Potter v. United States

• Decision Date: 21 July 2022
• Docket Number: 22-0720
• Parties: MARCADES RISHELLE POTTER, Plaintiff, v. THE UNITED STATES, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

MARCADES RISHELLE POTTER, Plaintiff, v. THE UNITED STATES, Defendant.

No. 22-0720

United States Court of Federal Claims

July 21, 2022

Pro Se Plaintiff; Sua Sponte Dismissal for Lack of Jurisdiction Sovereign Citizen Allegations; In Forma Pauperis

Marcades Rishelle Potter, Chester, PA, pro se.

Catharine M. Parnell, United States Department of Justice Washington, DC, for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

MARGARET M. SWEENEY, SENIOR JUDGE

Pro se plaintiff Marcades Rishelle Potter seeks declaratory and unspecified monetary relief arising from the United States' purported misappropriation of her "Estate." For the reasons discussed below, the legal fiction underlying plaintiff's claim is insufficient to establish jurisdiction in this court; therefore, the court dismisses plaintiff's complaint. The court also grants plaintiff's application to proceed in forma pauperis.

I. BACKGROUND

On June 28, 2022, plaintiff filed a form complaint accompanied by an appendix of documents. In the complaint, plaintiff alleges that the "United States was and is acting as" the "custodian" of her "Estate" because, pursuant to the "Cestui Que Vie Act [of] 1666," it presumed that she was dead or had abandoned her "Estate." Compl. 1.^[1] She further alleges that neither presumption is accurate-she is alive and has not abandoned her "Estate." Id. She represents that to support her allegations, she attached to her complaint evidence of "the United States['] involvement over the said Estate" and the name and registration number of the "Estate." Id. at 2. Finally, without any further explanation of the nature of her claim or the jurisdictional basis for asserting her claim in this court, she requests a declaration that she is "the entitlement holder of the said Estate," a declaration that she is alive, and to "be compensated the interest of the Estate from the 'United States.'" Id. at 3.

Turning to the complaint's appendix, some of the documents appear to set forth a philosophical foundation for plaintiff's claim, while others are in the form of estate planning documents apparently intended to support her claim. The court will not examine each of these documents in detail here, but instead presents a brief overview of their contents.

The first document is titled "Notice and Warning to Utility Companies." Compl. App. 1. The key allegation in this document is a reference to the "bankruptcy" of the United States that purportedly occurred in 1933. See id. ("Since House Joint Resolution 192 (HJR 192) (Public law 7310) was passed in 1933 we have only had debt, because all property and gold w[ere] seized by the government as collateral in the bankruptcy of the United States."). The document also includes the following passage, presented without alteration:

Every judge and every attorney in America, especially those who hold positions with several direct connections into the utilities companies bank accounts and acting as attorneys for the banks, most presumably in all other countries as well, since they all get their instructions from England the same place that all the banks get their instructions through the Comptroller of The Currency headquarters in London England, each knowing the above and incorporated to be true, since they are well versed on the U.S. Bankruptcy of 1933 and that America still remains to date in a state of Emergency and operates under English Law, though that also is supposed to be a well-kept secret.

This means there "IS NO MONEY." It further means that since there is no money American's signatures are used as the credit to run this country. That in turn means that it is the American people whom are the Creditors not the Debtors, as the banks and utilities companies would like everyone to believe.

Id. at 2.

The second document is a "Schedule of Fees," through which plaintiff purports to establish specific monetary penalties for various infractions related to the "Trust" which owns the "Copyright, trademark, [and] trade name . . . Marcades Rishelle Potter, © TM." Id. at 3. For example, the unsolicited "Interrogation" of the trustee of the "Trust" as to that person's name or driver's license number is a $10,000 infraction. Id. at 3-4. Requiring a signature under "threat, duress, or coercion" is a $1,000,000 infraction. Id. at 4.

The third document is a "First Will and Testament of the Grantor," in which plaintiff purports to provide identifying information for the estate that is the basis for her claim:

I, Constanzia Trishelle Pearson, being of sound mind and over the age of 40, as Grantor of the private trust security - Estate MARCADES RISHELLE POTTER, Registration Number 1989-0072416, Date of Registration - September 27, 1989, do Bless and do Grant Irrevocable Power of Attorney over said trust security to my daughter Marcades R Potter, her agents and/or assigns this twentieth day of October, 2019[.]

Id. at 5. In the next document, an "Affidavit of Correction," plaintiff asserts that she is correcting an error on her birth certificate because the name on the birth certificate is in all capital letters, which must be "considered a fictitious name," whereas the "proper form" should be written "Marcades Rishelle Potter." Id. at 6.

The next two documents are affidavits, one "of Knowledge of Facts" and another "of Life," which appear to have the purpose of establishing, respectively, the truth of the assertions in the documents attached to the complaint, and that plaintiff is indeed alive. Id. at 7-9. In the two documents that follow, plaintiff references the Corpus Juris Secundum and the Cestui Que Vie Act of 1666, and includes passages attributed to these authorities related to a "presumption of death" and the circumstance of a person being alive after having been presumed dead. Id. at 10-13. Plaintiff then presents a Declaration of Trust, id. at 14-25, in which she identifies "MARCADES RISHELLE POTTER 1989-0072416" as a component of the trust corpus, id. at 24. The final document is a "Last Will and Testament of Marcades Rishelle Potter." Id. at 26-33.

In conjunction with her complaint, plaintiff filed an application to proceed in forma pauperis. Having considered all of plaintiff's submissions, and finding a response from defendant unnecessary, the court is prepared to adjudicate plaintiff's claim.

II. DISCUSSION

Although the legal theory presented in support of plaintiff's claim is cryptic, the complaint has all of the hallmarks of a sovereign citizen suit. As is common in these suits, plaintiff relies on a legal fiction to support a monetary claim that has no basis in the laws of the United States. Before explaining further, the court addresses the governing standards of review.

A. Standards of Review

1. Pro Se Plaintiffs

Pro se pleadings are "held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers" and are "to be liberally construed." Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976)). However, the "leniency afforded to a pro se litigant with respect to mere formalities does not relieve the burden to meet jurisdictional requirements." Minehan v. United States, 75 Fed.Cl. 249, 253 (2007); accord Henke v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 799 (Fed. Cir. 1995) ("The fact that [the plaintiff] acted pro se in the drafting of his complaint may explain its ambiguities, but it does not excuse its failures, if such there be."). In other words, a pro se plaintiff is not excused from her burden of proving, by a preponderance of evidence, that the court possesses jurisdiction. See Banks v. United States, 741 F.3d 1268, 1277 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing Reynolds v. Army &Air Force Exch. Serv., 846 F.2d 746, 748 (Fed. Cir. 1988)).

2. Jurisdiction

Whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction to decide the merits of a case is a threshold matter. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 94-95 (1998). "Without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause." Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506, 514 (1868). The question of subject-matter jurisdiction "may be raised . . . by a court on its own initiative[] at any stage in the litigation." Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 506 (2006); accord Folden v. United States, 379 F.3d 1344, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

The ability of the United States Court of Federal Claims to entertain suits against the United States is limited. "The United States, as sovereign, is immune from suit save as it consents to be sued." United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 586 (1941). The waiver of immunity "cannot be implied but must be unequivocally expressed." United States v. King, 395 U.S. 1, 4 (1969).

The Tucker Act, the principal statute governing the jurisdiction of this court, waives sovereign immunity for claims against the United States that are founded upon the United States Constitution, a federal statute or regulation, or an express or implied contract with the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). However, the Tucker Act is merely a jurisdictional statute and "does not create any substantive right enforceable against the United States for money damages." United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 392, 398 (1976). Instead, the substantive right must appear in another source of law, such as a "money-mandating constitutional provision, statute or regulation that has been violated, or an express or implied contract with the United States." Loveladies Harbor, Inc. v. United States, 27 F.3d 1545, 1554 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (en banc).

To determine whether it has jurisdiction, the court discerns the true nature of the claim in the complaint...