Dorosh v. Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner

Background

Pamela Dorosh-Walther, Deanna Dorosh, and their sibling Daniel Dorosh filed an amended complaint asserting 32 counts against 41 defendants. The defendants included state entities, counties, long-term-care facilities, attorneys, guardians, and related individuals. The claims concerned alleged misconduct relating to Daniel’s guardianship. Pamela and Deanna represented themselves, and Daniel was previously dismissed after the court found that Deanna had been representing him in violation of 28 U.S.C. § 1654. Pamela filed a declaration confirming that she represented herself.

After Daniel’s dismissal, the court directed the parties to identify which claims remained. The court determined that 25 counts asserted only violations of Daniel’s rights. Those counts included claims under civil-rights laws, the First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, Minnesota statutes and rules, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Social Security Act, federal regulations, the Fair Housing Act, and other legal authorities. The court dismissed those counts because Pamela and Deanna could not continue pursuing claims belonging only to Daniel.

The court identified seven counts that Pamela and Deanna appeared to bring themselves: counts 3, 4, and 10 concerning the constitutionality of Daniel’s original and successor guardianships; counts 24 and 25 concerning alleged maltreatment reports and related administrative proceedings; count 28 concerning alleged theft or conversion of money and electronic devices; and count 32 concerning intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Standards and jurisdiction

The defendants filed nine motions to dismiss, and one defendant filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court evaluated both types of motions under the standard for dismissal for failure to state a claim. Under that standard, the court accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and asks whether the complaint contains enough factual content to make liability plausible. The court also applied a more forgiving reading to the self-represented plaintiffs’ pleadings, while noting that self-represented complaints still must provide enough facts to support the claims.

Guardianship-related claims

The court held that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine mostly barred counts 3, 4, and 10. That doctrine prevents a federal district court from acting as an appeals court over a state-court judgment. The central purpose of those counts was to obtain a declaration that the state-court guardianship was unconstitutional and to overturn it.

Pamela and Deanna argued that the doctrine did not apply because alleged jurisdictional and procedural defects made the state-court guardianship invalid from the beginning. The court rejected that argument. It explained that the plaintiffs had raised, or could have raised, their objections in state court and that any challenge to the state court’s decisions or jurisdiction had to proceed through the state-court appeal system.

The court recognized a possible exception for the allegation that the state court ordered the successor guardianship after the guardianship proceeding had been removed to federal court. Federal law generally prevents a state court from proceeding after the required removal steps are completed. The court found that Pamela and Deanna plausibly alleged that the removal steps had been completed, so the Rooker-Feldman doctrine might not bar that particular theory.

Even so, the court dismissed count 3. It concluded that Anoka County was the only appropriate defendant for that claim, and Pamela and Deanna waived their claims against Anoka County by failing to respond to its motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court also concluded that the 234-page, 1,113-paragraph amended complaint violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), which requires a clear and concise statement showing why a plaintiff is entitled to relief.

The court separately dismissed counts 3, 4, and 10 against ABC Payee, Inc., James Munoz, Sandy Munoz, Riverside Montage Inc., Bonnie Rask, and Shani Christopher. It found that these defendants were not appropriate defendants for claims seeking to declare the guardianship unconstitutional because none had been parties to the guardianship proceedings. The court also found that the complaint did not adequately allege that they misrepresented material facts to the state court. It alternatively concluded that the complaint violated Rule 8.

State-law claims

The court dismissed counts 10, 24, 25, and 28 for lack of supplemental jurisdiction. Supplemental jurisdiction is a federal court’s authority to hear related state-law claims when federal claims are also part of the case. The court declined to exercise that authority because it had dismissed all claims over which it had original federal jurisdiction, the case was in its early stages, and only state-law claims remained.

Disposition

Judge Tostrud granted the nine listed motions to dismiss and granted the motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court dismissed ABC Payee, Inc., James Munoz, Sandy Munoz, Riverside Montage Inc., Bonnie Rask, and Shani Christopher on its own initiative. It dismissed the amended complaint without prejudice and dismissed the action. The order did not state that any individual defendant’s motion was granted in part or denied in part.