Lee v. Secretary of State of California

Background

Joselyn Lee filed a handwritten complaint while representing herself and was allowed to proceed without paying the filing fee. She named the California Secretary of State as the only defendant. Lee alleged that she received a parking ticket that was maliciously and dishonestly issued, later lost the ticket, and could not find a record of it when she contacted traffic and superior court offices. She described the ticket as part of a pattern involving three citations and said the ticket prevented her from registering her car. She asked the court to order car registration and dismiss the parking ticket. She said registration was particularly important because she is homeless and lives in her vehicle.

Screening and sovereign immunity

Because Lee was allowed to proceed without paying the filing fee, the court screened her complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). That law requires dismissal of claims that are frivolous, fail to state a claim for relief, or seek money from an immune defendant. The court also applied the pleading standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which asks whether the complaint alleges enough facts to make a legally viable claim plausible.

The court construed Lee's naming of the Secretary of State as an official-capacity suit against the Office of the California Secretary of State, which it described as a state agency. The court held that the complaint, as currently alleged, was barred by Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. It explained that an exception can allow prospective court orders against a state official who has a sufficiently direct connection to enforcing the challenged law, but Lee had not alleged such a connection between the Secretary of State and the requested car registration or dismissal of the parking ticket. The court also found no basis in the complaint for other exceptions based on congressional authorization or state consent.

Due-process and civil-rights claims

Although Lee did not identify a federal statute, the court understood her references to constitutional and civil-rights violations as attempting to assert Fourteenth Amendment due-process claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court said a § 1983 claim requires conduct under color of state law and a deprivation of a constitutional right.

The court found that Lee had not stated either type of due-process claim. For substantive due process, which protects against exceptionally arbitrary government conduct, Lee's allegation that the ticket was issued maliciously lacked specific facts showing the extreme conduct required for such a claim. For procedural due process, which generally requires an inadequate process for protecting a liberty or property interest, Lee did not allege that the procedures for challenging the ticket or obtaining vehicle registration were inadequate, or that any inadequacy caused the denial of registration. The court noted that her allegation that she was homeless and lived in her car likely implicated a liberty or property interest, but it found the procedural allegations insufficient.

Order

The court ordered Lee to show cause—meaning to explain—why the case should not be dismissed based on sovereign immunity and her failure to allege sufficient facts for a due-process claim under § 1983. It gave her until August 28, 2020, to file either an amended complaint addressing the identified deficiencies or a response explaining why the existing complaint was sufficient. The court stated that if she did not respond, the case would be reassigned to a district judge with a recommendation that it be dismissed under § 1915(e)(2)(B). Thus, this order was a screening and show-cause order, not a dismissal of the case.