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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 19-11556
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 0:18-cv-61055-WPD
ERIC WATKINS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
OFFICER A. WILLSON,
ANDREW SMALLING,
OTHERS UNKNOWN,
Defendants,
CONSTANCE STANLEY, Chief of Police,
LAUDERHILL POLICE DEPT.,
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(September 2, 2020)
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Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Eric Watkins, pro se, appeals the district court’s dismissal of his civil rights
complaint for failure to state a claim. We affirm.
I.
Watkins filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against deceased
police officer Adam Willson, the Lauderhill Police Department (“the
Department”), former Chief of Police Andrew Smalling, and Chief of Police
Constance Stanley. He alleged that Willson violated his Fourteenth Amendment
due process and Fourth Amendment rights by ordering him to leave a privately
owned parking lot and threatening to arrest him for trespassing if he did not. He
contended that he was not trespassing within the meaning of the Florida trespass
statute because the parking lot was not fenced or posted and he had not been
warned to leave by the owner of the property or someone with authority to speak
for the owner. He alleged that the Department and the current and former police
chiefs were liable for Willson’s constitutional violations because they had a policy
or custom of failing to train police officers regarding the proper enforcement of the
Florida trespass statute, as evidenced by similar encounters between Watkins and
other Lauderhill police officers in prior years.
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The district court found that Watkins had failed to state a claim for
supervisor liability based on a police department custom, policy, or practice
because, as this Court has previously held, the actions of the Lauderhill police
officers in ordering Watkins to leave someone else’s private property did not
violate Watkins’s constitutional rights.1 The district court also found that Watkins
could not maintain a claim against a deceased defendant (Willson), and it therefore
dismissed Watkins’s complaint with prejudice in its entirety. Watkins now
appeals.
II.
We review the district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for
failure to state a claim de novo, accepting the factual allegations in the complaint
as true and construing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Hill v.
White, 321 F.3d 1334, 1335 (11th Cir. 2003). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a
complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim
to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). And to state a
plausible claim for relief, the plaintiff must plead “factual content that allows the
1
See Watkins v. Elmore, 589 F. App’x 524 (11th Cir. 2015) (unpublished); see also Watkins v.
Ramcharan, 775 F. App’x 671 (11th Cir. 2019) (unpublished); Watkins v. Joy, 782 F. App’x 892
(11th Cir. 2019) (unpublished); Watkins v. Miller, 782 F. App’x 770 (11th Cir. 2019)
(unpublished).
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court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
misconduct alleged.” Id. “[C]onclusory allegations, unwarranted deductions of
facts or legal conclusions masquerading as facts will not prevent dismissal.”
Oxford Asset Mgmt., Ltd. v. Jaharis, 297 F.3d 1182, 1188 (11th Cir. 2002).
III.
To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that a person
acting under color of state law deprived him of a right secured by the Constitution
or federal law. 42 U.S.C. § 1983; Richardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 737 (11th
Cir. 2010). We address each of Watkins’s constitutional claims in turn. 2
A.
The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state may deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend. XIV.
Watkins cites our decision in Catron v. City of St. Petersburg, 658 F.3d 1260 (11th
Cir. 2011), for the proposition that he had a liberty interest in remaining in the
privately owned parking lot. In Catron, we held that the plaintiffs had a liberty
interest in remaining on public property, including city parks and sidewalks that
2
The district court correctly dismissed Watkins’s claims against Willson several months after
Watkins received notice of Willson’s death. Rule 25 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
provides that if a motion for substitution of a deceased party is not made with 90 days after
service of a statement noting the death, “the action by or against the decedent must be
dismissed.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(a)(1). Nonetheless, because Watkins’s claims against the
Department and police chiefs depend on the viability of his claims that Willson violated his
constitutional rights, we consider those claims as a preliminary matter.
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were open to the public. 658 F.3d at 1266. In contrast, Watkins specifically
alleged that the parking lot where Willson issued him a trespass warning was
private property, and was not owned by the city or the county parks department.
Watkins did not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in remaining on
private property, so Willson did not violate Watkins’s due process rights by issuing
him a trespass warning and telling him to leave.
Further, Watkins’s argument that Florida trespass law gave him a due
process right to remain on the property until warned to leave by the owner or
someone authorized by the owner to issue such warning (which, according to
Watkins, Willson was not) is unfounded. Section 810.08 of the Florida Statutes
provides that a person who was permitted to enter a structure or conveyance but is
subsequently “warned by the owner or lessee of the premises, or by a person
authorized by the owner or lessee, to depart and refuses to do so, commits the
offense of trespass in a structure or conveyance.” Fla. Stat. § 810.08(1). But
Watkins’s encounter with Willson occurred in a privately owned parking lot, not in
a structure or conveyance. See R.C.W. v. State, 507 So. 2d 700, 702 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 1987) (mall parking lot was not a structure or conveyance covered by
§ 810.08(1)). A trespass warning by an owner or authorized person is not required
for a trespass in a parking lot. Id.; see Fla. Stat. § 810.09(1)(a)(1). The statute
governing trespass on property other than a structure or conveyance states that a
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trespass warning may be conveyed by “actual communication to the offender,”
which is exactly what Willson provided. Fla. Stat. § 810.09(1)(a)(1).
B.
The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches
and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8–9 (1968).
“A person is seized by the police and thus entitled to challenge the government’s
action under the Fourth Amendment when the officer, by means of physical force
or show of authority, terminates or restrains his freedom of movement through
means intentionally applied.” Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007)
(emphasis omitted) (citations and quotation marks omitted). The Fourth
Amendment allows police to conduct a brief investigatory stop, however, “when
the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.”
Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000). And even when an officer has no
reasonable suspicion, he may approach and speak with citizens, because “[t]here is
nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions
to anyone on the streets.” United States v. Franklin, 323 F.3d 1298, 1301 (11th
Cir. 2003) (citation omitted); see Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497 (1983).
Here, Watkins did not state a plausible claim that Willson violated his
Fourth Amendment rights because Willson did not arrest him, detain him, or
restrain his movement. Instead, Willson gave Watkins notice to leave the
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premises, as required by Florida trespass law, and Watkins left without further
incident.
IV.
A municipal actor may be held liable under § 1983 only if it causes the
alleged constitutional violation through the implementation of an official policy or
an unofficial but pervasive and well-settled custom or practice. See City of Canton
v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385, 388–89 (1989); Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City
of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 690–91 (1978). Similarly, to state a claim for supervisory
liability under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege facts showing that the supervisor was
either personally involved in the alleged constitutional violation, or that the
supervisor’s actions caused the violation—for example, where “a history of
widespread abuse” gave the supervisor notice of the need to correct the behavior of
her subordinates and she failed to do so. Brown v. Crawford, 906 F.2d 667, 671
(11th Cir. 1990). “The deprivations that constitute widespread abuse sufficient to
notify the supervising official must be obvious, flagrant, rampant and of continued
duration, rather than isolated occurrences.” Id.
A municipality may be held liable for the failure to provide adequate
training to its police officers if the deficiency evidences a deliberate indifference to
the rights of its citizens. City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 388. To proceed under a
failure-to-train theory, a plaintiff ordinarily must show a “pattern of similar
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constitutional violations by untrained employees” because “[w]ithout notice that a
course of training is deficient in a particular respect, decisionmakers can hardly be
said to have deliberately chosen a training program that will cause violations of
constitutional rights.” Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 62 (2011).
As explained above, Watkins failed to allege facts sufficient to demonstrate
that he suffered any violation of his constitutional rights—Willson enforcing state
trespass law by warning Watkins to leave someone else’s private property did not
implicate Watkins’s liberty interests or his Fourth Amendment rights. And
because Watkins failed to make a plausible claim that Willson had violated his
constitutional rights, he cannot show that a policy or custom of the Department
caused a constitutional violation. Nor can he show a “pattern of similar
constitutional violations by untrained employees” or “a history of widespread
abuse” based on trespass warnings issued under similar circumstances by other
police officers, as required to proceed on his claim that the Department and police
chiefs caused the alleged constitutional violation by failing to provide adequate
training. Id.; Brown, 906 F.2d at 671. Accordingly, Watkins’s claims against the
Department and the police chiefs necessarily also fail.
V.
We conclude that the district court did not err in granting the defendants’
motion to dismiss because Watkins’s complaint, liberally construed, failed to
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allege facts that would support a plausible claim that he was entitled to relief.
Moreover, because an amendment would have been futile, the district court was
under no obligation to provide another opportunity to amend—Watkins had
already been given leave to amend twice—before dismissing the complaint with
prejudice. See Surtain v. Hamlin Terrace Found., 789 F.3d 1239, 1248 (11th Cir.
2015). We therefore affirm.
AFFIRMED.
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