Willie-Jay Smith-Bey v. Shanelle Hamlin, II

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 3, 2025
• Docket: 23-55788
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 3 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

WILLIE-JAY SMITH-BEY, No. 23-55788

Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:23-cv-02600-ODW-PD v.

SHANELLE CSS HAMLIN II; TERRIE MEMORANDUM* HARDY, Director, Los Angeles Child Support Service Title VI-D agency; COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; JACQUES C. ADRIEN, CRD No. 2996942; E* TRADE SECURITIES, LLC; DOES, 1-100,

Defendants-Appellees,

and

MORGAN STANLEY,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Otis D. Wright II, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 3, 2025, 2025** San Francisco, California

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). Before: FRIEDLAND, BENNETT, and BADE, Circuit Judges.

Willie-Jay:Smith-Bey III ©1 appeals the district court’s order dismissing with

prejudice his first amended complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We

review de novo a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. See Myers v. Bennett Law

Offices, 238 F.3d 1068, 1071 (9th Cir. 2001). We affirm.

The district court determined that Smith-Bey’s allegations were insubstantial

and devoid of merit, and therefore, it lacked federal question jurisdiction.2 “Under

the substantiality doctrine, the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction when

the question presented is too insubstantial to consider.” Cook v. Peter Kiewit Sons

Co., 775 F.2d 1030, 1035 (9th Cir. 1985) (citing Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528,

536–39 (1974)). “The claim must be ‘so insubstantial, implausible, foreclosed by

prior decisions of this Court or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to

involve a federal controversy within the jurisdiction of the District Court.’” Id.

(quoting Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661, 666 (1974)).

Smith-Bey does not directly challenge the court’s determination that his

1 Appellant styles his name in this manner. 2 The district court also determined that Smith-Bey did not adequately allege diversity jurisdiction. See In re Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) Antitrust Litig., 546 F.3d 981, 984 (9th Cir. 2008) (“The party asserting jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction on a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”). Smith-Bey has not challenged that determination on appeal.

2 claims were devoid of merit. Instead, he asserts that the district court “erred by not

up holding [sic] the First Amendment, Fourteen[th] Amendment and the Snyder Act

of 1924 of indigenous U.S. citizenship.” Smith-Bey generally cites these provisions

and argues that the district court failed to provide him notice and an opportunity to

be heard before dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction. The district court,

however, notified Smith-Bey that his allegations were insubstantial and devoid of

merit, and gave him the opportunity to file an amended complaint. He did so, but

he did not cure the defects noted in the district court’s order.

Smith-Bey has not shown that the court erred in concluding that the claims

asserted in his amended complaint are devoid of merit. Accordingly, we affirm the

district court’s dismissal under the substantiality doctrine. See id. (explaining the

difference between dismissal for failure to state a claim and dismissal under the

substantiality doctrine).

AFFIRMED.