UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ANTHONY BRIAN MALLGREN, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) Civil Action No. 1:26-cv-01840 (UNA)
)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., )
)
Defendants. )
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This matter is before the Court on its initial review of Plaintiff’s pro se Complaint
(“Compl.”), ECF No. 1, and Application for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”). The
Court grants Plaintiff’s IFP Application, and for the reasons discussed below, it dismisses the
Complaint, and this matter, without prejudice.
Plaintiff, a resident of New York, sues the United States, Meta Platforms, Inc., and Apple,
Inc. See Compl. at 1. The Complaint is vague and difficult to follow. As best understood, Plaintiff
alleges that he exchanged communications on Facebook with a stranger, incidents he refers to as
“Foreigner Interactions,” that ultimately turned out to be an Apple gift card scam. See id. at 2.
The remainder of the Complaint consists of Plaintiff’s ruminations regarding “disagreeable people,
products, et cetera,” “violations,” “crime,” America’s use of the internet, and his discontent with
the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit. See id. at 1–2. He demands damages and “immediate action stopping the
outflow of American value,” and also “stopping the inflow of negativity into America.” See id. at
2–3.
Pro se litigants must comply with the Rules of Civil Procedure, see Jarrell v. Tisch, 656 F.
Supp. 237, 239–40 (D.D.C. 1987), and here, the Complaint fails to comply with Rule 8(a) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires a pleading to contain “(1) a short and plain
statement of the grounds for the court’s jurisdiction [and] (2) a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678–79 (2009); Ciralsky v. CIA, 355 F.3d 661, 668–71 (D.C. Cir. 2004). The Rule 8
standard ensures that defendants receive fair notice of the claim being asserted so that they can
prepare a responsive answer and an adequate defense and determine whether the doctrine of
res judicata applies. Brown v. Califano, 75 F.R.D. 497, 498 (D.D.C. 1977).
Plaintiff’s allegations are neither clear nor direct, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d)(1), and the
paragraphs are not limited to a single set of circumstances, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b). When, as
here, a pleading “contains an untidy assortment of claims that are neither plainly nor concisely
stated, nor meaningfully distinguished from bold conclusions, sharp harangues and personal
comments [,]” it does not fulfill the requirements of Rule 8. Jiggetts v. Dist. of Columbia, 319
F.R.D. 408, 413 (D.D.C. 2017), aff’d sub nom. Cooper v. Dist. of Columbia, No. 17-7021, 2017
WL 5664737 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 1, 2017). Put differently, “[a] confused and rambling narrative of
charges and conclusions . . . does not comply with the requirements of Rule 8.” Cheeks v. Fort
Myer Constr. Corp., 71 F. Supp. 3d 163, 169 (D.D.C. 2014) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). Plaintiff’s Complaint falls squarely into this category, failing to provide the Court or the
Defendant with adequate notice of a claim, and falling short of establishing the Court’s subject
matter jurisdiction. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007) (“we do not require
heightened fact pleading of specifics, but only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible
on its face”); see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (2009) (“Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will . . . be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to
draw on its judicial experience and common sense.”). Plaintiff has equally failed to establish this
Court’s subject matter jurisdiction, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3), or that show that venue is proper
in this District, see 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a).
Accordingly, this matter is dismissed without prejudice. A separate Order accompanies
this Memorandum Opinion.
__________/s/_____________
Date: August 24, 2026 AMIT P. MEHTA
United States District Judge