Judkins v. Veterans Admin.

• Decision Date: 28 November 2005
• Docket Number: No. 5:05-CV 51FL(1).,5:05-CV 51FL(1).
• Citation: 415 F.Supp.2d 613
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of North Carolina
• Parties: Charlie M. JUDKINS, Plaintiff, v. VETERANS ADMINISTRATION, Defendant.

415 F.Supp.2d 613

Charlie M. JUDKINS, Plaintiff, v. VETERANS ADMINISTRATION, Defendant.

No. 5:05-CV 51FL(1).

United States District Court, E.D. North Carolina, Western Division.

November 28, 2005.

Charlie M. Judkins, Henderson, NC, Pro se.

Steve R. Matheny, U.S. Attorney's Office, Raleigh, NC, for Veterans Administration, Defendant.

ORDER

FLANAGAN, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the court on the motion of defendant to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction (DE # 24) pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(a)(1). Plaintiff pro se has responded by letter to the clerk's Rule 12 letter and in this posture the motion is ripe for decision. For the reasons that follow, the court grants defendant's motion to dismiss.

PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is a mentally disabled veteran who has been ruled incompetent to manage his own finances. Consequently, the Department of Veterans' Affairs ("VA") has appointed a legal custodian, Henry Teich of the law firm of Grimes & Teich, LLP, to receive plaintiff's veteran benefits and manage said funds on plaintiff's behalf. Plaintiff's fiduciary receives approximately $2300 per month in veteran benefits from the VA. This money is, then disbursed to pay plaintiffs rent, utilities, and various debt obligations. Plaintiff also receives approximately $800 per month in cash between his social security benefits and a small weekly personal allowance paid out by the custodian.

This civil action was initially filed on February 4, 2005, with plaintiff complaining that the VA through its fiduciary was not adequately covering his expenses and paying his bills in a timely manner. Specifically, plaintiff has attached copies of a gas bill, water/sewer bill, car insurance bill, and a statement from a financing company, which all show the accounts to be overdue. The VA first moved to dismiss on June 24, 2005, on the basis of defective service of process. By Order dated July 6, 2005, this court gave plaintiff an additional 30 days to properly serve his complaint, which he did. This matter is now back before the court on the VA's motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Defendant argues that jurisdiction is lacking in this court because jurisdiction to review an adverse benefits decision is vested solely in the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.¹

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that federal jurisdiction is appropriate when challenged by the defendant. McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U.S. 178, 189, 56 S.Ct. 780, 80 L.Ed. 1135 (1936); Adams v. Bain, 697 F.2d 1213, 1219 (4th Cir.1982). When the 12(b)(1) motion attacks the complaint as failing to state facts upon which subject matter jurisdiction may be based, the facts in the complaint are alleged to be true and the plaintiff is afforded the same protections he or she would receive under a 12(b)(6) motion. Adams, 697 F.2d at 1219. The 12(b)(1) motion may alternatively attack the existence of subject matter jurisdiction in fact, apart from the complaint. Id. This type of attack is used when a court's limited jurisdiction precludes hearing the case brought. Materson v. Stokes, 166 F.R.D. 368, 371 (E.D.Va.1996). Because the court's power to hear the case is at issue in a 12(b)(1) motion, the court is free to weigh the evidence to determine the existence of jurisdiction. Adams, 697 F.2d at 1219.

II. Analysis

The dispositive issue presented by this motion is whether the government has waived sovereign immunity for the claim asserted by plaintiff. It is axiomatic that this court does not have jurisdiction to decide cases brought against the United States except where the government has expressly consented to being sued. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 212, 103 S.Ct. 2961, 77 L.Ed.2d 580 (1983). Sovereign immunity cannot be avoided by suing individual federal agencies, such as the VA, eo nomine. See, e.g., Blackmar v. Guerre, 342 U.S. 512, 514, 72 S.Ct. 410, 96 L.Ed. 534 (1952). Rather, sovereign immunity is implicated any time that "the judgment sought would expend itself on the public treasury or domain, or interfere with the public administration, or if the effect of the judgment would be to restrain the Government from acting, or to compel it to act." Dugan v. Rank, 372 U.S. 609, 620, 83 S.Ct. 999, 10 L.Ed.2d 15 (1963) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Plaintiff at various points throughout this litigation has filed a motion for default judgment in the amount of $1 billion for alleged violations of his constitutional rights and negligence in the supervision of plaintiff's fiduciary (DE # 7), a subsequent motion for judgment in the amount of $5 million for the same conduct (DE # 22), and an "emergency motion" for $1000 to pay certain overdue bills that the appointed custodian has allegedly refused to pay (DE # 8). Fairly read, therefore, plaintiff is seeking only a relatively modest amount of money that he deems necessary to care for and sustain himself, together with a much more substantial sum as compensation for any consequential harm (such as to his credit rating) and, presumably, as punitive damages for the alleged constitutional deprivations. Since the VA is named as defendant and any monetary judgment would necessarily be paid from the public treasury, the court must dismiss the complaint for damages unless the United States has clearly and unequivocally waived its sovereign immunity in this case.²

To the extent that a plaintiff seeks monetary relief for alleged violations of his constitutional rights, federal courts have consistently refused to countenance damages actions against the United States based solely on substantive constitutional grounds. See, e.g., Radin v. United States, 699 F.2d 681, 684-85 n. 8 (4th Cir.1983). Similarly, the United States and its agencies cannot be held liable for punitive damages in the absence of express statutory authorization. See, e.g., Kasprik v. United States, 87 F.3d 462, 465 (11th Cir.1996); accord Manuel v. United States, 50 F.3d 1253, 1260 (4th Cir.1995). Thus, absent a specific statutory provision conferring jurisdiction in this court, plaintiff's claim will be barred.

Title 38 U.S.C. § 511 provides a limited waiver of sovereign immunity with respect to benefits decisions of the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Subsection (a) sets out as a general rule that "[t]he Secretary shall decide all questions of law and fact necessary to a decision ... under a law that affects the provision of benefits ... to veterans," and that "the decision of the Secretary as to any such question shall be final and conclusive and may not be reviewed by ... any court." Subsection (b) then delineates several exceptions to that general rule; of these, the only exception pertinent to plaintiff's case is one providing that veteran benefits decisions are subject to judicial review, but only in the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Id. §§ 511(b)(4), 7252(a).

This then begs the question of whether the administrative action plaintiff complains of is one "under a law that affects the provision of benefits." The court's own research into this area of the law has uncovered only a few analogous cases. In Whitmire v. United States Veterans Administration, 661 F.Supp. 720 (W.D.Wash. 1986), plaintiff was determined to be incompetent and a fiduciary was appointed to receive and manage his monthly benefits. Plaintiff then brought suit against the VA, claiming that he was being deprived of his pension without due process of law and seeking unrestricted access to the money. The court dismissed the action, holding that plaintiff must pursue his claim through the administrative process established by Congress in 38 U.S.C. § 7101 et seq. Id. at 722. Similarly, in Carney v. G.I. Jane, 2005 WL 2277490 (S.D.Tex. Sept. 16, 2005) (order adopting report and recommendation of Recio, M.J.), an incompetent veteran brought suit to contest the VA's choice of a legal custodian after the original payee (the plaintiff's father) withdrew from that position. The district court determined that it was without jurisdiction to hear the cause, holding that "[t]he United States has only consented to be sued in regards to these matters in the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims." Id. at *1.

By contrast, the district court in In re Guardianship and Conservatorship of Edwin Blunt, 358 F.Supp.2d 882 (D.N.D. 2005) (Miller, M.J.), determined that there was subject matter jurisdiction over a challenge to the VA's decision to make veteran benefits payments directly to the Veterans Home where the incompetent veteran was housed despite the fact that a state court had already appointed a legal guardian to manage the veteran's finances and affairs. The court in Blunt found the necessary waiver of sovereign immunity under the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. § 702, which provides for judicial review of administrative actions where not otherwise precluded by statute and where only non-monetary relief is sought. Id. at 890. The court further held that 38 U.S.C. § 511(a) does not foreclose district court review under the APA because "review of payee determinations by the Secretary" are not "subject to review under the alternate scheme of review" established by, inter alia, 38 C.F.R. Parts 3 and 19. Id. at 891. The court also relied in part on a decision of the Court of Veterans Appeals (now the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims) holding that it lacks jurisdiction to review VA determinations as to which of two persons should have been selected as an authorized payee of an incompetent veteran's benefits. Id. (citing Willis v. Brown, 6 Vet.App. 433, 435-36 (1994)). The court in Blunt then concluded that the fact a particular administrative action is not reviewable in the Court of Veterans Appeals pursuant to 38 U.S.C. § 522(b)(4)...