Eleanore Kue v. Samnuel North

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 25, 2024
Docket23-2100
StatusUnpublished

This text of Eleanore Kue v. Samnuel North (Eleanore Kue v. Samnuel North) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eleanore Kue v. Samnuel North, (6th Cir. 2024).

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 24a0324n.06

Case No. 23-2100

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jul 25, 2024 ) ELEANORE KUE, et al., KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE v. ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE WESTERN SAMUEL NORTH, et al., ) DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN Defendants-Appellees. ) ) OPINION

Before: GRIFFIN, NALBANDIAN, and BLOOMEKATZ, Circuit Judges.

NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. After a months-long investigation into His Healing

Hands, a medical clinic in Lansing, for over-prescribing controlled substances, Michigan

prosecutors declined to press charges. The clinic’s owners and operators, Dr. Eleanore Kue and

her husband Simon, were not happy about this investigation. So they sued, alleging among other

things violations of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and malicious prosecution. But

because their complaint fails to plausibly allege a constitutional violation, the district court

dismissed the case on the pleadings. Finding no error, we AFFIRM.

I.

A.

Dr. Eleanore Kue ran an urgent-care clinic called His Healing Hands in Lansing, Michigan

(the “Clinic”). In 2019, Michigan State Police in the Diversion Investigation Unit (DIU) started

investigating whether Kue was overprescribing controlled prescription medications to Clinic No. 23-2100, Kue v. North

patients. Officer Brett Brice, a member of the DIU, stated in his search warrant affidavit1 that he

noticed “several red flags of overprescribing or prescribing outside the scope of legitimate medical

practice.” R.34-2, Clinic Search Warrant, p.6, PageID 244. This was based in part on a tip from

a local pharmacist and on information about Kue’s prescribing history gathered from Michigan’s

Automated Prescription System (MAPS). MAPS showed that “the top three drugs prescribed by

Dr. Eleanore Kue in order are Clonazepam (Klonopin) 1mg tablet, Alprazolam 1mg tablet, and

Tramadol HCL 50mg tablet,” three Schedule IV controlled substances. Id.; see also Drug

Enforcement Administration, Controlled Substances - Alphabetical Order, 6, 8, 20 (last updated

April 15, 2024), https://perma.cc/QRQ8-EYEX. Brice also spoke to a Blue Cross Blue Shield

investigator who explained that Kue’s ratio of payments for prescriptions versus payments for

office visits was “unusual”—Blue Cross Blue Shield paid $133,000 for Kue’s prescriptions but

only $23,000 for her office visits. See id. at pp.6–7, PageID 244–45.

On top of this, Brice visited His Helping Hands four times as an undercover agent. He

observed what he thought was suspicious behavior by both the patients and Dr. Kue herself.

Officers Benjamin Garrison and Thomas Proffitt also visited the Clinic undercover.

In December 2019, a Michigan state court judge approved search warrants for Kue’s home

and the Clinic. Officers executed the warrants the next day. Officers additionally obtained

warrants to freeze two bank accounts associated with Kue. Despite all this, the county prosecutor

declined to press charges against Kue and dropped the civil forfeiture proceedings against Kue and

1 At the Rule 12(c) stage, “a court may consider exhibits attached to the complaint, public records, items appearing in the record of the case, and exhibits attached to defendant’s motion to dismiss, so long as they are referred to in the complaint and are central to the claims contained therein.” Gavitt v. Born, 835 F.3d 623, 640 (6th Cir. 2016).

2 No. 23-2100, Kue v. North

the Clinic. The Michigan Board of Medicine, however, investigated Kue and placed her on

probation for one year and fined her $2,000 for medical negligence.

B.

Believing themselves wronged by this whole ordeal, Eleanore and Simon Kue sued under

42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging various violations of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.2

They sued the Michigan State Police troopers and others,3 asserting that Defendants (1) failed to

support the search warrants with probable cause, (2) subjected them to malicious prosecution,

(3) violated their substantive due process rights, (4) conspired to violate their civil rights, and

(5) tortiously interfered with a business relationship.

Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

12(c). In response, Plaintiffs moved to amend under Rule 15(a), which permits amendments

“when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). The district court denied Plaintiffs’ motion,

faulting them for failing to “file a substantive response to the Rule 12(c) Motion” and instead

“seeking leave to file an Amended Complaint.” R.58, Order, p.1, PageID 495. “It’s time to get a

direct and substantive response to Rule 12(c) Motion on the pleadings as they have stood” for

several months, the court declared. Id. at p.2, PageID 496. “If [P]laintiffs’ position is that they

can’t defend the existing pleading and can only survive if they are permitted to amend, then they

should say that. On the other hand, if they think the pleading can be defended in its current form,

they should say that and explain why.” Id.

2 His Healing Hands Urgent Care Center, Inc., is also a plaintiff. 3 This includes Troopers Samuel North, Brett Brice, Benjamin Garrison, Scott Josephs, and Thomas Proffitt. Plaintiffs also sued Janice Waldmiller, Jamie Ousley, Debra Gagliardi, Forest Pasanski, Eric St. Onge, and Lindsey Malocu. But these parties were voluntarily dismissed. See Appellants Br. at 18 n.85; Appellees Br. at 4 n.3. So only the Michigan State Police troopers remain.

3 No. 23-2100, Kue v. North

So Plaintiffs filed a response to the motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing it should

not be granted and, in the alternative, their motion should be construed as a Rule 56(c) motion—a

motion for summary judgment—to allow the district court to consider their proposed amended

complaint. The district court again denied Plaintiffs’ motion: “The Court closely examined

Plaintiffs’ Proposed Amended Complaint” and “[n]one of these allegations sufficiently

demonstrate that Defendants violated Plaintiffs’ Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment rights.” R.62,

Op. and Order, pp.16–17, PageID 565–66.4 In the same opinion and order, the district court

granted Defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings, finding that Plaintiffs failed to state

plausible claims for relief on all counts, and the court declined to exercise supplemental

jurisdiction over the state-law claim. Plaintiffs timely appealed.

II.

Though they present various issues, Plaintiffs’ claims come within two broad questions:

(1) whether the district court erred in denying Plaintiffs’ motion to amend, and (2) whether the

court erred in granting Defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings. The parties first ask us

to evaluate the denial of the motion to amend, then to review the grant of judgment on the

pleadings. But, as explained below, these two broad questions essentially merge into one.

To see how, consider the standard for reviewing a denial of a motion to amend. Though a

“court’s order denying a Rule 15(a) motion to amend is usually reviewed for an abuse of

discretion,” Riverview Health Inst. LLC v. Med. Mut.

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