Inko-Tariah v. United States Postal Service

CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedJanuary 20, 2023
DocketCivil Action No. 2022-2751
StatusPublished

This text of Inko-Tariah v. United States Postal Service (Inko-Tariah v. United States Postal Service) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Inko-Tariah v. United States Postal Service, (D.D.C. 2023).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

CHARLES AWUSIN INKO-TARIAH,

Plaintiff,

v. Case No. 1:22-cv-02751 (TNM)

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE,

Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

After decades of allegedly poor service, a man sued the U.S. Postal Service for breach of

contract, mail mishandling, mail fraud, and constitutional violations. But the Court lacks

jurisdiction over his contract, tort, and constitutional claims for damages. And neither may the

Court grant Inko-Tariah injunctive relief as he points to no waiver of sovereign immunity. But

even if he did, he states no claim. So the Court will dismiss Inko-Tariah’s Complaint.

I.

Charles Awusin Inko-Tariah served many years in prison for what he terms a “subway

arson havoc incident.” Compl. at 1, ECF No. 1-1. While in prison, he claims that he had various

problems with his mail: Twice, staff at the prison’s mailroom confiscated “prized manuscript[s]”

that had been sent to him. Id. at 5. And other “incoming and outgoing mails” failed to reach

their destination over twenty times. Id. When he complained about that, prison staff “presided

over an illegal kangaroo court and extrajudicially sentenced [him] to death . . . via poison placed

on his foods [and] toxic fumes released in his cell.” Id.

Inko-Tariah’s mail troubles continued after he was released. According to him, last year

he tried to mail his self-published book, American Evil Empire: Rumbling at the Jungle, to a

journalist. Id. at 2. Even though Inko-Tariah sent the book “priority mail/certified mail,” he

1 never received a return receipt. The first time he followed up with the Postal Service, it told him

that his return receipt was lost and to check back later. Id. at 3. The next time, the Postal

Service told him that its “website was ‘down.’” Id. And the time after that, it told him that his

package had been delivered in December 2021. Id. at 3–4. But when Inko-Tariah checked the

tracking number, he saw that the delivery date had been “falsified and backdated to October

2021,” nearly two months before he had sent it. Id. at 4.

The saga did not stop there. In 2021, Inko-Tariah’s other “important legal mail . . . never

reached its destination.” Id. at 3–4. And, he adds, the Postal Service may have “colluded with

[other] government agencies,” including the FBI, CIA, DHS, and NSA. Pl.’s MSJ at 4, ECF No.

6.

Upset, Inko-Tariah sued the Postal Service in the Superior Court of the District of

Columbia for breach of contract, “mail mishandling,” and “mail fraud.” See Compl. at 1. And

he claims that the Postal Service violated his First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights “to be

free from unreasonable search and seizure without due process of law.” See Pl.’s Opp’n at 1,

ECF No. 9. 1 Inko-Tariah asks for $1.5 million in damages. Plus, he wants an injunction

requiring the Postal Service to stop stealing and to return his mail. Id. at 2.

The Postal Service removed the case to this Court and then moved to dismiss under

Federal Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 4. The Court denied the Postal

Service’s motion without prejudice because it had failed to address Inko-Tariah’s constitutional

1 Inko-Tariah also cites “U.S.C. 1708,” presumably referring to 18 U.S.C. § 1708, a criminal statute proscribing mail theft. Opp’n at 1. But that provision does not provide a cause of action because it is a “bare criminal statute, with no other statutory basis for inferring that a civil cause of action exists.” Lee v. USAID, 859 F.3d 74, 77–78 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (cleaned up).

2 claims or request for injunctive relief. See Order, ECF No. 11. The Postal Service then filed a

renewed motion to dismiss. See Renewed Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 12.

II.

To survive the Postal Service’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), Inko-Tariah must

show that this Court has jurisdiction. Georgiades v. Martin-Trigona, 729 F.2d 831, 833 n.4

(D.C. Cir. 1984). When deciding a 12(b)(1) motion, the Court presumes that it lacks jurisdiction.

Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). Though the Court takes

all Inko-Tariah’s factual allegations as true, it may also consider other undisputed facts in the

record. Jerome Stevens Pharms., Inc. v. FDA, 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

To survive the Postal Service’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), Inko-Tariah must

“state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)

(cleaned up). To do that, he must plead facts “that allow[] the court to draw the reasonable

inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. The Court must take those

facts as true and draw all reasonable inferences in Inko-Tariah’s favor. L. Xia v. Tillerson, 865

F.3d 643, 649 (D.C. Cir. 2017). But the Court need not credit legal conclusions disguised as

factual allegations. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

Because Inko-Tariah represents himself, the Court holds his Complaint to a “less

stringent standard[]” than one drafted by a lawyer. Raven v. Sajet, 334 F. Supp. 3d 22, 28

(D.D.C. 2018). And the Court must consider all Inko-Tariah’s factual allegations, whether

contained in the complaint or other filings. Id.

III.

The Postal Service moves to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6). The Court

agrees that it lacks jurisdiction over Inko-Tariah’s tort, contract, and constitutional claims to the

3 extent that he seeks money damages. So it will dismiss those claims.

A.

Start with Inko-Tariah’s tort and contract claims. The Postal Service claims that the

Court lacks jurisdiction over those claims because the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to hear

them in the first place. And because the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction, the Postal Service

says, this Court does too. The Court agrees. To the extent that Inko-Tariah seeks money

damages for the Postal Service’s torts or the Postal Service’s breaches of its contracts, the Court

lacks jurisdiction under the doctrine of derivative jurisdiction.

The doctrine of derivative jurisdiction holds that “when a federal defendant removes a

case under Section 1442, the federal court may hear the plaintiff's claims only if the state court

had jurisdiction to hear the those claims.” Williams v. Perdue, 386 F. Supp. 3d 50, 54 (D.D.C.

2019); see also Lambert Run Coal Co. v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 258 U.S. 377, 382 (1922)

(“If the state court lacks jurisdiction of the subject-matter or of the parties, the federal court

acquires none.”). For purposes of Section 1442, the D.C. Superior Court is a state court.

Williams, 386 F. Supp. 3d at 54, n.2. So—perhaps counterintuitively—a case removed to a

district court must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction even if the district court would have had

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