By: Jeff Birren, Senior Writer
In 2024, a Jane Doe plaintiff sued the Celtics, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum in Boston federal court. She alleged that the defendants were “involved in a sex-trafficking conspiracy, that other individuals involved in the scheme had recruited Doe and made her a victim of the scheme, and on at least one occasion the Player Defendants had sexually assaulted her at a party.” Doe subsequently filed a First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) that added Marcus Smart as a defendant. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss. It was granted, subject to leave to amend. Doe, a pro se litigant, filed a Proposed Second Amended Complaint (“PSAC”). Each defendant again moved to dismiss. This time the District Court granted the motion without leave to amend. Doe v. Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart, and Boston Celtics, U.S. Dist. Ct., Dist. of Mass, CV No-24-11561-LTS (Order, 6-9-25).
Procedural Background
Doe’s original Complaint was fifteen pages. It contained sixty-two paragraphs and eight causes of action against Brown, Tatum and the Celtics. The plaintiff filed it under seal and sought permission to use a pseudonym. Two days later she moved to unseal her Complaint, citing “an unspecified change in conditions that had led her to request sealing at the outset.” Two days after that, she filed the FAC, adding Marcus Smart as a defendant and five more paragraphs. She received Court permission to continue as Jane Doe and redact sensitive information.
At the end of July, the defendants were granted an extension to respond to the FAC. (Order, 7-30-24; Order, 7-31-24). Undeterred, Doe filed a motion for default as to Tatum and Smart on August 14, 2024. It was denied. (Order, 8-22-24). Thirty docket entries later, the defendants filed motions to dismiss on September 26, 2024. The individual defendants also filed motions to require Doe to use her name. Doe opposed all motions.
The Court granted the motions to dismiss. As to the Celtics, Doe “had not plausibly alleged all required elements of the two claims in which she expressly referenced the organization.” Her other six claims were “devoid of specific factual allegations directed toward” the Celtics. The claims against the three individual defendants fared no better. Doe “advanced only conclusory, vague, and generalized allegations that failed to ‘describ[e] and differentiat[e] the individual actions taken by” each one of them. However, the Court noted both that Doe was representing herself and the “serious nature of the allegations” including an “event characterized” in the FAC as a “‘gang rape[ ]’”. It gave Doe leave to file a PSAC, “so long as the motion complied with the criteria the Court identified.” The Court granted Doe leave to use the pseudonym “until it assessed the viability of any proposed amended pleading.” (Order, 12-9-24).
Doe availed herself of that opportunity and filed the PSAC and supporting documents on January 17, 2025. The PSAC added another cause of action. It was three times longer than the FAC, with 235 paragraphs spread over 60 pages. Each defendant “opposed Doe’s motion, arguing that the amendment was proposed in bad faith, after undue delay, and/or would be futile.” Doe replied, and the Court took the matter under submission.
Ruling: Legal Standard
The Court “reviews the PSAC for compliance with the Court’s prior Order and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” (All references to “Rule” or “Rules” refer to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) “Leave to amend should be freely given in circumstances which justice requires. Amyndas Pharms., S.A. v. Zealand Pharma A/S, 48 F.4th 18, 36 (1st Cir. 2022) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2)).” “But the largesse that Rule 15(a)(2) contemplates is not without limits.” Calderón-Serra v. Wilmington Trust Co., 715 F.3d 14, 19 (1st Cir. 2013). “Everything depends on context.” Nikitine v. Wilmington Trust Co., 715 F.3d 388, 390 (1st Cir. 2013). “However, this is not without limits.” A court “must review the context” and “examine the totality of the circumstances … to exercise its informed discretion” when balancing the “pertinent considerations.” Leave may be denied based on undue delay, bad faith, futility or repeated failure to cure deficiencies. If the proposed amended complaint differs in material ways from the prior complaint, the changes must be adequately explained.
If a plaintiff delays in adding crucial facts known when filing the complaint, there must be an adequate explanation for that delay. Leave to amend may be denied if allowing amendment would not serve the interests of justice. Furthermore, a plaintiff may not lie in wait and see if the amended complaint is rejected by the court before seeking to add further information in order to cure a deficiency. ACA Fin. Guar. Corp. v. Advest, Inc., 512 F.3d 46, 57 (1st Cir. 2008).
“To assess futility, a court measures a proposed amendment against the familiar standards governing Rule 12 motions.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 545 (2007). A claim must be a “facially plausible legal claim” that is supported by enough factual information to rise above “the speculative level.” The Court held Doe to a less stringent standard because she was not represented by counsel, but this did not absolve her of having to comply with procedural law. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007).
The PSAC “may not consist of conclusory allegations that merely parrot the relevant legal standard.” Young v. Wells Fargo, N.A., 717 F.3d 224, 231 (1st Cir. 2013). The Court analyzed whether Doe had pled “basic facts sufficient to state a claim.” Ferranti v. Moran, 618 F.2d 888, 890 (1st Cir. 1980).
Claims Against the Celtics
Doe named the Celtics in all nine causes of action because the team employed “the Player Defendants’ during the relevant period” and because the team failed to act “on information at [its] disposal.” The Court previously dismissed those claims, and the “PSAC did not cure the deficiency.” In the first place, an employer is ordinarily not “liable for the conduct of its employees committed outside of the workplace which results in harms not reasonably foreseeable to or anticipated by the employer.”
To overcome this hurdle, “Does advances two sets of facts that she suggests plausibly show” that the players’ “alleged mistreatment of her was known or knowable—and, therefore preventable—by the organization.” She stated that a Celtics’ “high level executive” saw “at least one part of the sex trafficking elements in the tunnels beneath the TD Gardens Complex.” Doe also claimed to have put the Celtics on notice “at least three times” but “was turned away each time”. These allegations were not in the FAC. The FAC stated that the behavior was “common knowledge in the community.” Doe had also failed to include the new allegations in her opposition to the Celtics’ motion to dismiss the FAC, nor mention “executives having witnessed portions of the alleged misconduct. That “calls into question their plausibility, raises the specter of undue delay, and undermines” the request to amend as to the Celtics.
Yet even the new allegations did not support “a plausible assertion of employer liability.” The “TD Garden Complex includes an apartment building and various other businesses”, and the “underground parking garage and tunnels that provide” connections and access to individuals traveling to and from the various businesses. It is not exclusively for Celtics’ executives. Furthermore, Doe “only vaguely describes the people she speculates were Celtics’ executives”. She did not describe in detail what anyone saw, or when they might have seen the claimed events. She stated that someone saw her sitting on the ground crying, but that “would not reasonably put any person on notice of a sex-trafficking offense.” Finally, none of the other described events took place in the tunnels, so Doe did “not plausibly allege a viable theory of employer liability arising from observations made in the tunnels.”
The assertions about notice fared no better. Doe argued that the Celtics were on notice of the “alleged misconduct—and, therefore, obligated to act or risk liability—because of visits she paid to” to the Celtics. However, the PSAC admitted that no one from the Celtics agreed to speak to her nor accept her paperwork. This “did not reasonably put anyone on notice of anything.”
Doe alleged that the “last specific instance of mistreatment” occurred in February 2024. The visit to the Celtics occurred during the 2024 playoffs. “Alleging that the Celtics were notified of misconduct only after it occurred cannot, as a matter of law, support a plausible claim of employer liability.” Doe waited too long to “advance new factual allegations” and had not cured prior problems. The motion to file the PSAC was denied as to the Celtics.
Claims Against the Player Defendants
In the PSAC and prior complaints, “the Player Defendants are the central focus.” Although the PSAC added more “detailed factual allegations”, it did not cure “the fundamental deficiencies” as it did not plausibly plead the elements of the asserted claims. Doe “expanded her allegations” but failed to explain why those facts were absent from the prior Complaints. The Court acknowledged “the serious nature of the claims” but was not persuaded to allow the filing of the PSAC. Furthermore, the allegations “are neither short nor plain” and thus fail to comply with Rule 8.
The Court quoted verbatim two paragraphs. The following sentences are from one of those paragraphs, “including any spelling or grammatical errors. ‘The view in the Plaintiff’s apartment is a source of happiness and motivation for the Plaintiff that the Plaintiff appreciates and grew to depend on. When the Plaintiff moved to the Alcott Apartments, she was able to keep her view, plus more in a corner unit facing the same direction and on a higher floor. The Player Defendants continued to attempt to interfere with the Plaintiff and her development with her dog in her apartment, even though the Plaintiff had permission and a desire to develop at her home.’”
The Court quoted Paragraph 33, remarking that it was “relatively short but it is not plain.” In footnote 5, it stated that: “The PSAC is not the only relevant submission from Doe that is challenging to parse. Her reply in support of her motion to amend, which contain repeated references to ‘world order’, is often perplexing. See, e.g., Doc. No. 101 at 8. (‘This Civil Action through Civil Procedure seeks to initiate the effects of total deterrence, total restoration, and mandatory restitution to deter and correct the Defendants’ negative affect on World Order. This Civil Action serves the Mission of World Order.)’ None of Doe’s arguments that are discernible in the reply aid her in avoiding the Court’s determination that she is not entitled to leave to file the PSAC.” The “Court is hard-pressed to see how the defendants could reasonably answer, let alone prepare to defend against the allegations”, and these selected paragraphs “are not the only examples.” The proposed “amendment is in large part futile.”
The new factual allegations were also known to Doe when she filed both the Complaint and FAC. “Though the Court declines to infer bad faith from this fact”, it did find that previously withholding those allegations “warrants denial of Doe’s motion.” For example, Doe “neglected” to include “certain topics such as” the “Player Defendants alleged use of sports-betting platforms in connection with the sex-trafficking allegations she describes”. Among other allegations not previously included were “a performance-enhancing motive behind the defendants’ alleged sex-trafficking activities” and “allegations of manipulated game statistics by at least one Player Defendant.” Doe failed to explain why these allegations had not been previously included, and this “provides a second reason that justifies denying the pending motion”.
The Court was not done. The PSAC continued “to be susceptible” to a Rule 12(b)(6) challenge, as it “fails to state in plausible, non-conclusory terms the elements of certain causes of action.” The “only details she describes in any detail are those that transpired before or after the abuse she alleges.” The alleged abuse was described in “only conclusory language” that “parrots the legal elements of the claims she asserts.”
Doe inserted “three page-long paragraphs” of discrete events related to each player, including song clips that were played, actions of a dog, and conversations that she overheard. The timing of those events was “uncertain”. Doe failed “to plead basic facts sufficient to state” sex-trafficking claims. Ferranti, 618 F. 2nd at 890. The delay, “failure (again) “to plausibly allege claims … that can withstand scrutiny under the applicable federal pleading standards … lead the Court to deny her leave to revive this action.” The “action is again dismissed.” The Clerk “shall close this case.”
Post Dismissal
Doe appealed to the First Circuit, on June 9, 2025. This includes the Order dismissing her FAC; the Order denying her leave to file the PSAC; and the accompanying dismissal Order. She continues to represent herself. The defense counsel’s notice of appearance was returned as “undeliverable to Jane Doe” on July 3, 2025.
Doe filed her Opening Brief on July 7, 2025. She also filed a motion in the District Court to proceed without paying the required fees. The District Court stated that it no longer had jurisdiction over the case. (Order, 7-23-25). The First Circuit directed Doe to either file the required paperwork to proceed in forma pauperis or file the receipt of payment by August 15, 2025.
The defendants were given until September 9, 2025, to respond to the appeal brief, assuming Doe meets the August 15 deadline. However, the defendants filed a joint “Motion For Summary Disposition.” In its opening paragraph, the motion stated that Doe ‘raises no comprehensible or viable arguments challenging the District Court’s rulings. Because it thus ‘clearly appear[s]’ from Appellant’s opening brief ‘that no substantial question is presented,’ summary affirmance is appropriate pursuant to” First Circuit rules.
Lawsuits against athletes and former athletes for sex-related behavior are not disappearing. This case is unusual in that the players’ team was also named. Salacious lawsuits are grist for the media and social media mill. Dismissals of those claims do not receive the same attention. Athletic organization and athletes should be aware of this reality when deciding how to respond to similar claims.
