Embrey v. United States

• Decision Date: 11 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-740C,19-740C
• Parties: WILLIAM J.R. EMBREY, Plaintiff, v. THE UNITED STATES, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

WILLIAM J.R. EMBREY, Plaintiff, v. THE UNITED STATES, Defendant.

No. 19-740C

United States Court of Federal Claims

December 11, 2020

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

WOLSKI, Senior Judge.

Plaintiff William J.R. Embrey, proceeding pro se, alleges that the government unlawfully held him in prison for an additional 508 days past the expiration of his sentence. Mister Embrey requests $254,000 in damages, $1 million in punitive damages, and attorney's fees. Alternatively, plaintiff has moved for the transfer of his case to another court. The government moved to dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims (RCFC). For the reasons stated below, the motion to dismiss the case is GRANTED and the motion to transfer the case is DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND

On April 24, 2000, the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri sentenced plaintiff to 262 months' imprisonment for being a felon in possession of a firearm.¹ Compl. at 3, ECF No. 1. Prior to that, however, plaintiff was held for 508 days in presentence detention. Plaintiff maintains the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) credited those 508 days against his sentence, which,combined with good time credit, apparently would have allowed him to reenter society on June 24, 2017. Compl. at 3-4 (citing, inter alia, 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b)); Exs. A-C, ECF No. 1-1. When that date came to pass, however, the BOP did not release plaintiff. Compl. at 4. Mister Embrey claims that he notified the BOP and other authorities multiple times about his release date, yet these protestations fell on deaf ears. Id. The BOP subsequently released plaintiff on November 13, 2018. Id. Consequently, plaintiff maintains that he was illegally imprisoned from June 24, 2017 until November 13, 2018---a prison overstay of 508 days. Id.

Mister Embrey thus filed the complaint in this court, seeking $500 per day of his alleged prison overstay, $1 million in punitive damages, attorney's fees, and other relief. Compl. at 8.² Plaintiff accuses the government of gross negligence; false imprisonment; violating his Fourth Amendment rights through unlawful seizure; violating his Fifth Amendment rights by denying him due process; and violating his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. See id. at 1-3. Mister Embrey contends that the government's failure to release him from prison on June 24, 2017, violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 3624(a) and 4001(a). Id. at 7. Plaintiff maintains that this court has jurisdiction under Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution; the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments; several United States Supreme Court cases;³ the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346; and 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1651(a), 1491-1509, and 2679(a). Id. at 3-4.

The government has moved to dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under RCFC 12(b)(1), arguing that Mr. Embrey has failed to identify a money-mandating law that was purportedly violated. Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss (Def.'s Mot.), ECF No. 8, at 1, 3-5. Mister Embrey responded to the government's motion, reiterating his contentions that this court has jurisdiction under the previously-asserted sources of law. See Pl.'s Pro Se Objs. & Answer to Def.'s Mot. (Pl.'s Resp.), ECF No. 12, at 4-5.⁴ In that paper, Mr. Embrey also requests that the Courttransfer his case to a court of competent jurisdiction if the Court determines it lacks jurisdiction.⁵ Id. at 8. The government replied, explaining that none of the constitutional provisions relied upon by plaintiff confers jurisdiction on this court to hear Mr. Embrey's claims. Def.'s Reply, ECF No. 13, at 3. At no point in its reply did the government challenge, much less address, Mr. Embrey's motion in the alternative to transfer his case.

Plaintiff subsequently filed a sur-reply by leave of the Court. See Pl.'s Pro Se Answer to the Def.'s Reply (Pl.'s Sur-reply), ECF No. 14. Therein, Mr. Embrey repeats his contention that the Court possesses jurisdiction to hear his claims under Bivens and Article III, Section 2, while also suggesting that Article VI, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3 of the U.S. Constitution (the Supremacy and Oaths Clauses, respectively) may also be bases for this court's jurisdiction.⁶ Id. at 3. He also renews his request in the alternative for a transfer of the case. Id. at 3-4.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

Under RCFC 12(b)(1), this court must dismiss claims that do not fall within its subject-matter jurisdiction. When considering a motion to dismiss a case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under RCFC 12(b)(1), courts will accept as true all factual allegations made by the non-moving party and draw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to that party. See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974); Airport Rd. Assocs., Ltd. v. United States, 866 F.3d 1346, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (quoting Pixton v. B & B Plastics, Inc., 291 F.3d 1324, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2002)) (stating that courts must "view the alleged facts in the complaint as true, and if the facts reveal any reasonable basis upon which the non-movant may prevail, dismissal is inappropriate."); CBY Design Builders v. United States, 105 Fed. Cl. 303, 325 (2012).

A pro se litigant's complaint is to be construed liberally. See Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 98 (2007) (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976)); Harris v. Shinseki, 704 F.3d 946, 948 (Fed. Cir. 2013) ("Our previous decisions have made clear that pro se filings must be read liberally.") (citations omitted). With due regard to the leniency a court must afford to plaintiffs proceeding without the assistance of counsel, see, e.g., Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375, 381-82 (2003); Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106; Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972), they are not relieved of the bedrock requirement of pleading sufficient facts to state a claim within this court's jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. See Henke v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 799 (Fed. Cir. 1995); Reynolds v. Army & Air Force Exch. Serv., 846 F.2d 746, 748 (Fed. Cir. 1988); McNutt v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U.S. 178, 189 (1936); Taylor v. United States, 113 Fed. Cl. 171, 173 (2013) ("[F]ailures to comply with the Court's jurisdictional requirements are not excused."). Thus, it is plaintiff's burden to invoke this court's jurisdiction (in cases not involving an alleged breach of contract by the federal government) by identifying a money-mandating source of law which was allegedly violated by the United States. See United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 216-17 (1983).

B. Analysis

Like many individuals who proceed in our court without the assistance of counsel, Mr. Embrey appears to misunderstand the purpose of the Court of Federal Claims and the jurisdiction given to it by Congress. Our court is primarily empowered, under the Tucker Act, to hear cases brought against the United States government by parties alleging the breach of a contract or the violation of laws requiring the federal government to pay money damages. See 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a); Mitchell, 463 U.S. at 216-17; Smith v. United States, 709 F.3d 1114, 1116 (Fed. Cir. 2013) ("To be cognizable under the Tucker Act, the claim must be for money damages against the United States, and the substantive law must be money-mandating."). As we shall see, although Mr. Embrey cites the Tucker Act, Compl. at 2, he fails to allege that the federal government violated a money-mandating provision of law.

As defendant notes in its motion to dismiss the case, this court is empowered to hear prison-related claims for money damages in the limited context of an overturned, unjust conviction. See Def.'s Mot. at 4 (citing Humphrey v. United States, 52 Fed. Cl. 593, 596 (2002)). Mister Embrey does not allege that he suffered an unjust conviction; instead, he appears to bring the two tort claims of gross negligence and false imprisonment, for which he cites several portions of Title 28 of the U.S. Code in support of our jurisdiction. See Compl. at 2. But claims sounding in tort are expressly excluded from the jurisdiction granted to our court by Congress. See 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a) (restricting our court's jurisdiction to "cases not sounding in tort"); see also Robleto v. United States, 634 F. App'x 306, 308 (Fed. Cir.2015) ("Congress has provided that the United States District Courts have 'exclusive jurisdiction' to determine the liability of the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act."); Wood v. United States, 961 F.2d 195, 197 (Fed. Cir. 1992) ("[T]he Claims Court has jurisdiction over all . . . claims [against the United States based on the Constitution, federal statutes, federal regulations, and contracts with the United States], while the district courts have . . . exclusive jurisdiction over tort claims for any amount if they fall within the Federal Tort Claims Act."). The Court therefore cannot hear these two claims.

To the extent Mr. Embrey brings constitutional claims, those, too, must fail. The Court lacks jurisdiction to hear his Fourth Amendment claim. See Brown v. United States, 105 F.3d 621, 623 (Fed. Cir. 1997) ("Because monetary damages are not available for a Fourth Amendment violation, the Court of Federal Claims does not have jurisdiction over such a violation."); Dupre v. United States, 229 Ct. Cl. 706, 706 (1981) (per curiam) (holding that the Fourth Amendment does not "obligate the United States to pay money damages"). Mister Embrey's claim that the government violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights also fall outside the ambit of our jurisdiction. See LeBlanc v. United States, 50 F.3d 1025, 1028 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (holding that the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause is not "a sufficient basis for jurisdiction" because it does not "mandate payment of money by the government.").⁷ Similarly, the Eighth Amendment is not money-mandating, and thus...