Moyer v. Murray

Opinion

Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS July 1, 2026 FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court GREGORY ASHLEY MOYER, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. No. 25-6135 (D.C. No. 5:25-CV-00429-SLP) JAMES V. MURRAY; TRACY (W.D. Okla.) McDANIEL, Honorable Judge of the Oklahoma 23rd District, Pottawatomie County; KATHERINE E. THOMAS, Honorable Judge of the Oklahoma 9th District, Payne County; MELISSA GRINER DELACERDA, Attorney at Law; JOE HARPER, in his official capacity as Sheriff of Payne County; LAURA THOMAS, in her official capacity as District Attorney for District 9; VIRGINIA BANKS, Attorney at Law; LISA THOMPSON, Bailiff; PHILLIP C. CORLEY, Retired Judge; KY CORLEY; GENTNER DRUMMOND, in his official capacity, as Attorney General for State of Oklahoma; STILLWATER PUBLIC SCHOOLS; TIFFANY SEEFELDT; STILLWATER POLICE DEPARTMENT; COLLINS ZORN & WAGNER, Law Firm; MIKE FIELDS, former DA; COREY RINK, in his official capacity, Sheriff of Garfield County; WILL JOYCE, individually, Stillwater Mayor; OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES; KOCH INDUSTRIES, d/b/a Koch Fertilizer, Defendants - Appellees. Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 2

_________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________

Before MATHESON, MORITZ, and FEDERICO, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

Gregory Moyer, pro se, appeals the district court’s case-ending order

denying his motion for leave to amend his complaint. We have jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

I

The events underlying this lawsuit began with a divorce and child

custody dispute in Oklahoma state court roughly ten years ago. The divorce

decree was finalized in early 2017. Moyer’s ex-wife apparently received

custody of their two children, but Moyer had unspecified visitation rights.

Those rights were suspended in October 2017, apparently for failure to pay

alimony and child support. Moyer has not since seen or communicated with

his children.

*After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.

This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1. 2 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 3

Moyer filed this lawsuit on April 14, 2025. As defendants, he named

essentially every judge and attorney, and every government entity, official,

and employee that was in some way involved with the custody proceedings.

He also named his former employer. He alleged that all of them, in various

ways, violated his constitutional, statutory, and state-law rights, either by

actions that allegedly led to or perpetuated the revocation of his visitation

rights, or by discrete incidents of alleged mistreatment throughout those

proceedings.

Before serving any defendant, Moyer filed a first amended complaint.

He then served process. Many defendants appeared and moved to dismiss.

Before Moyer responded to those motions, the district court sua sponte

dismissed the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) because

“not even the most attentive of readers could figure out who did what to

whom.” R. I at 141 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court therefore

denied the motions to dismiss as moot and gave Moyer a deadline by which

he could file a motion for leave to amend.

Moyer timely moved to amend, attaching the proposed second

amended complaint. About a week-and-a-half later, before defendants’

deadline to respond to the motion, the district court issued an order denying

leave to amend. The court reasoned that many of Moyer’s claims were time-

barred, some failed to state a claim on their face, and some continued to be

3 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 4

inscrutable and therefore a violation of Rule 8. Finally, as to state-law

claims, the court chose not to exercise jurisdiction given that it was

dismissing all federal claims. The court therefore denied Moyer’s motion,

concluded further leave to amend would be futile, and entered final

judgment.

This appeal timely followed.

II

We review de novo a district court’s conclusion that further leave to

amend would be futile. See Thornton v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 28 F.4th 1016,

1021 (10th Cir. 2022). “A proposed amendment is futile if the complaint, as

amended, would be subject to dismissal.” Jefferson Cnty. Sch. Dist. No. R-1

v. Moody’s Investor’s Servs., Inc., 175 F.3d 848, 859 (10th Cir. 1999).

A

Moyer argues “the district court dismissed the entire case on grounds

neither [he] nor defendants fully briefed. The court raised deficiencies sua

sponte, provided no opportunity to respond or cure, and entered final

judgment. This exceeded the narrow authority courts possess to raise

jurisdictional issues [sua sponte].” Aplt. Op. Br. at 12. Moyer is incorrect.

“Where a complaint fails to state a claim, and no amendment could cure the

defect, a dismissal sua sponte may be appropriate.” Brereton v. Bountiful

City Corp., 434 F.3d 1213, 1219 (10th Cir. 2006). But in light of the unique

4 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 5

procedural history of this case, we partly side-step whether the district

court properly exercised this sua sponte authority.

As noted above, Moyer filed his original complaint and then an

amended complaint. Many defendants moved to dismiss that amended

complaint, but the district court sua sponte dismissed it as a violation of

Rule 8 and therefore denied the defendants’ motions as moot. 1 Moyer then

moved for leave to amend, and the district court denied the motion before

hearing from the defendants. However, the district court’s reasoning almost

entirely tracked the arguments made in the defendants’ denied-as-moot

motions to dismiss. Thus, as to these arguments, the district court was not

genuinely acting sua sponte.

The only exception we can discern – or, the only claim the district

court dismissed based on an argument not previously presented – is its

dismissal of Moyer’s 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) claim. Section 1985(3) creates a

cause of action for persons injured by a conspiracy to “depriv[e] . . . any

person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws.” The district

court dismissed this claim because it understood the claim to be based on

disability discrimination, and this court has already ruled that § 1985(3)

1 Moyer does not challenge this first sua sponte dismissal, which was

without prejudice and which explicitly granted an opportunity to move for leave to amend. 5 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 6

does not protect against disability discrimination. See Wilhelm v. Cont’l

Title Co., 720 F.2d 1173, 1176–77 (10th Cir. 1983). Moyer does not argue

that the district court misunderstood his claim or that its analysis was

incorrect. He has therefore abandoned the claim, so we will not examine it

further. See, e.g., Johnson v. Spencer, 950 F.3d 680, 703 n.7 (10th Cir. 2020)

(treating a claim as abandoned because the appellant “[did] not tell us what

the district court did wrong”).

For these reasons, we see no error in the district court’s sua sponte

denial of the motion for leave to amend.

B

Moyer next claims the district court should not have dismissed the

entire action because some defendants had not even appeared at the time

of dismissal. He says this situation mirrors the situation described in an

unpublished Fifth Circuit decision, Yan v. State Bar of Texas, No. 24-10543,

2025 WL 2759560 (5th Cir. Sept. 29, 2025). In Yan, every defendant but one

moved to dismiss. Id. at *1. The remaining defendant answered the

complaint. Id. The district court granted the motion to dismiss and

“purported to dismiss the case on the basis that ‘all other Defendants have

been terminated at this juncture.’ It also entered a ‘Final Judgment.’ But

[the non-moving defendant’s] liability was not adjudicated, or even

addressed, elsewhere in the record.” Id. (citation omitted in original). The

6 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 7

plaintiff appealed, and the Fifth Circuit concluded it did not have

jurisdiction because the district court’s failure to adjudicate the matter as

to the non-moving defendant meant that the court’s judgment did not

qualify as a final judgment. Id.

This case does not resemble Yan because there were no answering

defendants. Another important difference is that the district court sua

sponte dismissed the first amended complaint – a ruling Moyer does not

challenge. At that point there was no operative complaint and therefore

nothing for any defendant to do unless and until the district court granted

leave to amend. Moyer moved for leave to amend, but the district court

denied that motion. At that point, again, there was nothing for any

defendant to do. It is therefore irrelevant that some defendants may not

have appeared or answered.

C

One of the defendants who failed to appear, according to Moyer, is

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Moyer therefore argues

the district court should have granted him default judgment against the

Attorney General – and such judgment, in turn, would deprive other

defendants of qualified immunity. Moyer also claims the district judge

erroneously denied a motion for judicial notice of some of the Attorney

General’s public statements.

7 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 8

Moyer is incorrect to say the Attorney General never appeared. Even

if he arguably appeared late, he nonetheless appeared and filed a motion to

dismiss the first amended complaint. That motion was denied as moot when

the district court struck the first amended complaint – and striking the first

amended complaint mooted any question of default, given there was no

longer an operative complaint.

As for judicial notice, Moyer refers to what appears to be an editorial

written by the Attorney General about how recently passed legislation will

help to combat unethical practices by Oklahoma governmental officials.

Moyer says this establishes the corruption he asserts in his complaint.

We are unaware of, and Moyer does not cite, any authority saying that

an opinion piece by an attorney general converts the assertions into a

matter judicially noticeable under Federal Rule of Evidence 201. To be sure,

he cites United States v. Ahidley, 486 F.3d 1184, 1192 n.5 (10th Cir. 2007),

for the proposition that “[r]efusal to take notice of indisputable public

admissions [is] reversible error.” Aplt. Op. Br. at 18. But Ahidley only says

that “we may exercise our discretion to take judicial notice of publicly-filed

records in our court and certain other courts concerning matters that bear

directly upon the disposition of the case at hand.” 486 F.3d at 1192 n.5. That

is nothing like the situation here. We therefore see no error as it relates to

the Attorney General.

8 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 9

D

Moyer next argues the district court failed to analyze his proposed

amended complaint claim-by-claim and defendant-by-defendant. This is

incorrect. The district court itemized Moyer’s claims and, under its analysis

for each, noted the defendants against whom Moyer had asserted that

claim. Where appropriate, the district court analyzed a defendant’s

potential individual liability apart from other defendants. We therefore

reject the argument that the district court’s analysis was insufficiently

particular.

E

Moyer discusses in general terms the law of substantive due process

as it relates to a parent-child relationship. This discussion does not address

the district court’s reasons for dismissing Moyer’s substantive due process

claims, namely, they are untimely and otherwise fail the Rule 8 standard.

We therefore reject his challenge to the district court’s dismissal of his

substantive due process claims.

F

Moyer itemizes a list of the district court’s actions that allegedly show

favoritism toward the defendants, thus requiring reversal. These allegedly

biased actions fall into two categories: (1) how the district court handled the

Attorney General’s allegedly tardy appearance; and (2) the district court’s

9 Appellate Case: 25-6135 Document: 153-1 Date Filed: 07/01/2026 Page: 10

rulings against Moyer. We have already discussed why the district court

committed no error as to the Attorney General. As for adverse rulings,

“[they] alone do not demonstrate judicial bias.” Bixler v. Foster, 596 F.3d

751, 762 (10th Cir. 2010). Moyer’s bias claim fails.

III

We affirm the district court’s judgment. We deny as meritless all of

Moyer’s pending motions and all his requests for relief contained in filings

not captioned as a motion. 2 We deny appellees’ original motion for filing

restrictions and other relief (Doc. #119) as moot in light of the corrected

motion (Doc. #120), and we deny the corrected motion.

Entered for the Court

Richard E.N. Federico Circuit Judge

2 We further note that at least four of Moyer’s motions – Doc. 67, 69,

70, and 72, all of which are motions to supplement the record – cite a nonexistent case, “United States v. Tittsworth, 630 F.3d 1029 (10th Cir. 2011),” for a potentially important point about whether this court may consider materials never considered by the district court. Citations to nonexistent cases violate 10th Cir. R. 46.5(B)(2)’s requirement that “the issues presented [in any paper filed with the court] are warranted by existing law.” We may sanction Moyer for this violation, including by dismissing his appeal. See, e.g., Grant v. City of Long Beach, 96 F.4th 1255, 1257 (9th Cir. 2024); Fed. R. App. P. 38; 10th Cir. R. 46.5(C). We decline to do so here, but we warn Moyer – and all pro se litigants and counsel appearing before this court – that they must ensure citations to legal authority are not fabrications but instead point to real authorities that at least arguably stand for the propositions for which they are cited. 10