Bobby R. Williams v. Omega Laboratories Inc.

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-13436 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ BOBBY R. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus OMEGA LABORATORIES INC., DR. GEORGE E. PLATT, Defendants-Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 4:25-cv-00254-RH-MAF ____________________ Before JORDAN, KIDD, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: Bobby Williams took an initial mandatory drug test as part of his new truck-driving job’s employment conditions. The result USCA11 Case: 25-13436 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 06/26/2026 Page: 2 of 7

2 Equitable tolling is not a cause of action — it’s a legal doctrine that effectively extends the statutory deadline for filing a cause of action. See Cabello v. Fernandez-Larios, 402 F.3d 1148, 1156 (11th Cir. 2005) (“When a statute is equitably tolled, the statutory period does not begin to run until the impedi- ment to filing a cause of action is removed.”). In any event, the request for equitable tolling plays no part in this appeal.

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25-13436 Opinion of the Court 3 the complaint and gave him the opportunity to correct that defi- ciency. The amended complaint, however, fares no better. 3 Instead of correcting the deficiency in citizenship allega- tions, the amended complaint attempts to establish subject matter jurisdiction by vaguely asserting that the state-law claims “impli- cate” a federal question. Under the heading “Jurisdiction and Venue,” it alleges: “The claims asserted also implicate the Plaintiffs federally protected rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as they relate to fair and reliable medical testing used to determine employment eligibility, which in turn af- fects liberty and property interests.” Because the only claims that the amended complaint actually asserts are state-law claims, the magistrate judge recommended that the amended complaint be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court reviewed de novo the magistrate judge’s report and recommenda- tion, adopted it, and dismissed the case without prejudice. Wil- liams timely appealed. We affirm.

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Williams contends that the district court erred in dismissing his amended complaint because, he asserts, he was never served with the report and recommendation and was therefore deprived of the opportunity to object to it. “We review for abuse of discre- tion the treatment by a district court of a report and recommenda- tion of a magistrate judge.” Stephens v. Tolbert, 471 F.3d 1173, 1175 (11th Cir. 2006).

The record does show that the court’s first attempt to serve Williams with a copy of the report was unsuccessful and that the report was returned to the clerk’s office as undeliverable. But the record also shows that the deputy clerk then sent Williams a one- time courtesy letter reminding him of his duty to notify the court of any change in address and informing him that the returned re- port would be sent to him at the address reflected in the Bureau of Prisons or Florida Department of Corrections locator system. See generally Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(1) (“The clerk must immediately serve a copy [of the magistrate judge’s report] on each party as pro- vided in Rule 5(b).”); Fed. R. Civ. P. 5(b)(2)(C) (“A paper is served under this rule by[] mailing it to the person’s last known address— in which event service is complete upon mailing[.]”).

Williams responded by filing objections to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. He objected to the non-de- livery as prejudicial, but he also made specific objections to several of the report’s conclusions, indicating that he had read the report USCA11 Case: 25-13436 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 06/26/2026 Page: 5 of 7

25-13436 Opinion of the Court 5 and knew what it said. In response to Williams’ non-delivery ob- jection, the district court extended the deadline for him to file ob- jections and ordered the clerk’s office to resend him a copy of the report, thereby curing any earlier error in failure of service. Wil- liams didn’t file any more objections. The district court did not abuse its discretion in adopting the report and recommendation af- ter any error in service was cured.

II.

Williams contends that the district court failed to conduct a de novo review of the report and recommendation, gave no indica- tion that it reviewed his objections to it, and erred by not consider- ing or applying equitable tolling to his complaint.

The district court expressly stated that it had reviewed de novo the issues raised by Williams’ objections to the report and rec- ommendation. The record contains no indication that the court failed to do that. The court did not abuse its discretion in overrul- ing Williams’ objections, adopting the report and recommenda- tion, and choosing not to restate what was already detailed in the adopted order. See United States v. King, 849 F.2d 485, 490 (11th Cir. 1988) (explaining that a district court’s ability to “[a]dopt[] . . . the order [of a magistrate judge] obviates the need for the district court to prepare its own written findings of fact and statement of reasons supporting” the order); see also 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) (explaining that after a de novo review of the objected to “portions of the report,” a district court “may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge”).

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Nor does the amended complaint assert any claims arising out of federal law. It alleges only the same state-law claims as were stated in the original complaint. While we construe the pleadings of pro se litigants liberally, Campbell v. Air Jam. Ltd., 760 F.3d 1165, 1168 (11th Cir. 2014), no amount of liberal construction can make a federal question claim arise from the amended complaint. The vague assertion that the state-law claims against a doctor and a pri- vate lab, neither of whom is a state actor, “implicate federal legal standards” and Williams’ federal rights “under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as they relate to” employ- ment eligibility isn’t enough to establish subject matter jurisdic- tion. See Merrell Dow Pharms. Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 813 (1986) (“[T]he mere presence of a federal issue in a state cause of USCA11 Case: 25-13436 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 06/26/2026 Page: 7 of 7

25-13436 Opinion of the Court 7 action does not automatically confer federal-question jurisdic- tion.”).

Because the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Williams’ claims, it lacked authority to consider the merits of them, making it “powerless to continue.” Bochese v. Town of Ponce Inlet, 405 F.3d 964, 974–75 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted); see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3); see also Univ. of S. Ala. v. Am. Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 405, 408 (11th Cir. 1999) (explaining that we review de novo a district court’s dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction).

The court did not err in dismissing the amended complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3). Nor did it err by not applying equitable tolling to the amended complaint.

AFFIRMED.