United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Fayetteville Division
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
TIMOTHY L. BROOKS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Plaintiff
Andrew Dziedzic appears in this case pro se and
in forma pauperis. He filed his original complaint
on May 10, 2018, alleging that the Arkansas Department of
Human Services ("Arkansas DHS") and several of its
employees violated his constitutional rights, pursuant to 42
U.S.C. § 1983, when they instituted a child-welfare
proceeding and removed his daughter from the family home in
June of 2016. He also maintained that shortly after he
regained custody of his daughter in early 2017, Arkansas DHS
employees interfered in a second child-welfare investigation
initiated by the Missouri Department of Human Services.
According to Dziedzic, because certain Arkansas DHS workers
made unfounded accusations about him and his wife,
prosecutors filed false criminal charges against the couple
(though the charges were eventually dismissed).
The
Court performed a pre-service screening of the original
complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) and
dismissed Arkansas DHS and multiple individual defendants,
finding that the allegations Dziedzic had made against them
either failed to state plausible claims or were asserted
against individuals or entities that were immune from suit.
See Doc. 9. The only claims that remained after the
Court's pre-screening Order were individual-capacity ones
against Arkansas DHS workers Jededeliah Thompson, Rebecca
Mayfield, Clay Reynolds, Sara Ashurst, Kimberly Simmons, and
Tina Wood, and against Berryville police officer David
Campbell. Id. at 15.
The
Court held a case management hearing on February 13, 2019,
and Dziedzic and counsel for the remaining defendants both
appeared in person. At that time, Dziedzic informed the Court
that he wished to file an amended complaint to add more facts
and clarify his various causes of action. The Court granted
him leave to do so, see Doc. 31, and Dziedzic filed
his Amended Complaint on March 14, 2019 (Doc. 38). The
amended pleading names some Defendants that the Court
previously dismissed, including Arkansas DHS and Denise
Gibson. The pleading also names Defendant David Campbell in
the style, but never mentions him in the body of the
document.
The
Amended Complaint has not yet been served on any agency or
individual named as a Defendant. This is because the Court
has not performed its pre-service screening pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). In addition, separate Defendants
Ashurst, Mayfield, Reynolds, Simmons, Thompson, and Wood-who
appeared in the case after being served with the original
complaint-have now filed a Motion to Dismiss the claims made
against them in the Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See Doc. 40.
At this
point, more than six weeks have passed since separate
Defendants' Motion to Dismiss was filed of record, and
Dziedzic has failed to file a response. The Court has no
reason to believe Dziedzic was not properly served,
see Doc. 40 at 4 and Doc. 41 at 18 (indicating
counsel served copies of the motion and supporting documents
on Dziedzic via regular mail).
With
the procedural history of the case out of the way, the Court
will next recite the facts alleged in the Amended Complaint
and review the legal standards governing pre-screening orders
under § 1915(e)(2) and motions to dismiss under Rule
12(b)(6). For the reasons explained below, all claims in the
case will be DISMISSED.
I.
BACKGROUND
According
to the Amended Complaint, employees and officers of Arkansas
DHS falsified records, mischaracterized facts, and committed
perjury in investigating and ultimately removing
Dziedzic's daughter from his and his wife's custody
for a period of time. Dziedzic alleges that he suffered due
process violations prior to and after DHS's removal of
his daughter from his home in late June of 2016. He was
afforded a due-process hearing on July 6, 2016, and was
ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous and to be evaluated
for drug use. His daughter was eventually returned to him on
January 21, 2017, but he admits that shortly thereafter, his
dog attacked his daughter "without provocation in
February 2017," necessitating her emergency transport
"to a medical facility in Springfield, MO." (Doc.
38 at 2). Dziedzic further alleges that Defendant Reynolds
"took custody" of Dziedzic's daughter during or
after her hospitalization without authority to do so.
Id. at 3. But it is clear from other facts stated in
the Amended Complaint that when Dziedzic accuses Reynolds of
"taking custody" of the child, he does not actually
mean that Reynolds left the hospital with her. Instead, the
Amended Complaint states that DHS officials in Greene County,
Missouri, placed a "hold" on Dziedzic's
daughter, and his daughter's aunt, Kimberly Freeman,
[1]
drove from Arkansas and picked up the child from the hospital
in Missouri. (Doc. 38 at 3). Dziedzic indicates that the only
reason his daughter left the hospital with her aunt as
opposed to her parents was because of "false
statements" and a "false complaint" lodged
with Green County DHS by Defendants Mayfield and Reynolds.
Id. He also accuses the Arkansas DHS Defendants of
making false statements to police at or around the time of
the hospital incident, leading to criminal charges being
filed against him and his wife.
In the
instant civil lawsuit, Dziedzic contends his constitutional
rights were violated by Arkansas DHS and their employees, who
were acting under color of law pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §
1983. His specific claims are that:
(1) Simmons and Ashurst entered his property "without
consent, warrant or probable cause" in June of 2016,
id.;
(2) Simmons and Ashurst then seized his daughter
"without probable cause, by fraud or by falsification of
court documents," id.;
(3) Simmons and Ashurst intentionally delayed a probable
cause hearing "for far longer than the required
statutory period of five business days," id. at
4;
(4) unspecified Defendants tampered with evidence "that
resulted in a false positive drug result" that led to
the delay in returning his daughter to his custody in 2016,
id.;
(5) Thompson and Gibson committed "supervisory
neglect" by failing to act on "crimes she
[unspecified] knew to have been committed" by
...