Crook #200928 v. Google

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
JAMMIE CROOK #200928,
Plaintiff,
v.
GOOGLE,
Defendant.
______________________________/
Hon. Hala Y. Jarbou
Case No. 1:25-cv-1826
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
This is a civil action by a state prisoner who has been granted leave to proceed in forma
pauperis. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321
(1996) (PLRA), the Court is required to dismiss any prisoner action brought under federal law if
the complaint is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or
seeks monetary relief from a defendant immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A.
Plaintiff sues Google, which he describes as the worldwide internet. The Court must read
Plaintiff’s pro se complaint indulgently, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972), and
accept his allegations as true, unless they are clearly irrational or wholly incredible. Denton v.
Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992). Applying these standards, and pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
636(b)(1)(B), I recommend that the Court DISMISS Plaintiff’s Section 1983 claims for failure to
state a claim and dismiss his defamation claim without prejudice pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1367(c)(3).
I. Background
Plaintiff is presently incarcerated with the Michigan Department of Corrections at the
Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center. Plaintiff was previously convicted in the Wayne
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County Circuit Court of two counts of criminal sexual conduct, in violation of Mich. Comp. Laws
§ 750.520d(1)(b), and on October 15, 2025, he was sentenced to terms of imprisonment of twelve-
to-thirty years on both counts.1
Plaintiff alleges that before he was incarcerated, he was charged with first-degree
kidnapping and first-degree rape. He alleges that he went to trial twice on these charges and was
acquitted both times. (ECF No. 1 at PageID.1.) Plaintiff alleges that before he was acquitted,
Google posted information about him on the internet without his permission. Plaintiff alleges that
he has contacted Google requesting that it remove the information from the internet, but Google
has ignored his request. (Id.) Plaintiff states that he is in the process of appealing his current
convictions and is waiting on a court date. (Id. at PageID.1–2.)
Plaintiff alleges that Google violated his First Amendment right of freedom of speech and
his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the laws by publishing information about
him on the internet. He further alleges that the publication constitutes defamation of character, for
which he seeks $500 million in damages. (Id. at PageID.1.)
II. Failure to State a Claim
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a claim must be dismissed for failure
to state a claim on which relief may be granted unless the “[f]actual allegations [are] enough to
raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint’s
allegations are true.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 545 (2007) (internal citations
and footnote omitted).
As the Supreme Court has held, to satisfy this rule, a complaint must contain “sufficient
factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v.
1 See https://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumber=200928.
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Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). This plausibility standard “is
not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant
has acted unlawfully.” Id. If the complaint simply “pleads facts that are merely consistent with a
defendant’s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to
relief.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). As the Court further observed:
Two working principles underlie our decision in Twombly. First, 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. Rule 8 marks a
notable and generous departure from the hypertechnical, code-pleading regime of
a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with
nothing more than conclusions. Second, only a complaint that states a plausible
claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss. 	Determining whether a complaint
states a plausible claim for relief will, as the Court of Appeals observed, be a
context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial
experience and common sense. But where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the
court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has
alleged— but it has not “show[n]”—“that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
Id. at 678–79 (internal citations omitted).
III. Discussion
A. 	Constitutional Claims
Although Plaintiff does not mention 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in his complaint, Plaintiff may assert
his constitutional claims only through that statute. Thomas v. Shipka, 818 F.2d 496, 500 (6th Cir.
1987), vacated on other grounds, 488 U.S. 1036 (1989); see Foster v. Michigan, 573 F. App’x
377, 391 (6th Cir. 2014) (“To the extent that Appellants attempt to assert direct constitutional
claims, they fail; we have long held that § 1983 provides the exclusive remedy for constitutional
violations.” (citing Thomas, 818 F.2d at 503)); Sanders v. Prentice-Hall Corp. Sys., Inc., No. 97-
6138, 1999 WL 115517, at *1 n.2 (6th Cir. Feb. 8, 1999) (“This circuit has held that constitutional
violations by state officials are not cognizable directly under the constitution (or by virtue of
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general federal question jurisdiction) because 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides the exclusive remedy for
such constitutional violations.”). To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege
the violation of a right secured by the federal Constitution or laws and must show that the
deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S.
42, 48 (1988); Street v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 102 F.3d 810, 814 (6th Cir. 1996).
Plaintiff’s First and Fourteenth Amendment claims fail because Google is not a state actor.
Courts have repeatedly dismissed constitutional claims against Google and social media
companies on the basis that they are private companies not subject to suit under Section 1983. See
Handlon v. Google, Inc., No. 23-13795, 2024 WL 4824355, at *1 (11th Cir. June 18, 2024)
(observing that “any appeal of the district court’s orders would be frivolous” because “Google’s
conduct was that of a private entity, and Handlon failed to allege facts that would render it a state
actor for the purposes of a § 1983 suit”); McWaters v. Houston, No. 2:21-cv-57, 2022 WL 395309,
at *11 (M.D. Ala. Feb. 8, 2022) (noting that “Facebook, as a social media company, does not
become a state actor based solely on the availability of its social media network to the public, even
if Facebook is alleged to have discriminatorily regulated speech on its forum”); Rutenburg v.
Twitter, Inc., No. 4:21-CV-00548-YGR, 2021 WL 1338958, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 9, 2021) (“It is
undisputed that Twitter is a private company.”) (citing, among others, Prager Univ. v. Google
LLC, No. 17-CV-06064-LHK, 2018 WL 1471939, at *8 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 26, 2018), aff’d, 951 F.3d
991 (9th Cir. 2020) (concluding that YouTube did not perform a public function simply by hosting
speech on a private digital-video platform for the public); Nyabwa v. Facebook, No. 2:17-CV-24,
2018 WL 585467, at *1 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 26, 2018) (finding that the plaintiff had failed to state a
First Amendment claim because Facebook was not the government); Kinderstart.com LLC v.
Google, Inc., No. C06-2057, 2007 WL 831806, at *13–15 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 16, 2007) (holding that
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Google was not a state actor for constitutional claims); Langdon v. Google, Inc., 474 F. Supp. 2d
622, 631–32 (D. Del. 2007) (ruling that Google is a private entity not subject to the plaintiff's
constitutional claims). Because Google is a private company, and Plaintiff alleges no fact
indicating how Google became a state actor for purposes of Section 1983, see Lugar v. Edmonson
Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 937 (1982), his constitutional claims should be dismissed.
B. 	Defamation Claim
Defamation is a state-law claim that does not arise under federal question jurisdiction.
Rather, to maintain such a claim in this federal court, Plaintiff must allege facts establishing
diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), or he must invoke supplemental jurisdiction
under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. Based on my review of the complaint, I find that Plaintiff has not alleged
sufficient facts to establish diversity jurisdiction. Thus, supplemental jurisdiction applies.2
Generally, a court should decline to hear state-law claims when all federal claims are
dismissed before trial. See Musson Theatrical, Inc. v. Federal Express Corp., 89 F.3d 1244, 1254–
55 (6th Cir. 1996) (“When all federal claims are dismissed before trial, the balance of
considerations usually will point to dismissing the state law claims, or remanding them to state
court if the action was removed.”) (citing Carnegie–Mellon v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7
2 If the Court finds that Plaintiff has alleged diversity jurisdiction, I recommend in the alternative
that it dismiss the defamation claim with prejudice. Although Plaintiff’s factual allegations are too
conclusory under Twombly/Iqbal to allege a plausible defamation claim, regardless of plausibility,
the claim likely runs headlong into the grant of immunity to Google in Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), 47 U.S.C. § 230 et seq. See, e.g., Dowbenko v.
Google Inc., 991 F. Supp. 2d 1219, 1220 (S.D. Fla. 2013) (holding that Google was immune under
the CDA from the plaintiff’s defamation and false light claims because the plaintiff failed to allege
that Google, an internet service provider under the CDA, created or was otherwise responsible for
the defamatory content); Gavra v. Google Inc., No. 5:12-CV-6547, 2013 WL 3788241, at *2–3
(N.D. Cal. July 17, 2013) (finding that Google was immune under Section 230 from the plaintiffs’
claim that Google failed to remove video content because Google simply provided the tools to
publish the content and was not the publisher of the offending material).
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(1988)). Here, there is no good reason to retain Plaintiff’s defamation claim because the litigation
just commenced, and Plaintiff may pursue this claim in state court. See Kelly v. City of New
Philadelphia, No. 5:20-cv-211, 2020 WL 2126665, at *3 (N.D. Ohio May 5, 2020) (declining to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction where all of the federal claims were dismissed “at this early
stage of litigation”). Thus, I recommend that the defamation claim be dismissed without prejudice.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, I recommend that the Court dismiss Plaintiff’s Section 1983
claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A for failure to state a claim upon which relief
can be granted and dismiss his defamation claim without prejudice.
The Court must also decide whether an appeal of this action would be in good faith within
the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3). See McGore v. Wrigglesworth, 114 F.3d 601, 611 (6th Cir.
1997). Good faith is judged objectively, Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 445 (1962), and
an appeal is not taken in good faith if the issue presented is frivolous, defined as lacking an
arguable basis either in fact or law. See Dellis v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 257 F.3d 508, 511 (6th Cir.
2001). For the same reasons that I recommend dismissal of the action, I discern no good faith basis
for an appeal. Therefore, I recommend that, should Plaintiff appeal this decision, the Court assess
the $605.00 appellate filing fee pursuant to Section 1915(b)(1), see McGore, 114 F.3d at 610-11,
unless Plaintiff is barred from proceeding in forma pauperis, e.g., by the “three-strikes” rule of
Section 1915(g). If he is barred, he will be required to pay the $605.00 appellate filing fee in one
lump sum.
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Date: March 10, 2026 	/s/ Sally J. Berens
SALLY J. BERENS
U.S. Magistrate Judge
NOTICE
OBJECTIONS to this report and recommendation must be filed with the Clerk of Court
within 14 days of the date of service of this notice. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). Failure to file
objections within that time waives the right to appeal the District Court’s order. See Thomas v.
Arn, 474 U.S. 140 (1985); United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947 (6th Cir. 1981).
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