Cummings v. United States Dep't of Justice

1

ROMELL CUMMINGS, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 22-2251 (CKK)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

July 6, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION

COLLEEN KOLLAR-KOTELLY UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

On March 25, 2022, plaintiff filed a cryptically worded pro se Complaint in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), ECF No. 1-2. On August 1, 2022, defendant removed the case to this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1442(a)(1) and 1446.^[1]Not. of Removal, ECF No. 1. Pending is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. For the following reasons, the motion will be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

In the signed form Complaint, plaintiff alleges the following:

On April 26, 2021[,] I attempted to acc [sic] DC Superior Court to file an appeal but was prevented from entering the court building by security. On July 28, 2021[,] I was told that I was no longer allowed to access Vida gym by Vin Testa. My membership at Vida is an employment benefit, therefore this action is in violation. On this same date, I realized that I had not received reimbursement of my DOJ-OJP fitness benefit.

Id. ¶ 1. In the relief section of the Complaint, Plaintiff requests “Reimbursement. Appeal of EEO Case [Number] and compensatory/punitive damages.” Id. ¶ 2. Defendant describes the Complaint as “one for employment discrimination” but posits that “it makes no coherent or cognizable employment claim.” Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 5 at 1.

In response to defendant's motion to dismiss, plaintiff asserts that this removed action is “still an open case” on summary judgment in D.C. Superior Court.^[2]Mot. to Vacate Dismissal, ECF No. 14 at 1. In a subsequent motion, plaintiff “request that” this Court “enter summary judgment having been filed in D.C. Superior Court on March 25, 2022 . . . in conjunction with EEOC Case [Number] due to the severed case not having been called to hearing.” Mot., ECF No. 16 at 1. In addition, plaintiff requests an “order” for “this case to [go] to the Supreme Court of the United States for denial of public accommodations at DC Superior Court on April 26, 2021.” Id. In yet another filing, plaintiff states that he is “a federal public official (past). I also have imminent danger considerations that require protection. Please include these considerations in my record, and take the appropriate actions immediately.” Mot., ECF No. 17. Finally, plaintiff has filed a “Motion to Cloture Email Containing MLK Notes,” ECF No. 18, a “Motion -Cloture FOIA #23-FOIA-00283,” ECF No. 19, a “Motion to Cloture Voicemail from Rev. Amos Brown,” ECF No. 20, and a “Motion Electronic Due Process/Public Accommodations,” ECF No. 21, seeking to “remove all barriers to electronic access to my case” and all barriers “to telephonic access to the courts[.]”^[3]

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and the law presumes that “a cause lies outside this limited jurisdiction.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994); see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992); Grand Lodge of Fraternal Order of Police v. Ashcroft, 185 F.Supp.2d 9, 13 (D.D.C. 2001) (stating that a court has an “affirmative obligation to ensure that it is acting within the scope of its jurisdictional authority”). As such, a court must dismiss a case pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) when it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction. In determining whether there is jurisdiction, the Court may “consider the complaint supplemented by undisputed facts evidenced in the record, or the complaint supplemented by undisputed facts plus the court's resolution of disputed facts.” Coal. for Underground Expansion v. Mineta, 333 F.3d 193, 198 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (citations omitted); see also Jerome Stevens Pharm., Inc. v. Food & Drug Admin., 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“[T]he district court may consider materials outside the pleadings in deciding whether to grant a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.”). “At the motion to dismiss stage, counseled complaints as well as pro se complaints, are to be construed with sufficient liberality to afford all possible inferences favorable to the pleader on allegations of fact.” Settles v. U.S. Parole Comm'n, 429 F.3d 1098, 1106 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

“Although a court must accept as true all factual allegations contained in the complaint when reviewing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), [a] plaintiff['s] factual allegations in the complaint . . . will bear closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion than in resolving a 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim.” Wright v. Foreign Serv. Grievance Bd., 503 F.Supp.2d 163, 170 (D.D.C. 2007) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Moreover, a court need not accept as true “a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation” or an inference “unsupported by the facts set out in the complaint.” Trudeau v. Fed. Trade Comm'n, 456 F.3d 178, 193 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). And ultimately, it remains the plaintiff's burden to prove subject-matter jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. Am. Farm Bureau v. U.S. Env't Prot. Agency, 121 F.Supp.2d 84, 90 (D.D.C. 2000).

III. DISCUSSION

Defendant argues that dismissal is necessitated by the derivative jurisdiction doctrine. See Mem., ECF No. 8 at 6-7. The Court agrees.

The doctrine of derivative jurisdiction traces its heritage to the near century's old pronouncement of the Supreme Court that “[t]he jurisdiction of the federal court on removal is, in a limited sense, a derivative jurisdiction.” Lambert Run Coal Co. v. Baltimore & O.R. Co., 258 U.S. 377, 382 (1922). Traditionally stated, the doctrine provides that “if the state court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter or the parties, the federal court acquires none upon removal, even though the federal court would have had jurisdiction if the suit had originated there.” Arizona v. Manypenny, 451 U.S. 232, 242 n.17 (1981) (citations omitted); see also Merkulov v. United States Park Police, 75 F.Supp.3d 126, 129 (D.D.C. 2014). Therefore, the operative question under the derivative jurisdiction doctrine is whether the state court from which the pending complaint was removed originally possessed jurisdiction over that civil action. See Day v. Azar, 308 F.Supp.3d 140, 142 (D.D.C. 2018) (“[M]y jurisdiction over Ms. Day's claims depends on whether the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has jurisdiction to hear Title VII claims against federal employers.”). If not, then the federal court cannot “derive” any jurisdiction from that state court upon removal, and dismissal is required. See Merkulov, 75 F.Supp.3d at 129 (“[U]nder the doctrine of derivative jurisdiction, a Federal court must dismiss a case if the State court lacked jurisdiction over the original claim.”).

“Admittedly, the justification for this derivative jurisdiction doctrine is ‘hardly obvious,' and the doctrine has faced considerable scrutiny from courts and commentators alike[.]” Robinson v. United States Dep't of Health & Hum. Res., No. 21-cv-1644 (CKK), 2021 WL 4798100, at *3 (D.D.C. Oct. 14, 2021) (quoting Ricci v. Salzman, 976 F.3d 768, 773 (7th Cir. 2020) (other citations omitted)); see id. (criticizing “the circuitous barrier the doctrine presents” especially to pro se litigants “who may not be well-versed in the technicalities of civil procedure or federal jurisdiction”). But while Congress has eliminated the doctrine altogether for cases removed under the general federal removal statute, see 28 U.S.C. § 1441(f); Palmer v. City Nat. Bank, of W. Virginia, 498 F.3d 236, 245 (4th Cir. 2007) (describing 1985 and 2002 amendments to § 1441), it has made no such parallel amendment to § 1442. See Merkulov, 75 F.Supp.3d at 130 (explaining that Congress did not abrogate the derivative jurisdiction doctrine through an amendment to § 1442). So, district courts in this jurisdiction have consistently found that the derivative jurisdiction doctrine still applies to cases against federal agencies that are removed solely under § 1442(a).^[4] Cf. Cobb v. United States, No. 21-cv-2419 (CKK), 2022 WL 2046109, at *2 (D.D.C. June 7, 2022), citing Charles v. United States, No. 21-0864 (CKK), 2022 WL 558181 (D.D.C. Feb. 24, 2022) (reaffirming holding in Charles that “derivative jurisdiction is a ‘non-issue' where 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(2) independently confers removal jurisdiction upon a [tort] complaint removed to federal court through a Westfall declaration”). And while the D.C. Circuit has not weighed in, other federal circuit courts have upheld application of the derivative jurisdiction doctrine to cases removed under § 1442.^[5]The doctrine's persistence is ultimately grounded in longstanding Supreme Court precedent that generally retains its continued vitality absent any Congressional intervention to the contrary. See State of Minnesota v. United States, 305 U.S. 382, 388-89 (1939) (“Where jurisdiction has not been conferred by Congress, no officer of the United States has power to give to any court jurisdiction of a suit against the United States.”).

Because plaintiff's complaint was removed from D.C. Superior Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a), this Court must assess its jurisdiction by asking whether D.C. Superior Court possessed subject-matter jurisdiction at the time of removal. For the reasons explained next, the answer is no.

Plaintiff's references to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suggest, at best, a claim against DOJ for employment discrimination.^[6] Th...