Johnson v. Va Medical Center

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: November 16, 2012
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2012-1866
• Status: Published

Opinion

FILED

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT Nnv 1 6 Zmz FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA C|erk. U.S. District & Bankruptcy courts for the District of columbia

Charles Johnson, Jr., ) )

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) Civil Action No.

VA Medical Center, ) )

Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the Court on the plaintiff s pro se complaint and application to proceed in forma pauperis. The Court will grant the plaintiff’ s application and dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The subject matter jurisdiction of the federal district courts is limited and is set forth generally at 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1332. Under those statutes, federal jurisdiction is available only when a "federal question" is presented or the parties are of diverse citizenship and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. A party seeking relief in the district court must at least plead facts that bring the suit within the court's jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a). Failure to plead such facts warrants dismissal of the action. See Fed. R. Civ. P. l2(h)(3).

The plaintiff is a resident of Springdale, Maryland, suing the VA Medical Center in the District of Columbia. He alleges that staff at the Medical Center subjected him to a strip-search and also searched his bed and loc’ker for drugs on November 13, 2011, when he was a patient in the Medical Center’s Psychiatric Unit. Complaint at 2. The plaintiff states that the "incident made me feel less than a human being, [having] been done by nurses from the center[,]" instead of the Medical Center’s "police

force." Id. The plaintiff has pleaded no amount in controversy to bring his claim within the Court’s l

diversity jurisdiction, and the complaint’s allegations do not present a federal question. Hence, the

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DATE; october 3§/ ,2012 umwa states Disrri¢rrudge

complaint will be dismissed.l

l A separate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.