Keitel v. D'Agostino, Sr.

Background

Frederick J. Keitel, III, proceeding without a lawyer, and three entities—Florida Capital Management LLC, FJK Properties, Inc., and FJK III Properties, Inc.—sued more than thirty defendants. The plaintiffs asserted claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law addressing certain organized and repeated criminal activity, along with state-law claims. They also asserted shareholder claims on behalf of FJK IV Properties, Inc.

The dispute concerned, among other things, the sale of Keitel’s stock in FJK IV at a sheriff’s sale to satisfy a 2014 judgment against him. Keitel and the entities had already filed two earlier complaints. During a March 24, 2022 hearing, the court ruled that attorney Spencer B. Robbins did not have authority to represent three entities, and the court had previously disqualified him from representing FJK IV. The court also warned Keitel and Robbins that any amended complaint had to comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including Rule 8.

Defendants’ motion

The defendants jointly moved to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint with prejudice. They argued that the complaint violated the order disqualifying Robbins from representing FJK IV, failed to comply with Rule 8, and asserted derivative claims even though the plaintiffs lacked standing. Standing is the legal requirement that a plaintiff have the required connection to a claim to bring it in court.

Rule 8 ruling

Rule 8 requires a complaint to provide a short, plain, simple, concise, and direct statement explaining why the plaintiff is entitled to relief. The court held that the Second Amended Complaint did not satisfy that requirement. It was 282 pages long, contained more than 890 paragraphs and twenty-six causes of action, and included nine fraud claims and twelve conspiracy-to-commit-fraud claims. Twenty-five of the twenty-six counts incorporated nearly all earlier allegations, and at least one paragraph incorporated itself.

The court also found that the complaint did not clearly identify which facts supported which claims against which defendants. It described the pleading as containing unnecessary, vague, and inflammatory language, including accusations involving judges, government officials, lawyers, and others. The court concluded that requiring the defendants to answer would unfairly force them and the court to sort through a mass of unclear allegations.

Leave to amend and other deficiencies

The court considered whether to allow another amendment. It declined to do so because this was Keitel and Robbins’s third pleading, the court had repeatedly warned them about Rule 8, and the later complaint remained longer and more confusing than the earlier pleadings. The court also found that the Second Amended Complaint continued to violate the order disqualifying Robbins from representing FJK IV, FJK Inc., and FJK Ltd.

While the motion was pending, the plaintiffs sought permission to file another complaint. The court denied leave to file it, finding that the proposed pleading still repeated the same Rule 8 problems.

Merits and disposition

The court expressly stated that it did not reach the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. It observed that the RICO claims appeared likely to fail because they did not plausibly allege a qualifying enterprise or non-conclusory predicate acts, and that the derivative claims appeared likely to fail because Keitel no longer owned stock in FJK IV after the sheriff’s sale. Those observations were not the basis for deciding the motion.

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed the Second Amended Complaint with prejudice. It directed the clerk to terminate the relevant motion, enter judgment in favor of the defendants, and close the case.