Smiley v. City of Memphis et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
JOHN SMILEY, SR.,
Plaintiff,
v.
CITY OF MEMPHIS, et al.,
Defendants.
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Case No. 3:24-cv-01512
Judge Trauger
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff John Smiley, Sr., a Tennessee resident proceeding pro se, filed a Complaint for
Violation of Civil Rights against the cities of Memphis, Nashville, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Atlanta;
the Memphis and Nashville Police Departments; four counties (Shelby, Davidson, Wilson, and
Rutherford) in Tennessee, and one county (DeSoto) in Mississippi. (Doc. No. 1.) The plaintiff filed
an application for leave to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP). (Doc. No. 2.)
I. APPLICATION TO PROCEED IFP
The plaintiff’s IFP application lists monthly expenses that exceed his monthly income from
his job as a delivery driver. It therefore sufficiently demonstrates that he cannot pay the full civil
filing fee in advance “without undue hardship.” Foster v. Cuyahoga Dep’t of Health and Human
Servs., 21 F. App’x 239, 240 (6th Cir. 2001). Accordingly, the IFP application (Doc. No. 2) is
GRANTED. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a).
II. INITIAL REVIEW
A. Legal Standard
Under the pauper statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), the court must conduct an initial
review and dismiss the Complaint if it is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which
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relief may be granted, or seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such
relief. See also Ongori v. Hawkins, No. 16-2781, 2017 WL 6759020, at *1 (6th Cir. Nov. 15, 2017)
(“[N]on-prisoners proceeding in forma pauperis are still subject to the screening requirements of
§ 1915(e).”). To determine whether the Complaint states a claim upon which relief may be granted,
the court reviews for whether it alleges sufficient facts “to state a claim to relief that is plausible
on its face,” such that it would survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6). Hill v. Lappin, 630 F.3d 468, 470–71 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 678 (2009)). A viable claim is stated under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 if the Complaint plausibly
alleges (1) a deprivation of a constitutional or other federal right, and (2) that the deprivation was
caused by a “state actor.” Carl v. Muskegon Cnty., 763 F.3d 592, 595 (6th Cir. 2014).
At this stage, “the Court assumes the truth of ‘well-pleaded factual allegations’ and
‘reasonable inference[s]’ therefrom,” Nat’l Rifle Ass’n of Am. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 181 (2024)
(quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79), but is “not required to accept legal conclusions or unwarranted
factual inferences as true.” Inner City Contracting, LLC v. Charter Twp. of Northville, Michigan,
87 F.4th 743, 749 (6th Cir. 2023) (citation omitted). The court must afford the pro se Complaint a
liberal construction, Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007), while viewing it in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff. Inner City, supra.
B. Factual Allegations
The Complaint seeks damages and other relief for claimed violations of the plaintiff’s First,
Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights “based on his race,” which is African American, and as
the object of a conspiracy between and among the various municipal entity defendants. (Doc. No.
1 at 1, 4.) It alleges that the plaintiff “became the target of systematic surveillance and harassment
by the Sumner County Police Department” on August 30, 2021, when unmarked police vehicles
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followed him throughout Sumner County and his cellular communications were intercepted
unlawfully. (Id. at 2.) The plaintiff then went to Memphis, where he attempted to deliver food to a
customer who was “nasty and hostile.” (Id.) When the plaintiff complained to the customer’s
“agency,” the customer said she was in college but “she always comes through a group of people,”
including men who are always harassing the plaintiff. (Id.) The plaintiff reports that “[h]aving
people copying your job, stealing your job, adding lies, and stealing your business is always done
systematically to create hostility.” (Id.) He alleges that he “resisted being assaulted,” and that this
was not an isolated incident but “has happened multiple times.” (Id.)
Moving to a description of events in Davidson County, the plaintiff alleges as follows:
I frequently experienced issues with cars being parked behind me, consistently
preventing me from picking up customers’ food or packages. Citizens would block
me in and prevent me from leaving businesses and at times sit on my car bumper
with weapons (such [as] pistols, machetes, slung hammers, pipes, and d[o]gs) as
intimidation and threatening acts against me. Police told citizens to release their
dogs when I came around and I was attacked by a dog in Hendersonville, Tennessee
while doing a delivery….
(Id.) The Complaint next describes an incident in Sumner County where an individual whom the
plaintiff initially believed to be drag racing became aggressive towards him and first attempted to
force the plaintiff off the road before moving into position to block the plaintiff’s car, preventing
him from leaving the area for a time. (Id. at 2–3.)
The Complaint describes two final incidents, one in Davidson County and one in Shelby
County. In Davidson County, while the plaintiff was in the drive-thru at a Checkers restaurant to
pick up a customer’s order, the drive-thru window was closed and locked “and then a Nashville
firetruck came through the drive-thru,” ran the plaintiff out of it, and “chased [him] to Dickson,
Tennessee.” (Id. at 3.) Afraid for his life, the plaintiff drove on to Dallas, Texas, to a relative’s
home. (Id.) The plaintiff claims that this mistreatment by “a Nashville firetruck” was a result of
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his social media activity “and being black.” (Id.)
In Shelby County, on October 21, 2023, the plaintiff was driving in Memphis when
unidentified “Defendants deliberately caused a collision with Plaintiff’s vehicle, resulting in severe
injuries including a broken neck.” (Id.) The seriousness of the plaintiff’s injuries was downplayed
by Memphis police, who allowed his cell phone to be “stolen from the scene and never retrieved,”
together with the plaintiff’s “GPS app which showed where [he] was heading or could be located.”
(Id.) The police then falsified the plaintiff’s direction of travel in their report and released the
person who hit him without further investigation, a sobriety test, a speeding ticket, or even a
warning. (Id.) When the plaintiff attempted to file a police misconduct complaint, he was
threatened with immediate arrest if he pursued his complaints, and “[u]nknown individuals
believed to be acting in concert with defendants” subsequently came to his residence to intimidate
him. (Id. at 3–4.)
C. Analysis
Upon review of the plaintiff’s allegations and claims, the court finds that the Complaint
fails to state a nonfrivolous ground for relief and is therefore subject to dismissal under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). “A suit may be dismissed as frivolous only when the plaintiff fails to present
any claim with an arguable or rational basis in law or fact.” Huey v. Raymond, 53 F. App’x 329,
330 (6th Cir. 2002) (citing, e.g., Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325, 327–28 (1989)). Claims
that are legally frivolous “include claims for which the defendants are clearly entitled to immunity
and claims of infringement of a legal interest which clearly does not exist,” while claims that are
factually frivolous present “fantastic or delusional scenarios.” Id. The latter type of frivolity is
evident here.
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Courts presented with factual allegations that are clearly baseless have the “discretion to
refuse to accept without question the truth of [such] allegations.” Id. at 331 (citing Denton v.
Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 32–33 (1992)). In the case before the court, the factual scenario presented
by the plaintiff is simply untenable and cannot be accepted as true. The gravamen of the
Complaint––that since 2021 and “based on his race,” the plaintiff was surveilled, harassed, and
intimidated by law enforcement, fire department personnel, and cooperating citizens in multiple
Tennessee counties while he performed his job as a delivery driver, “culminating in a deliberate
vehicular incident” and cover-up in Memphis in October 2023 (Doc. No. 1 at 1, 2–3)––is plainly
delusional and factually frivolous. These allegations are insufficient to support any plausible
claims of First, Fourth, or Fourteenth Amendment violations against any of the municipal
defendants named in the Complaint. In short, the plaintiff’s failure to present any claim with an
arguable or rational basis in fact justifies dismissal of this action as frivolous. Huey, 53 F. App’x
at 330.
Alternatively, the Complaint is subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim that is timely
under the applicable statute of limitations. The latest event described therein occurred on October
21, 2023––the date when the defendants’ alleged “campaign of harassment, intimidation, and
violence . . . culminat[ed] in a deliberate vehicular incident.” (Doc. No. 1 at 1, 3.) The Complaint
was dated and filed more than one year later, on December 30, 2024. (See id. at 4.) “Although the
statute of limitations is an affirmative defense that a plaintiff ordinarily need not plead to state a
claim, dismissal of the plaintiff’s claim is appropriate when ‘the allegations in the complaint
affirmatively show that the claim is time-barred.’” Wershe v. City of Detroit, Michigan, 112 F.4th
357, 364 (6th Cir. 2024), cert. denied sub nom. Wershe v. Detroit, 145 S. Ct. 1128 (2025) (citing
Baltrusaitis v. Int’l Union, United Auto., Aerospace & Agric. Implement Workers, 86 F.4th 1168,
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1178 (6th Cir. 2023)). No statute of limitations expressly applies to claims under Section 1983,
which instead “borrows the personal-injury statute of limitations from the state in which the claim
arose.” Id. at 365 (quoting Zappone v. United States, 870 F.3d 551, 559 (6th Cir. 2017)). In
Tennessee, the applicable limitations period is one year. Dibrell v. City of Knoxville, Tennessee,
984 F.3d 1156, 1161 (6th Cir. 2021) (citing Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104(a)(1)). In this case, the
last incident complained of occurred in October 2023, so the December 2024 filing of this action
would be untimely even if the Complaint were not factually frivolous.
III. CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, this case is DISMISSED as frivolous pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(i), or, alternatively, for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted
pursuant to § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). Considering this disposition, the plaintiff’s motion to ascertain
status (Doc. No. 5) is GRANTED.
The Court CERTIFIES that any appeal from this dismissal would not be taken in good
faith. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3).
This is the final order in this action. The Clerk SHALL enter judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P.
58(b)(1).
It is so ORDERED.
____________________________________
Aleta A. Trauger
United States District Judge
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