Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321 (11th Circ. 2021) affirms the dismissal of a shotgun pleading. A shotgun pleading is a poorly organized pleading usually filed by a pro se litigant. Here, the shotgun pleading was filed by an attorney, not a pro se litigant. The court described the pleading in this way:

Barmapov filed his initial complaint in the district court in March 2018, and he filed an amended complaint five months later. The amended complaint was 116 pages and 624 numbered paragraphs long, and it included 20 causes of action, under both federal and state law, against 23 named defendants and 20 John Doe defendants. The district court dismissed it because it was “in an improper shotgun format.” Barmapov had “lumped together” many of his allegations against the 23 named defendants, rendering his complaint “unclear and confusing as to which [d]efendant [was] being charged with which conduct.” The district court also described the complaint as “devoid of specific allegations” such that it was not clear what each defendant “specifically did to be liable as to each stated count.” Finally, the court criticized the complaint for incorporating about 350 paragraphs into each of the 20 counts, even though the “paragraphs [were] not all properly directed at the [d]efendants subject to [each] count, nor [were] they pertinent to each claim.” The court granted Barmapov leave to file a second amended complaint.

In his second amended complaint, Barmapov reduced the number of named defendants 1324*1324 to 16 and the length of the complaint to 92 pages and 440 numbered paragraphs. He also removed all federal causes of action. The 19 counts against the defendants included allegations of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and civil conspiracy —all presumably under Florida law.

The district court concluded that Barmapov’s second amended complaint “still fail[ed] to provide a short and plain statement justifying relief and … allegations that [were] simple, concise, and direct.

The court was unimpressed with the second amended complaint and dismissed the case with prejudice. The 11th Circuit affirmed with a published opinion.

But the second amended complaint undoubtedly falls into the second category of shotgun pleadings. It is rife with immaterial factual allegations, including five pages and 24 paragraphs of irrelevant details about the alleged criminal backgrounds of some of the defendants. To make matters worse, the complaint then incorporates these paragraphs into 13 of the 19 counts, including counts against defendants who had no part in this background history. Other examples of inconsequential details include Barmapov’s business background; the relationships among Yossi, Guy, and Avrham Amuial, Terry Rafih, and John Obeid; Barmapov’s history with Reuben Sastiel; the experiences of Barmapov’s grandson working for the Amuials; and the contentious business meetings between Barmapov, the Amuials, and Sastiel. In addition, the second amended complaint indiscriminately incorporates and repeats 249 numbered paragraphs of factual allegations—spanning 50 pages—into nine of the 19 counts, without any effort to connect or separate which of those 249 factual allegations relate to a particular count. As a result, these nine counts include factual allegations that are immaterial to the underlying causes of action. See Chudasama v. Mazda Motor Corp., 123 F.3d 1353, 1359 n.9 (11th Cir. 1997) (describing a complaint in which four counts incorporated all 43 numbered paragraphs of factual allegations, many of which appeared to relate to only one or two counts, as “an all-too-typical shotgun pleading”); see also Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1322 n.12 (identifying Chudasama as an example of one of the second category of shotgun pleadings).

If these problems were not enough to make Barmapov’s second amended complaint a shotgun pleading, the complaint also includes numerous vague and conclusory allegations. It alleges that Yossi Amuial “sabotage[d]” Barmapov’s efforts to apply for financing, but it provides no explanation as to how this sabotage occurred. It also briefly states that four of the defendants “worked together to forge Barmapov’s signature” on important paperwork. Later, it states that six of the defendants “worked in concert to forge Barmapov’s signature” on documents related to a financing agreement and that one of these defendants then fraudulently notarized Barmapov’s signature. But the complaint never explains how these alleged forgeries relate to any of the 19 causes of action. Finally, at the end of his narrative account, Barmapov asserts that “Yossi, Guy, Avrham and Reuben … expelled him as a member” of the joint venture 1326*1326 because he refused to contribute more money. But he offers no explanation as to how he could have been expelled when, by his own account, there was only one other member of the joint venture.

Because Barmapov’s second amended complaint is “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial” allegations, a defendant who reads the complaint would be hard-pressed to understand “the grounds upon which each claim [against him] rests.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1322-23. Take, for example, the first four counts, which allege that the Amuials and Reuben Sastiel were Barmapov’s business partners and that they breached their fiduciary duties. The complaint neither quotes nor provides any specific details about the operating agreement for the purported joint venture between Barmapov and these defendants. And its brief explanations of this business arrangement are nonsensical. The complaint states that only one of these four defendants—Sastiel—signed the operating agreement, but it asserts without explanation that the other three still owed fiduciary duties under the agreement. It calls Yossi a “member,” a “manager,” and an “agent” of the joint venture. It refers to Guy as a “member,” a “de facto manager,” and an “agent and employee.” Finally, it states that Avrham is a “member,” an “agent,” and a “de facto principal,” in addition to being Barmapov’s personal “confidant and business advisor.” If Barmapov himself cannot offer a coherent explanation for how the joint venture was structured, we cannot expect the defendants to do it for him by digging through 50 pages and 249 numbered paragraphs of scattershot factual allegations.

Comment: Ultimately, the dismissal of this complaint is the responsibility of the client’s lawyers who allowed a disorganized pleading to be filed with the court.