Lamb v. United States
| Decision Date | 26 July 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 21-3000 (RDM) |
| Parties | JERRY GORALSKI LAMB, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
This is Plaintiff Jerry Goralski Lamb's third lawsuit involving the same series of events. For a brief time in 2016 Plaintiff worked as a private contractor assigned to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (“MCC”). When he started that assignment, Plaintiff thought that the required government background investigation had been completed, but he soon learned that the investigation was still ongoing. A few weeks later, he was fired without explanation. To get to the bottom of the matter, Plaintiff filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C § 552, and the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a seeking records related to his work as an MCC contractor. In his first case, Plaintiff sought to compel the MCC to disclose records responsive to those requests. See Lamb v. Millennium Challenge Corp., No. 16-cv-765 (“Lamb I”), Dkt. 1 (Compl.).[1] Then, based on the records he received, Plaintiff filed a second suit, asserting four constitutional due process claims, two Privacy Act claims, and other claims against the MCC and James Blades, an MCC employee. See Lamb v. Millennium Challenge Corp., No. 19-cv-589 (“Lamb II”), Dkt. 1 (Compl.). In December 2020, with leave of Court, Plaintiff filed an amended complaint in Lamb II, adding claims against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671 et seq. See Lamb II, Dkt. 29 (Am. Compl.). The Court dismissed Plaintiff's FTCA claims in Lamb II for failure to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit, as required by statute. See Lamb v. Millennium Challenge Corp., --- F.Supp.3d ---, 2021 WL 4439234, at *10-11 (D.D.C. Sept. 27, 2021) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a)). Plaintiff's due process claims and one of his Privacy Act claims in Lamb II remain pending, however, and the parties are engaged in discovery, which is set to close on September 2, 2022. See Lamb II, Minute Entry (Mar. 17, 2022).
On November 12, 2021, Plaintiff (once again proceeding pro se) brought this case, his third lawsuit (“Lamb III”). Dkt. 1 (Compl.). In this case, he names the United States as the Defendant and seeks to recover pursuant to the FTCA. Id. The complaint, however, is not the picture of clarity because it tracks Plaintiff's factual allegations in Lamb II, compare id. at 3-7 (Compl. ¶¶ 10-27), with Lamb II, Dkt. 29 at 3-5 , and it includes four “causes of action,” each of which bears the same “Due Process” caption that appears in the ongoing Lamb II litigation, compare Dkt. 1 at 7-20 (Compl. ¶¶ 28-51), with Lamb II, Dkt. 29 at 6-11 (Am. Compl.). The first few paragraphs of each “cause of action” in Lamb III are the same as those in Lamb II. But, in Lamb III, Plaintiff adds four new identical paragraphs to each of the preexisting “causes of action.” See Dkt. 1 at 8-20 (Compl. ¶¶ 31-34, 36-39, 43-46, 48-51). As the Court understands Plaintiff's current claims, each of those additional paragraphs corresponds to a common law cause of action that Plaintiff now asserts pursuant to the FTCA: (1) “the tort of negligence;” (2) “the tort of . . . wrongful termination;” (3) “the tort of Respondeat Superior;” and (4) the “tort of infliction of emotional distress.” See, e.g., Dkt. 1 at 8-10 (Compl. ¶¶ 3134).[2]
The United States moves to dismiss Plaintiff's claims in Lamb III pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Dkt. 7 at 1. It first argues that the Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction because Plaintiff failed to satisfy the FTCA's “presentment requirement.” Id. at 7-9. The United States also argues that, even if the Court has subjectmatter jurisdiction, Plaintiff's claims should be dismissed because (1) they are time-barred, id. at 9-10, and (2) Plaintiff fails plausibly to allege any common law tort claims that fall within the scope of the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity, id. at 10-14.
As explained below, the Court concludes that it has subject-matter jurisdiction but that Plaintiff fails to state a claim. The Court, accordingly, will GRANT the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6).
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) challenges the Court's subject-matter jurisdiction. A Rule 12(b)(1) motion “may take one of two forms.” Hale v. United States, No. 13-1390, 2015 WL 7760161, at *3 (D.D.C. Dec. 2, 2015). First, it “may raise a ‘facial' challenge to the Court's jurisdiction.” Id. A facial challenge asks whether the complaint alleges facts sufficient to establish the Court's jurisdiction. McCabe v. Barr, 490 F.Supp.3d 198, 210 (D.D.C. 2020); see also Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992). To survive a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss an FTCA claim, the plaintiff must plausibly allege facts sufficient to invoke the statute's waiver of sovereign immunity. Johnson v. Veterans Affs. Med. Ctr., 133 F.Supp.3d 10, 14 (D.D.C 2015) (citing Tri-State Hosp. Supply Corp. v. United States, 341 F.3d 571, 575 (D.C. Cir. 2003)). In this posture, the Court must accept the factual allegations of the complaint as true. Erby v. United States, 424 F.Supp.2d 180, 182 (D.D.C. 2006) (collecting cases).
“Alternatively, a Rule 12(b)(1) motion may pose a ‘factual' challenge to the Court's jurisdiction.” Hale, 2015 WL 7760161, at *3 (citing Erby, 424 F.Supp.2d at 182-83). When a motion to dismiss is framed in this manner, the Court “may not deny the motion . . . merely by assuming the truth of the facts alleged by the plaintiff and disputed by the defendant” but “must go beyond the pleadings and resolve any disputed issues of fact the resolution of which is necessary to a ruling upon the motion to dismiss.” Phoenix Consulting Inc. v. Republic of Angola, 216 F.3d 36, 40 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (collecting cases). The Court “has considerable latitude in devising the procedures it will follow to ferret out the facts pertinent to jurisdiction,” so long as it “afford[s] the nonmoving party an ample opportunity to secure and present evidence relevant to the existence of jurisdiction.” Prakash v. Am. Univ., 727 F.2d 1174, 1179-80 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (citations and quotation marks omitted).
A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Rule 12(b)(6), in contrast, “tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint.” Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002). In evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court “must first ‘tak[e] note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state [the] claim to relief,' and then determine whether the plaintiff has pleaded those elements with adequate factual support to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Blue v. District of Columbia, 811 F.3d 14, 20 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (alterations in original) (citations omitted) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675, 678 (2009)). The complaint, however, need not include “detailed factual allegations” to withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). A plaintiff may survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion even if “recovery is . . . unlikely,” so long as the facts alleged in the complaint are “enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. at 555-56 (citations and quotation marks omitted).
A pro se complaint, “however inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976)). “This benefit is not, however, a license to ignore the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” Sturdza v. United Arab Emirates, 658 F.Supp.2d 135, 137 (D.D.C. 2009) (citation omitted), and thus a pro se complaint must “still ‘present a claim on which the Court can grant relief' to withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) challenge,” Smith v. Scalia, 44 F.Supp.3d 28, 36 (D.D.C. 2014) (citations omitted). As with any other plaintiff, a pro se plaintiff must meet his burden of establishing subject-matter jurisdiction. See, e.g., Green v. Stuyvesant, 505 F.Supp.2d 176, 178 (D.D.C. 2007).
The United States first argues that Plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies because he “never in form or substance ‘presented'” his tort claims to the MCC. Dkt. 7 at 7. The FTCA provides, in relevant part, that “[a]n action shall not be instituted upon a claim against the United States for money damages for injury or loss . . . caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, unless the claimant shall have first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency and his claim shall have been finally denied by the agency in writing and sent by certified or registered mail.” 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). This exhaustion requirement is “known as the FTCA's ‘presentment requirement,' and it ‘is a jurisdictional prerequisite to filing suit.'” Lamb v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, No. 20-cv-3036, 2022 WL 203433, at *5 (D.D.C. Jan. 24, 2022) (quoting Tookes v. United States, 811 F.Supp.2d 322, 331 (D.D.C. 2011)). A “jurisdictionally adequate presentment is one which provides to the appropriate agency (1) a written statement sufficiently describing the injury to enable the agency to begin its own investigation, and (2) a sum-certain damages claim.” GAF Corp. v. United States, 818 F.2d 901, 905 (D.C. Cir. 1987).
The Court concludes that Plaintiff has satisfied the “minimal” standard for presentment under the FTCA.[3] Tookes, 81...
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