Keehn v. United States

• Decision Date: 01 March 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12-27C,12-27C
• Parties: NEIL F. KEEHN, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

NEIL F. KEEHN, Plaintiff,

v.UNITED STATES, Defendant.

No. 12-27C

United States Court of Federal Claims

Filed: March 1, 2013

Pro Se Plaintiff; Motion to

Dismiss; Lack of Subject Matter

Jurisdiction; Statute of

Limitations; Breach of Contract;

Fifth Amendment Taking;

Intellectual Property.

Neil F. Keehn, Santa Monica, CA, pro se.

Michael D. Austin, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, Department of Justice, Washington D.C., for the defendant. With him were Todd M. Hughes, Deputy Director, Jeanne E. Davidson, Director, Commercial Litigation Branch and Stuart F. Delery, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division.

OPINION

HORN, J.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Neil F. Keehn, a pro se plaintiff, asserts claims against the United States based on thirty-one breaches of implied-in-fact contracts or, in the alternative, thirty-one claims based on the Takings clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1491 (Supp. V 2011). Plaintiff also alleges that the equitable doctrines of quantum meruit and unjust enrichment provide a basis for his claims.

Mr. Keehn's complaint states, "[t]his Claim is based upon a precept that is as old as humankind itself: a man is worth his daily bread." He notes that, "[i]n 1970, armed with a bachelors degree in mathematics, and a masters degree in electrical engineering, Plaintiff decided to devote his career to national defense," which "resulted in a huge mistake on his part." Mr. Keehn's complaint also states that, "over a period from 1975 until 1992, he became solely responsible for technological innovations that have generated an estimated $8.7B, yes, billion in corporate revenues, that continue to grow to this very day." (emphasis in original). Mr. Keehn alleges that he "never received any monetary compensation for the intellectual property that has led to billions of dollars in corporate revenues for the defense industry as well as valuable contributions to nationalsecurity policy and guidance for the Government." Mr. Keehn further alleges he worked for a number of different employers throughout his career, including the Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Science Applications, Inc. Mr. Keehn also claims that he completed various projects for the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the United States Air Force, and that he owned and operated his own company, Strategic Systems Sciences, Inc., from 1981 to 1990.¹

Plaintiff described his work for Northrop Grumman, as follows:

[M]ost of the people that plaintiff worked for told him repeatedly that since he enjoyed his work so much, he should be working 24/7, and, if there was any justice in the world, he would be paying them for the honor and the privilege to do so. But this wasn't the first employer that Plaintiff had had that had spewed such nonsense. If there is a defense company in this country that is a good employer for those who seek an honest day's pay for an honest day's work, Plaintiff does not know of it. They're all the same, just horrible places to work for those employees responsible for getting the work done.

Plaintiff expressed frustration with the concept of working for the defense industry on his "own time," stating:

At this point, let's be clear about the concept of one's "own time." It is standard in this country to work 40 hours per week for the salary that is provided to the employee. If a situation arises in which more than 40 hours are required, such as when a proposal is being prepared, employees, usually engineers, often work much longer hours. There are two recognized remedies for this circumstance. The most widely one [sic] is to allow the employee to take compensatory time off to offset the time that the employee worked for more than 40 hours in a week once the task is completed. The alternative policy is to put the employee on paid overtime. But the defense industry frowns upon both of these policies for those engineers that are highly productive. In the case of such employees, the implicit, if not explicit policy is for the highly productive engineer to be prepared to work as many hours per week as his or her management demands, without any compensation other than his or her weekly salary. For such individuals, the concept of one's "own time" simply does not exist, and Plaintiff was warned on several occasions in the 1970s not to assert that he possessed his "own time." Of course,demanding a 24/7 workweek violates federal law under the McNamara-O'Hara Act, but it was nonetheless accepted practice for those few engineers in any given organization who were held responsible for getting the work done. For those who were lazy sycophants, management didn't care whether they ever did any work because at the very least, such people generated overhead revenues, which helped pay for management. That is one reason national defense is so expensive.

Plaintiff explains that his frustration stems from the fact that, "most of the intellectual property that is the subject of this Claim that resulted in the technological innovations described below was generated on his own time without any payment for his time or materiel [sic]."

In summary form, the following are the thirty-one allegations made by Mr. Keehn, together with amounts he requests as compensation.² They appear to derive from tasks Mr. Keehn alleges he completed.

1. Developed the Special Access Communication System, for which plaintiff seeks $2,120,000.00.³ Plaintiff alleges to have worked on this space system program in "the late 1980s."

2. Developed Special Demodulators for radar signal modulations, for which plaintiff seeks $50,000.00. Plaintiff alleges to have begun his work on this task in 1975 and learned that he did not receive compensation for this work in 1979.

3. "Developed Multispectral/Hyperspectral Imagery Applications Program," for which plaintiff seeks $20,000,000.00. (emphasis in original). According to Mr. Keehn, "[p]laintiff began his quest to introduce the strategic applications of multispectral imagery technology by writing a white paper, in October 1978, which he then sent to two officers at Strategic Air Command headquarters."

Plaintiff alleges that, "[b]y the summer of 1980, Science Applications, Inc [sic] had reneged on its promises to Plaintiff regarding the multispectral imagery opportunity." (emphasis in original).

4. "Provided foundation for the Military LANDSAT Space System," a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the United States Geological Survey, for which plaintiff seeks $20,000,000.00. (emphasis in original). In 1984, plaintiff alleges he met with Marvin Richman, a "retired Air Force colonel as well as a Central Intelligence Agency retiree," who allegedly told plaintiff that "he had just been to a meeting of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Mr. Richman had seen Plaintiff's original briefing presented at that meeting."

5. "Developed the Satellite Communication Relay concept, which became the M-22 Tactical Network," for which plaintiff seeks $20,000,000.00. (emphasis in original). Plaintiff alleges he developed this concept in 1976, at which time the Boeing Company personnel "began to brief it around the intelligence community."

6. Developed system and operational concepts for utilization of the Space Transportation System for Crisis Reconnaissance, for which plaintiff seeks $25,000,000.00. Plaintiff states that he "suggested that the Shuttle could be used for crisis reconnaissance" in 1977, and that he "managed this study until his departure for Science Applications, Inc." in 1980. (emphasis in original). According to plaintiff, "by that time, the management of Northrop Grumman Corporation, having told Dr. Babcock and his people that they did not know what they were doing, resulted in a cancellation of the program." (emphasis in original).

7. Identified ten missions for the Inertial Upper Stage for operational support to strategic forces, for which plaintiff seeks $1,080,000.00. According to plaintiff, "[o]n November 18, 1981, Plaintiff went to the White House to brief Dr. Victor H. Reis, then-Assistant Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. While Plaintiff did not receive a contract to further develop the concept of utilizing OTVs [orbital transfer vehicles], he started a process that lead to their use, for which he spent many thousands of dollars of his own funds, and for which he never received any monetary compensation whatsoever." (emphasis in original). Plaintiff states, "[t]his technological innovation purportedly became a highly classified program when it was illegally misappropriated by a retiring Air Force general who didn't understand military operations. Thus, that particular program was cancelled after two years."

8. "Developed a series of electronic warfare methods against adversary satellites to enhance strategic operations," for which plaintiff seeks $432,000.00. (emphasis in original). According to plaintiff, "[t]his task wascommenced in 1980," and in 1987, "plaintiff found that his work had been funded to another company."

9. Developed utilization concept for retired boosters (e.g., the THOR, an intermediate range ballistic missile) to enhance United States strategic operations, for which plaintiff seeks $72,000.00. Plaintiff states that he began work on this task in 1983. George D. Miller, then a Lieutenant General of the United States Air Force, wrote to plaintiff on June 26, 1984, saying that, "[t]he possible benefits of the proposal do not support the funding required to effect launch of the remaining nine Thor boosters."

10. "Identified ten satellite relay services in support of Department of Defense roles and missions," for which plaintiff seeks $432,000.00. (emphasis in original). According to plaintiff, "[i]n the 1984-85 time-frame, Plaintiff developed ten satellite relay concepts to reduce costs of

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