Jessica King -v- Federal Communications Commission

Background

Jessica King, representing herself, sued the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, Meta Platforms, NVIDIA Corporation, Maxar Technologies, Google, Secutus Technologies, Via Path/Global Tel-Link, Inter Active Corporate, Match Group, Bumble, and Meet Group. The original complaint concerned purported surveillance and similar conduct by technology companies.

A magistrate judge allowed King to proceed without paying the filing fee and screened the original complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The magistrate judge dismissed the original complaint as frivolous but allowed King to amend it. King later declined magistrate-judge jurisdiction, and the case was reassigned to the district judge.

Amended Complaint and Screening

King filed a document that the court treated as an amended complaint. The court reviewed it under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), applying the same standards used for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Although the court read the filing liberally because King represented herself, the amended complaint still had to comply with Rule 8 and allege facts sufficient to state a plausible claim.

The court described the amended complaint as a largely unintelligible series of statements about purported surveillance and similar conduct by technology companies. It concluded that nothing in the amended complaint came close to plausibly alleging a claim.

Ruling

Judge Donato dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice. The court noted that King had already been given an opportunity to amend after being told what was deficient in the original complaint, and it found that further amendment would not produce a legally cognizable complaint. The case was closed, and the court ordered that no further filings by King would be accepted.