Museum of Selfies v. Miami Selfie is an ongoing matter in the Southern District of Florida, but a ruling on a motion to dismiss offers some instruction regarding so-called shotgun complaints. The basis for the plaintiff’s claims is that, as owners of Miami Selfie, defendants intentionally copied the MUSEUM OF SELFIES mark by using the confusingly similar “SELFIE MUSEUM” as a name for art exhibitions and museum locations throughout the country.
Shotgun complaints are frowned upon in the federal courts because they are perceived as being unfair to multiple parties — the opposing side, the court’s staff, and also the people “waiting in line” to have their cases heard.
The ruling goes through four different types of shotgun complaints:
1. Most common: Alleging a first cause of action, then alleging a second cause of action that includes all the paragraphs from the first cause of action — then alleging, again, all the paragraphs up to a third cause of action — resulting in a multiplicity of nonspecific terms.
2. Making claims using conclusory or vague language, or bringing up immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action.
3. Not separating each cause of action or claim for relief into a different count.
4. Most problematic: Asserting multiple claims against multiple defendants without specifying which of the defendants is responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought against.
According to this court, “The unifying characteristic of all types of shotgun pleadings is that they fail to one degree or another, and in one way or another, to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests.”
The accusation of a shotgun pleading in this case involved the complaint’s failing to specify multiple claims against multiple defendants. Using subheadings, the plaintiffs’ law team reiterated the same accusations for almost every listed defendant. To the defendants, this looked like a shotgun plea of the fourth variety.
When the court weighed in, it delivered a mixed verdict. In reality, the court said, all the plaintiffs succeeded in doing was to allege that the defendants owned and operated the “corporate” defendant, and that copyright infringement had occurred. Simply stating that a group of people own the business, and therefore must be the ones that were directing the business, was insufficient. There needs to be an allegation that an individual actively and knowingly caused the infringement — and not just “upon information and belief.”
In contrast, the court found that the amended complaint was not a shotgun pleading. Many of the people named were related to each other and so would face similar allegations. Repetitive text alone does not create a shotgun pleading. However, the plaintiffs did receive some bad news: the court barred them from making any further amendments to the complaint.
To me, this motion was decided correctly. People form businesses in order to protect themselves from situations like this. If individuals as partners/shareholders/LLC members jumped through all the hoops to become some type of entity, they shouldn’t automatically be subject to individual liability just because the company allegedly did something wrong. Down the road, discovery may show that the defendants were in fact individually responsible — and that’s where you’d normally want to amend the pleadings to conform with the evidence. The court allowed some limited amendment to the pleadings: making the allegations against the named individuals more specific. But the court’s prohibition against further amendments seems a bit harsh — discovery might come up with a smoking gun that merits an additional claim!
Every plaintiff yearns for a shock-and-awe strategy that will have an in terrorem effect on their adversary. But lots of paragraphs, lots of pages, and lots of allegations purely for the sake of overwhelming might not be the best way.
