Wood v. County of Contra Costa

Background

The court had previously granted four motions to dismiss Andrea Wood’s amended complaint and dismissed the action without further leave to amend. Two defendants—the attorney identified as Mary Carey and the County Defendants—also asked the court to declare Wood a vexatious litigant and impose restrictions on future civil actions. Wood opposed those requests, and the defendants filed replies.

This opinion addressed only the requests for a vexatious-litigant declaration and pre-filing restrictions. A pre-filing restriction is an order limiting a person’s ability to bring future lawsuits. The court stated that such an order requires notice and an opportunity to respond, an adequate record for review, substantive findings that the litigation was frivolous or harassing, and restrictions narrowly tailored to the specific problem.

Cases Considered

The defendants relied on five cases filed in the federal district and one case filed in state court. All arose from a state-court child-dependency proceeding involving the removal of three minor children from Wood’s custody.

Wood’s state-court case asserted professional-negligence claims against Carey and Carey’s law firm. The state court dismissed the operative complaint without prejudice as premature and without leave to amend. In an earlier federal case, Wood asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Wood voluntarily dismissed that case without prejudice after the motions to dismiss had been fully briefed but before the court ruled on them. The court found that the earlier federal case and the present case were essentially indistinguishable, apart from the addition of one defendant.

Two other federal cases asserted claims involving the County and social workers and challenged alleged conduct concerning visitation and a child’s schooling. The court stated that those cases had not received substantive rulings. Another federal case sought the release of two children through a petition under federal custody-review statutes; it also had not received a substantive ruling.

The court had dismissed the present action because its claims were barred by two doctrines that generally prevent federal courts from reviewing certain state-court proceedings or interfering with ongoing state proceedings. For purposes of the vexatious-litigant requests, the court treated the present action and the earlier, substantially similar federal case as meritless.

Analysis

The court found that Wood had received adequate notice of the conduct supporting the requests and had an opportunity to respond. It then considered whether the record showed either frivolous litigation or a pattern of harassment.

For frivolousness, the court examined both the number and content of the filings. Although it found two cases meritless, it stated that two cases were far fewer than the number other courts had treated as excessive. The court also explained that the remaining cases should not be treated as frivolous merely because they arose from the same underlying child-dependency matter. Those cases sought different relief or concerned different alleged conduct. The record therefore did not support a pre-filing order based on frivolousness.

The court separately considered emails sent by P. Stephen Lamont to defense counsel and certain County employees. The emails included threatening language, and the court said the sending of the emails could be described as harassing. But only two of the cases had been found meritless, and Wood had not filed the additional lawsuits mentioned in the emails or any other new lawsuit in another forum identified by the parties. The emails therefore did not establish a pattern of harassing cases.

Disposition

Judge Maxine M. Chesney denied Carey’s and the County Defendants’ requests that Wood be declared a vexatious litigant. The requests were denied without prejudice to renewal if circumstances later change. The court did not impose a pre-filing order.