Young v. Foley

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: August 11, 2025
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2019-1373
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

) CORRETTA YOUNG, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) Civil Action No. 19-cv-1373 (TSC) ) KATHLEEN KERRIGAN, 1 ) ) ) Defendant. ) )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiff Corretta Young has sued the Chief Judge of the United States Tax Court

for wrongful termination. Defendant has moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter

jurisdiction and for summary judgment, ECF No. 74. For the following reasons,

Defendant’s motion to dismiss will be GRANTED and the corresponding motion for

summary judgment will be DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND

On October 14, 2020, the court dismissed all of Plaintiff’s claims save a Title

VII race discrimination claim. See Mem. Op. and Order, ECF No. 23 (Mem. Op. 1).

Plaintiff’s work history and the circumstances surrounding her termination are set out in

the prior Opinion. See id. at 1-2. Basically, less than two months into her probationary

employment as a Petitions Clerk, Plaintiff was fired on January 23, 2015, for filing late

“Federal income tax returns for 2011, 2012, or 2013” and failing to “fully” pay federal

1 By substitution pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(d). 1 income taxes “for 2010, 2011, or 2012.” Id. at 1-2. This court found the circumstances

surrounding Plaintiff’s termination to be in genuine dispute and denied Defendant’s

motion to dismiss the race discrimination claim. Id. at 7. All other claims alleging

retaliation, age discrimination, disability discrimination, and constitutional violations

were dismissed. See id. at 7-12. On March 1, 2023, Plaintiff, through appointed

counsel, filed a two-count amended complaint asserting race and sex discrimination

claims under Title VII. Pl.’s First Am. Compl., ECF No. 55-1 at 8-11.

On September 27, 2024, after the close of discovery, Defendant filed the instant

motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and for summary

judgment under Rule 56. Def.’s Mot., ECF No. 74. Plaintiff, through appointed

counsel, opposes the motion, Pl.’s Opp’n, ECF No. 77, and Defendant has filed a reply,

ECF No. 78.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Defendant moves to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. “Subject-matter jurisdiction can never be waived or

forfeited” because it “goes to the foundation of the court’s power to resolve a case.”

Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134,141 (2012); Doe ex rel. Fein v. District of Columbia,

93 F.3d 861, 871 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Before proceeding to the merits of a claim, a court

must satisfy itself that it has subject-matter jurisdiction to consider the claim. See

Brown v. Jewell, 134 F. Supp. 3d 170, 176 (D.D.C. 2015) (courts “‘have an independent

obligation to determine whether subject-matter jurisdiction exists, even in the absence

of a challenge from any party’”) (quoting Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514

2 (2006)). When, as here, “a federal court concludes that it lacks subject-matter

jurisdiction, [it] must dismiss the complaint in its entirety.” Arbaugh, 546 U.S. at 514.

In evaluating a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter

jurisdiction, the court must “assume the truth of all material factual allegations in the

complaint and ‘construe the complaint liberally, granting plaintiff the benefit of all

inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.’” Am. Nat'l Ins. Co. v. FDIC, 642

F.3d 1137, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting Thomas v. Principi, 394 F.3d 970, 972 (D.C.

Cir. 2005)). Nevertheless, “‘the court need not accept factual inferences drawn by

plaintiffs if those inferences are not supported by facts alleged in the complaint, nor

must the Court accept plaintiff’s legal conclusions.’” Disner v. United States, 888 F.

Supp. 2d 83, 87 (D.D.C. 2012) (quoting Speelman v. United States, 461 F. Supp. 2d 71,

73 (D.D.C. 2006)).

III. ANALYSIS

Defendant argues that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction because the Tax

Court is not subject to suit under Title VII. See Def.’s Mem., ECF No. 74 at 12-13.

The court agrees.

“Federal district courts are courts of limited jurisdiction,” possessing “only that

power authorized by Constitution and statute, which is not to be expanded by judicial

decree.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994) (internal

citations omitted). The United States and U.S. officials sued in their official capacity

are immune from suit save “clear congressional consent.” United States v. Mitchell,

445 U.S. 535, 538 (1980); see Clark v. Library of Congress, 750 F.2d 89, 103 (D.C.

Cir. 1984) (confirming immunity for government employees acting in their official

3 capacity). Judicial defendants “are part of the United States government for the

purposes of sovereign immunity[.]” Smith v. Scalia, 44 F. Supp. 3d 28, 38 (D.D.C.

2014), aff'd, No. 14-5180, 2015 WL 13710107 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 14, 2015). “Statutory

rights and obligations are established by Congress, and it is entirely appropriate for

Congress, in creating these rights and obligations, to determine in addition, who may

enforce them and in what manner.” Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 241 (1979).

Subject-matter jurisdiction “is an Art. III as well as a statutory requirement,” which

“functions as a restriction on federal power, and contributes to the characterization of

the federal sovereign.” Thus, a “claim barred by sovereign immunity lacks subject

matter jurisdiction and may be dismissed under a 12(b)(1) motion.” Edwards v. United

States, 211 F. Supp. 3d 234, 236 (D.D.C. 2016) (citing F.D.I.C. v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471,

475 (1994)).

Title VII applies in relevant part to “executive agencies as defined in” 5 U.S.C. §

105, namely “an Executive department, a Government corporation, and an independent

establishment,” id., and “those units of the judicial branch of the Federal Government

having positions in the competitive service,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–16(a)). Plaintiff’s

argument that the Tax Court is an independent establishment subject to suit under Title

VII, see Opp’n at 19-24, is unavailing. 2 Moreover, “employees of the judicial branch . .

. do not generally qualify as competitive service employees,” Frost v. United States,

2 Plaintiff parses language from Kuretski v. C.I.R., 755 F.3d 929 (D.C. Cir. 2014) and Crim v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 66 F.4th 999 (D.C. Cir. 2023). Because those cases analyze the constitutional separation-of-powers doctrine in the context of the President’s statutory authority to remove Tax Court judges, 28 U.S.C. § 7443(f), they do not inform this court’s sovereign immunity analysis.

4 115 Fed.Cl. 252, 256 (2014) (citing cases), and Tax Court probationary employees are

no exception. See Def.’s Mot., Ex. D (letter confirming Plaintiff’s acceptance of

contingent offer for “Excepted Service, at-will position”).

In 1969, Congress “establish[ed] the Tax Court as a court under Article I of the

Constitution,” conferring “the same powers regarding contempt, and the carrying out of

its writs, orders, etc., that Congress has previously given to the District Courts.” S.

Rep. No. 91-552, at 302; reprinted in 1969 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2027, 2037 ¶ 33, 2343. In

doing so, Congress departed “from the prior language describing the Tax Court as an

executive agency . . . to emphasize the Tax Court’s independence as a ‘court’ reviewing

the actions of the IRS,” Kuretski v. C.I.R., 755 F.3d 929, 944 (D.C. Cir. 2014), and

“perhaps” to exempt it “from statutes that apply solely to executive ‘agencies’,” id.

(citation omitted). Congress has since clarified that the “Tax Court is not an agency

of, and shall be independent of, the executive branch of the Government.” 26 U.S.C. §

7441 (2015); see Freytag v. C.I.R., 501 U.S. 868, 890-91 (1991) (“The Tax Court

exercises judicial power to the exclusion of any other function” and “remains

independent of the Executive and Legislative Branches”) and Battat v. Commissioner of

Internal Revenue, 148 T.C. 32, 50 (U.S. Tax Ct. 2017) (“[I]t appears that in 2015

Congress emphasized the Supreme Court’s characterization of the Tax Court in Freytag

and Congress’ own characterization of the Tax Court in the legislative history of the

1969 Act as independent of the executive branch.”); id. at 48 (noting, for example, that

the Tax Court “is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which by its terms

does not apply to ‘the courts of the United States’.”) (citations omitted)). The Tax

Court has observed that by deleting from the 1969 Act its “designation . . . as an

5 ‘independent agency in the Executive Branch of the Government’, . . . Congress

intended to terminate the Tax Court’s previously well-understood placement in the

executive branch.” Battat, 148 T.C. at 38-39 (emphasis added). And “Congress says

what it means and means what it says.” Banks v. Booth, 3 F.4th 445, 449, 453 (D.C.

Cir. 2021). Thus, this court “presume[s] that Congress knew what it was doing and

meant for the [deleted text] to have significance.” Federal Express Corporation v.

United States Department of Commerce, 39 F.4th 756, 768 (D.C. Cir. 2022).

Tellingly, the Tax Court is empowered to appoint “necessary employees without

regard to the provisions of [T]itle 5 . . . governing appointments in the competitive

service” who are “subject to removal by the Tax Court.” 26 U.S.C. § 7471(a)(3). The

Court “shall” to “the maximum extent feasible . . . compensate employees at rates

consistent with those of employees holding comparable positions” in Article III courts.

Id., § 7471(a)(4). It also “shall (A) prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color,

religion, age, sex, national origin, political affiliation, marital status, or handicapping

condition; and (B) promulgate [its own] procedures for resolving complaints of

discrimination by employees and applicants for employment.” Id., § 7471(a)(6).

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s motion to dismiss will be GRANTED and

its motion for summary judgment will be DENIED. A corresponding order will issue

separately.

Date: August 11, 2025

Tanya S. Chutkan TANYA S. CHUTKAN United States District Judge