings, Morancy had several pending state court
appeals.
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23-12248 Opinion of the Court 3
In 2019, Morancy petitioned the Orange County Court re-
garding timesharing and child support issues involving L.M.’s
mother. Throughout his state litigation, Morancy fired his attor-
ney and filed various motions to disqualify judges or transfer the
case. Most of these motions related to allegations of fraud and rack-
eteering activities among attorneys and judges working on the
case.1
On April 10, 2023, while state court proceedings continued,
Morancy filed a pro se federal complaint alleging constitutional vi-
olations and racketeering against Appellees-Defendants: L.M.’s
mother and her attorneys; Morancy’s former lawyer and his firm;
the state court judges; Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit Court; Flor-
ida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal; and Florida’s Attorney Gen-
eral. On April 24, 2023, Morancy filed an amended complaint.
Both versions of the complaint requested monetary damages as
compensation. On May 26, 2023, Morancy filed a “Petition to Add
Parties and Supplement/Pleadings.” Morancy used the same form
complaint document for his “Petition to Add Parties and Supple-
ment/Pleadings” but he left off the section of the form dedicated
to relief. All three documents discussed alleged violations of the
First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Between May 30,
1 For example, Morancy alleged that a judge aided and abetted an attorney to
commit perjury “to prevent her from exposing [another judge’s] illegal activi-
ties.” When one judge later suspended Morancy’s time-sharing because Mo-
rancy would not attend a required parenting class, Mornacy described the
judge’s reasoning as “pretextual.”
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4 Opinion of the Court 23-12248
2023, and June 21, 2023, the various defendants moved to dismiss
the amended complaint entered April 24, 2023.
On June 22, 2023, the assigned magistrate judge issued a re-
port and recommendation (R&R) recommending that the district
court refrain from exercising jurisdiction under the Younger absten-
tion doctrine and dismiss the complaint. A footnote to the R&R
notes that it “assumes the form complaint filed at docket number
33 is the operative complaint.” Docket Number 33 is Morancy’s
Petition to Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings. Morancy
timely objected to the R&R. In that objection, Morancy men-
tioned that “a stay should be provided in order to resolve the dam-
ages claim later” and provided a chart of his requested damages.
The district court adopted the R&R and exercised the
Younger abstention doctrine to dismiss the case, which is permissi-
ble when plaintiffs seek only injunctive relief. The district court
order began by stating that the “Cause is before the Court on Plain-
tiffs’ Petition to Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings (Doc 33),
which is an amended complaint.” Later, the district court noted
that it decided to dismiss rather than stay the action in part because
district courts should grant stays “only to claims for monetary dam-
ages, not those for declaratory and injunctive relief” and “Plaintiffs’
Amended Complaint [Doc. 33] only seeks injunctive relief.” After
the district court’s dismissal, Appellants timely appealed.
II. Standard of Review
We review a district court’s decision to abstain for abuse of
discretion. See Leonard v. Ala. State Bd. of Pharmacy, 61 F.4th 902,
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23-12248 Opinion of the Court 5
907 (11th Cir. 2023). We review a district court’s exercise of inher-
ent authority for abuse of discretion. See Pedraza v. United Guar.
Corp., 313 F.3d. 1323, 1328 (11th Cir. 2002). We will affirm on abuse
of discretion review “unless we find that the district court has made
a clear error of judgment or has applied the wrong legal standard.”
United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en
banc).
III. Applicable Law
District courts have inherent authority “‘to manage their
own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition
of cases.’” Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43 (1991) (quoting
Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630–31 (1962)). Nonetheless,
“[b]ecause of their very potency, inherent powers must be exer-
cised with restraint and discretion.” Id. at 44. We liberally construe
pro se filings. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007). Parties may
amend their pleadings once as a matter of course. Fed. R. Civ. P.
15(a). “In all other cases, a party may amend its pleading only with
the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” Id.
IV. Analysis
Although we recognize the district court’s inherent author-
ity to control its docket, Chambers, 501 U.S. at 43, we conclude that
the district court abused its discretion by treating the Petition to
Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings as the operative complaint,
see Pedraza, 313 F.3d. at 1328. Morancy filed his initial complaint
and an amended complaint using the standard form provided by
the Middle District of Florida. Both of these form complaints
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6 Opinion of the Court 23-12248
included a relief section requesting damages. The district court
properly accepted Morancy’s first amended complaint as his one
amendment as a matter of course. We do not find Morancy’s use
of the standard form for his Petition to Add Parties and Supple-
ment/Pleadings as indicative of this being a fully completed se-
conded amended complaint. Instead, because he did not include a
section for relief or requesting damages, we must liberally construe
to determine that Morancy is seeking to add factual allegations and
defendants to his case. And because Morancy had filed an amended
complaint, he had to seek leave to file a second amended com-
plaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). As a result, the district court
had to determine explicitly whether or not to grant this motion to
amend. Further support that the district court erred comes from
Morancy’s objection to the R&R reiterating in a graph under the
heading “Clarification” that he was seeking monetary damages.
We do not have to liberally construe that objection to show that
Morancy’s Petition was meant to be a motion and not a second
amended complaint. Thus, we find that the district court abused
its discretion by construing the document as an amended com-
plaint.2
2 We make no determination on the underlying question of whether the
Younger Abstention Doctrine applies to the case. We leave that question to
the district court after it follows the proper procedures for addressing Mo-
rancy’s Petition to Add Parties and Supplement/Pleadings.
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23-12248 Opinion of the Court 7
We reverse the district court’s dismissal with instructions to
treat the Petition to Add Parties Supplement/Pleadings as a motion
or grant Morancy leave to file an amended complaint.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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