Allen v. United States

United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided October 22, 2019·No. 19-1303·Published

Opinion

In the Giuted States Court of Federal Claims

No, 19-1303C Filed: October 22, 2019

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% WALTER ALLEN, : Plaintiff, * * Pro Se Plaintiff; Subject-Matter V. * Jurisdiction; Frivolous Complaint; UNITED STATES, * Sanctions. Defendant.

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Walter Allen, pro se, Brooklyn, NY.

Sosun Bae, Attorney of Record, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendant. With her was Robert E. Kirschman, Jr., Director, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, and Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division.

ORDER

HORN, J.

On August 27, 2019, pro se plaintiff Walter Allen filed a handwritten complaint in the United States Court of Federal Claims. Plaintiff's writing is difficult to decipher and his allegations are difficult to follow, but it appears that in his complaint before this court, plaintiff is alleging that two of his applications to change his federal income tax withholding amounts were not acted upon by the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS). Piaintiff begins his complaint: “All Related to unlimited Jurisdiction with = Distribution for me-plaintiff and Authorities. Plused unlimited court hearings and my cAse heard.”! Plaintiff attached to his complaint two NYCERS Federal income Tax Withhoiding Change applications (Form F-349), the first dated December 12, 2015 and the second dated May 3, 2016. On each application, plaintiff handwrote a request to withhold

' Capitalization, grammar, punctuation, abbreviations, spelling, emphasis, and choice of words when quoted in this Order are as they originally appear in plaintiff's submissions to this court.

7018 OO40 0001 1393 2430

“$900,000,000,000,000.00 *nine hundred trillions dollars*” of federal income tax from his pension payments under part 4 “ADDITIONAL AMOUNT TO WITHHOLD PER MONTH.” Plaintiff submitted two typed letters on ietterhead with the NYCERS name, dated December 17, 2015 and May 5, 2016 respectively, which stated that plaintiff's applications had been “successfully processed.” Plaintiff states in his complaint that he sent “Email complaints” that were “Approved” with a “CASEWORK # 904009.” Plaintiff does not state to whom the “Email complaints” were sent and no email correspondence or evidence of further correspondence was submitted to this court with plaintiffs complaint. Moreover, it is not clear from the plaintiff's complaint, or the documents submitted with the complaint, what documents were “Approved” or the meaning of “successfully processed” as used by the NYCERS in the letters attached to plaintiff's complaint. Plaintiff requests from this court that the amount listed in part 4 of his Form F-349 applications, nine hundred trillion dollars, “be Approved claimed,” as well as “one hundred million zillion dollars” awarded to him for what the court can decipher from plaintiff's handwriting is alleged to be “True Complaint Info.” Plaintiff also requests from the court that “All Employees Involved with Ignoring Section (4) Amt. Terminated for discourtesy and discredit while performing his/her duties.”

DISCUSSION

The court recognizes that plaintiff is proceeding pro se. When determining whether a complaint filed by a pro se plaintiff is sufficient to invoke review by a court, a pro se plaintiff is entitled to a more liberal construction of the pro se plaintiffs pleadings. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (requiring that allegations contained in a pro se complaint be held to “less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers”), reh’g denied, 405 U.S. 948 (1972); see also Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007); Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 9-10 (1980); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976), reh’'g denied, 429 U.S. 1066 (1977); Matthews v. United States, 750 F.3d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2014); Jackson v. United States, 143 Fed. Cl. 242, 245 (2019); Diamond v. United States, 115 Fed. Cl. 516, 524 (2014), aff'd, 603 F. App’x 947 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 1909 (2015). However, “there is no ‘duty [on the part] of the trial court ... to create a claim which [plaintiff] has not spelled out in his [or her] pleading... .” Lengen v. United States, 100 Fed. Cl. 317, 328 (2011) (alterations in original) (quoting scogin v. United States, 33 Fed. Cl. 285, 293 (1995) (quoting Clark v. Nat'l Travelers Life ins. Co., 518 F.2d 1167, 1169 (6th Cir. 1975))); see also Bussie v. United States, 96 Fed. Cl. 89, 94, affd, 443 F. App’x 542 (Fed. Cir. 2011); Minehan v. United States, 75 Fed. Cl. 249, 253 (2007). “While a pro se plaintiff is held to a less stringent standard than that of a plaintiff represented by an attorney, the pro se plaintiff, nevertheless, bears the burden of establishing the Court's jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence.” Riles v. United States, 93 Fed. Cl. 163, 165 (2010) (citing Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. at 9; and Taylor v. United States, 303 F.3d 1357, 1359 (Fed. Cir.), reh’g and reh’g en banc denied (Fed. Cir. 2002)); see also Kelley v. Secretary, U.S. Dep't of Labor, 812 F.2d 1378, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 1987) (“JA] court may not similarly take a liberal view of [] jurisdictional requirement[s] and set a different rule for pro se litigants only.”).2 Hale v. United States,

2 Several recent, though unpublished, cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have cited Kelley v. Secretary, U.S. Dep't of Labor for the proposition

143 Fed. Cl. 180, 184 (2019) (‘[E]ven pro se plaintiffs must persuade the court that jurisdictional requirements have been met.” (citing Bernard v. United States, 59 Fed. Cl. 497, 499, aff'd, 98 F. App’x 860 (Fed. Cir. 2004))); Golden v. United States, 129 Fed. CI. 630, 637 (2016); Shelkofsky v. United States, 119 Fed. Cl. 133, 139 (2014) (“[Whhile the court may excuse ambiguities in a pro se plaintiff's complaint, the court ‘does not excuse [a complaint’s] failures.” (quoting Henke v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 799 (Fed. Cir. 1995))); Harris v. United States, 113 Fed. Cl. 290, 292 (2013) (“Although plaintiff's pleadings are held to a less stringent standard, such leniency ‘with respect to mere formalities does not relieve the burden to meet jurisdictional requirements.” (quoting Minehan v. United States, 75 Fed. Cl. at 253)).

“Subject-matter jurisdiction may be challenged at any time by the parties or by the court sua sponte.” Folden v. United States, 379 F.3d 1344, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing Fanning, Phillips & Molnar v. West, 160 F.3d 717, 720 (Fed. Cir. 1998)), reh’g and reh’g en banc denied (Fed. Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 545 U.S. 1127 (2005); see also St. Bernard Parish Gov't v. United States, 916 F.3d 987, 992-93 (Fed. Cir. 2019) ("[T]he court must address jurisdictional issues, even sua sponte, whenever those issues come to the court's attention, whether raised by a party or not, and even if the parties affirmatively urge the court to exercise jurisdiction over the case.” (citing Foster v. Chatman, 136 S. Ct. 1737, 1745 (2016)); Int'l Elec. Tech. Corp. v. Hughes Aircraft Co., 476 F.3d 1329, 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2007). The Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491 (2018), grants jurisdiction to this court as follows:

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