United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
GARY
FEINERMAN JUDGE
Tyna
Karageorge, formerly known as Tyna Robertson, brought this
pro se suit under Illinois law and 42 U.S.C.
§§ 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1988 against Brian
Urlacher, with whom she shares a child, and others involved
in child custody proceedings in the Circuit Court of Cook
County, Illinois. Doc. 1. One of the other defendants,
Jeannine Miyuskovich, was the court reporter at a hearing in
the child custody case. Id. at ¶ 12. Karageorge
alleged that Miyuskovich altered the hearing transcript in a
manner that favored Urlacher. Id. at ¶¶
12, 52. Miyuskovich moved under Civil Rule 12(b)(6) to
dismiss the claims against her. Doc. 33. The court set a
briefing schedule, Doc. 36, but Karageorge neither filed an
opposition nor moved for an extension of time. She also
failed to appear at a status hearing on the motion. Doc. 48.
The
court dismissed Karageorge’s claims against Miyuskovich
with this explanation:
Because the served defendants set forth plausible grounds for
dismissal, and because Karageorge failed to respond to their
motions, she has forfeited her claims. See Goodpaster v.
City of Indianapolis, 736 F.3d 1060, 1075 (7th Cir.
2013) (“Because [the plaintiffs] did not provide the
district court with any basis to decide their claims, and did
not respond to the [defendant’s] arguments, these
claims are waived.”); Alioto v. Town of
Lisbon, 651 F.3d 715, 721 (7th Cir. 2011) (“We
apply [the forfeiture] rule … where a litigant
effectively abandons the litigation by not responding to
alleged deficiencies in a motion to dismiss. … Our
system of justice is adversarial, and our judges are busy
people. If they are given plausible reasons for dismissing a
complaint, they are not going to do the plaintiff’s
research and try to discover whether there might be something
to say against the defendants’ reasoning.”)
(internal quotation marks omitted). [Miyuskovich] has offered
at least one plausible ground for dismissing the claims
against her … .
* * *
Miyuskovich is not a state actor, so she can be held liable
under § 1983 only if she conspired with state actors to
violate Karageorge’s federal rights. See
Brokaw[ v. Mercer Cnty.], 235 F.3d [1000, ]
1016 [(7th Cir. 2000)]. Precedent holds that vague and
conclusory allegations of a conspiracy are insufficient to
sustain a plaintiff’s burden of pleading that a private
actor reached an agreement with state actors. See
Amundsen v. Chi. Park Dist., 218 F.3d 712, 718 (7th Cir.
2000). Yet the complaint’s conspiracy allegations are
just that-vague and conclusory-and thus cannot support
Karageorge’s § 1983 claims against Miyuskovich.
See Brokaw, 235 F.3d at 1016 (holding that to allege
a § 1983 conspiracy, the plaintiff must plead “the
who, what, when, why, and how”).
Nor does Karageorge have a viable § 1985 claim against
Miyuskovich. To state a claim under § 1985(1), a
plaintiff must allege that the defendants interfered with a
federal officer’s discharge of her federal
duties, see Kush v. Rutledge, 460 U.S. 719, 724
(1983), which Karageorge has not done. To state a claim under
§ 1985(2) or (3), a plaintiff must allege that the
defendants’ conduct was motivated by some racial or
other class-based animus, see Kowalski, 893 F.3d at
1001, which Karageorge also has not done. Without a viable
§ 1985 claim against Miyuskovich, Karageorge has no
viable § 1986 claim. See Perkins v.
Silverstein, 939 F.2d 463, 472 (7th Cir. 1991). And
§ 1988, which allows recovery of attorney fees in civil
rights suits, does not afford Karageorge a viable,
freestanding cause of action. See Moor v. Alameda
Cnty., 411 U.S. 693, 702 (1973).
Doc. 49 at 2-3.
Shortly
after the dismissal, Miyuskovich moved for sanctions under
Rule 11. Doc. 51. The motion asserted that Karageorge had no
evidentiary support for her allegations against Miyuskovich,
including the key allegation that she conspired with
Urlacher, his attorneys, the court-appointed child
representative, and the state court judges to falsify the
hearing transcripts in a manner favorable to Urlacher. Doc.
51-1. The court set a briefing schedule giving Karageorge
over a month to respond to the sanctions motion. Doc. 53.
Karageorge neither responded nor moved for an extension of
time. The court then gave Karageorge more time to respond,
and she did so. Docs. 63-64. In her responses, Karageorge
doubled down on her allegations-without pointing to any
supporting evidence-that Miyuskovich conspired with everybody
(other than Karageorge) involved in the child custody case,
and she also asserted, without elaboration, that her legal
theories were sound.
The
Rule 11 analysis is well-settled:
Under Rule 11, the district court may impose sanctions if a
lawsuit is “not well grounded in fact and is not
warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the
extension, modification, or reversal of existing law.”
Nat’l Wrecking Co. v. Int’l Bhd. of
Teamsters, Local 731, 990 F.2d 957, 963 (7th Cir. 1993).
The court must “undertake an objective inquiry into
whether the party or his counsel should have known that his
position is groundless.” Id. (quoting CNPA
v. Chicago Web Printing Pressmen’s Union No. 7,
821 F.2d 390, 397 (7th Cir. 1987) (citations omitted)). Rule
11(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows courts
to impose sanctions on a party if the requirements of Rule
11(b) are not met.
CUNA Mut. Ins. Soc’y v. Office & Prof’l
Emps. Int’l Union, Local 39, 443 F.3d 556, 560-61
(7th Cir. 2006). Pro se parties are not exempt from
sanctions under Rule 11, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)
(imposing obligations on “an attorney or unrepresented
party”), though the court may consider a party’s
pro se status in resolving a Rule 11 motion, see
Vukadinovich v. McCarthy, 901 F.2d 1439, 1445 (7th Cir.
1990).
It is
completely understandable that the child custody proceedings
were extremely upsetting to Karageorge. But even considering
her pro se status, Karageorge’s distress in
connection with those proceedings did not give her license to
file a lawsuit making factually dubious and legally
unsupportable allegations against a court reporter,
forcing her to spend time and money fighting the suit. As the
court explained in its dismissal order, Karageorge’s
legal theories against Miyuskovich were clearly meritless,
Doc. 49 at 2; in fact, Karageorge did not even bother to
defend them. Karageorge’s factual allegations against
Miyuskovich were neither tested nor debunked in discovery or
at summary judgment or trial, but that is only because this
case did not make it past the pleading stage. On their face,
Karageorge’s factual allegations were extraordinarily
farfetched, and given the chance to present supporting
evidence in her response to Miyuskovich’s sanctions
motion, Karageorge presented none, confirming that they were
groundless. Under these circumstances, Rule 11 sanctions are
warranted. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(2)-(3);
Bell v. Vacuforce, LLC, 908 F.3d 1075, 1080-81 (7th
Cir. 2018) (affirming sanctions against a party that sought
relief based on an “infirm factual foundation”)
(internal quotation marks omitted); City of Livonia
Emps.’ Ret. Sys. v. Boeing Co., 711 F.3d 754, 762
(7th Cir. 2013) (remanding for the district court to consider
whether to impose Rule 11 sanctions, reasoning that
“[r]epresentations in a filing in a federal district
court … that are unlikely to ‘have evidentiary
support after a reasonable opportunity for further
investigation or discovery’ violate Rules 11(b) and
11(b)(3)”); Hale v. Scott, 371 F.3d 917, 919
(7th Cir. 2004) (recognizing that “groundless
allegations in a legal pleading can be sanctioned”);
Berwick Grain Co. v. Ill. Dep’t of Agric., 217
F.3d 502, 504 (7th Cir. 2000) (in affirming Rule 11
sanctions, reasoning that “[t]he very point of Rule 11
is to lend incentive for litigants to stop, think and
investigate more carefully before service and filing
papers”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Miyuskovich
filed a fee petition, supported by her attorney’s
declaration and time sheets, establishing that she expended
$9, 250.00 in attorney fees. Doc. 68. Miyuskovich seeks to
recover only $8, 500.00 of that amount. Id. at 3-4.
The court gave Karageorge the opportunity to respond to the
fee petition, Doc. 69, but she failed to do so, thereby
forfeiting any opposition she might have asserted. See
McGreal v. Vill. of Orland Park, 928 F.3d 556, 559 (7th
Cir. 2019) (finding forfeiture where the sanctioned party
“didn’t argue before the district court that the
defendants failed to comply with Rule 11(c)(2) until his
motion for reconsideration of the order imposing
sanctions”); Bell, 908 F.3d at 1081 (finding
forfeiture where the sanctioned party “could have
raised [the forfeited argument] in opposition to the
show-cause order or in his motion to reconsider the first
sanctions order” but did not); Kathrein v.
Monar, 218 F. App’x 530, 532 (7th Cir. 2007)
(finding forfeiture where the sanctioned party pressed an
argument on appeal but “did not do so in the district
court”). In any event, the court has reviewed
Miyuskovich’s submissions and finds that the hours
expended on the case were reasonable, as were the hourly
rates charged. ...