United States District Court, M.D. North Carolina
MEMORANDUM OPINION, ORDER, AND RECOMMENDATION OF
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
L.
Patrick Auld United States Magistrate Judge
This
case comes before the Court on Plaintiff's Application to
Proceed In Forma Pauperis (the
“Application”)(Docket Entry 1) filed in
conjunction with his pro se Complaint (Docket Entry 2). For
the reasons that follow, the Court will grant Plaintiff's
instant Application for the limited purpose of recommending
dismissal of this action, under 28 U.S.C. §
1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), for failure to state a claim.
LEGAL
STANDARD
“The
federal in forma pauperis [‘IFP'] statute,
first enacted in 1892 [and now codified at 28 U.S.C. §
1915], is intended to guarantee that no citizen shall be
denied access to the courts ‘solely because his poverty
makes it impossible for him to pay or secure the
costs.'” Nasim v. Warden, Md. House of
Corr., 64 F.3d 951, 953 (4th Cir. 1995) (en banc)
(quoting Adkins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.,
335 U.S. 331, 342 (1948)). “Dispensing with filing
fees, however, [is] not without its problems. Parties
proceeding under the statute d[o] not face the same financial
constraints as ordinary litigants. In particular, litigants
suing [IFP] d[o] not need to balance the prospects of
successfully obtaining relief against the administrative
costs of bringing suit.” Nagy v. Federal Med. Ctr.
Butner, 376 F.3d 252, 255 (4th Cir. 2004).
To
address this concern, the IFP statute provides, in relevant
part, that “the court shall dismiss the case at any
time if the court determines that the action or appeal fails
to state a claim on which relief may be granted.” 28
U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). A complaint falls short when
it does not “contain sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face.'”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(emphasis added) (internal citations omitted) (quoting
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007)). This standard “demands more than an unadorned,
the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.”
Id. In other words, “the tenet that a court
must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a
complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare
recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by
mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.”
Id.[1]
BACKGROUND
Asserting
claims under “42 U.S.C. § 1983” for
violation of his rights under the “14th
Amendment, Section 1[, ] 42 USC[] 3604(A) [, ] 28 USC 4101
[Slander and Libel][, ] 42 USC[] 3613(A)(1)[, and] 45 USC[]
3619, ” Plaintiff initiated this action against four
defendants: (1) “Phillip Jordan”
(“Defendant Jordan”), (2) “Juanita
English” (“Defendant English”), (3)
“Lenin Martinez-Gallo” (“Defendant
Martinez-Gallo”), and (4) “Denise Forbes”
(“Defendant Forbes”). (Docket Entry 2 at 1-3
(brackets around “Slander and Libel” as in
original).) The Complaint states the following as the basis
for asserting claims under Section 1983:
[Plaintiff] ha[s] filed applications with Lennox at
[P]atterson [P]lace and Feather Stone Apartments on more than
one occasion in which each application was rejected due to
inaccurate information derived from third party reporting
agencies associated with Equifax, Trans-Union and Experian.
Each complaint [Plaintiff] ha[s] filed with [h]uman
relations[, Plaintiff] was [] told that [h]uman relations
will not investigate, even after [Plaintiff] informed them
that the charges were dismissed or expunged.
(Id. at 4.) The Complaint's “Statement of
Claim” states the following in its entirety:
Initially, an order was entered by Human [R]elations on
05/9/2019 in re HUD # 04-16-5439-8 [a]nd [] ¶ 06/12/2017
regarding HUD # 04-16-4944-8. Dismissal of these complaints
occurred in Durham[, ] North Carolina-Human Relations--agency
# H-05-R-17 and Agency # H-13-R-17. Moreover, [Plaintiff]
filed complaints with Human [R]elation[s] regarding denial of
housing by Lennox at [P]atterson [P]lace and [F]eather
[S]tone [A]partments the month of 06/2019 and it was
communicated to [him] by [I]ntake [S]pecialist [Defendant]
Forbes that the[re] would be no investigation.
With [F]eatherstone [A]partments[, ] the initial complaint
[was] filed [on] 05/5/2017 and [Plaintiff] reapplied on
06/11/2019[ a]nd for Lennox at [P]atterson [P]lace . . .
[Plaintiff] filed a[] complaint 06/12/2017 and [] reapplied
on 06/5/2019. [ O]n July 9th, 2019[, ] a letter
was sent by certified mail to [Plaintiff's] mother's
place of residence . . . [f]rom Neighborhood [I]mprovement
[S]ervices of Durham/Human [R]elation[s] stating ‘[t]he
alleged violation is not a[] prohibited act' and that
[Plaintiff] did not provide adequate information and did not
sign[. However, ] [Plaintiff] was not contacted to sign any
form or asked to produce further information.
[Plaintiff] was discriminate[d] against[] because of race,
color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin and
thes[e] acts were manifested by proxies of [H]uman
[R]elations.
(Id. at 4-5.) The Complaint also alleges that
Plaintiff suffered “mental angu[ish and]
homelessness” (id. at 5 (emphasis omitted)),
and further requests that, “[i]f the [C]ourt finds
[that] discriminatory housing practices occurred, . . . [that
he] be compensated in the amount of $250, 000.00 or . . . an
amount that the [C]ourt [finds] sufficient”
(id. at 6).
The
Complaint also appends a (i) letter from the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development which confirms receipt of
Plaintiff's complaint and indicates referral to the
Durham Human Relations Commission (id. at 8); (ii) a
rejection letter from the City of Durham's Neighborhood
Improvement Services Department, Human Relations Division
(“Human Relations”), signed by Defendant Jordan,
notifying Plaintiff of the deficiencies in his complaint
(id. at 9); (iii) an order and a portion of the
report from Human Relations which details the investigation
into the Plaintiff's complaint filed against Lenox at
Patterson Place (“Lenox”) (id. at
10-12); and (iv) a rejection letter from Lenox explaining
that Plaintiff's “rental application [w]as []
declined because [Plaintiff] . . . did not meet ...