Mohn v. Cardona

JUSTIN MOHN v. MIGUEL CARDONA, et al.

Civil Action No. 22-773

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania

April 14, 2022

MEMORANDUM

KEARNEY, J.

Justin Mohn agreed to borrow federal student loan money twelve years ago to finance his college education. He graduated college and worked for several years before losing his job. He claims the Department of Education encourages high school students to attend college but does not advise students of the risks of a college education financed through student loans. He now claims he cannot find employment eight years after graduating college as an overeducated white male burden with a monthly repayment of $80.45 for his student loans. He attributes his inability to find a job today, and consequently his inability to pay his student loan obligations, to the Department's negligent and fraudulent misrepresentations and violations of Pennsylvania's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. We dismissed his complaint last month for failing to state a claim consistent with our obligation to screen claims we allow to proceed without paying the filing fees. Justin Mohn pro se returns with an amended Complaint against the Department of Education and its Secretary Miguel Cardona. Congress requires we again screen his claims. He again fails to state a claim. We lack jurisdiction over Mr Mohn's action against the United States. The United States and its agency, the Department of Education, are immune from suit. Mr. Mohn does not allege how the United States waived its immunity. We dismiss Mr. Mohn's amended Complaint without prejudice to assert claims if possible consistent with Rule 11 after exhausting administrative remedies or under mandamus.

I. Alleged pro se facts.

Justin Mohn obtained federal student loans from the Department of Education in 2010 to finance his college education at Pennsylvania State University.^[1] He graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in Agribusiness Management but could not find a job in the field.^[2] Mr. Mohn's loan payments of $165 per month began six months after his 2014 graduation.^[3] He could not find a full-time job in any field. He worked part-time jobs and made monthly student loan payments.^[4]

Mr. Mohn moved to Colorado in 2015.^[5] He accepted a full-time job at a credit union earning $13 per hour which he claims is the same wage paid to his less educated co-workers.^[6] Mr. Mohn claims his low income combined with this obligation to repay his student loans caused him “quality of life damages.”^[7] By October 2016, Mr. Mohn accepted a full-time job at Progressive Insurance earning a slightly higher hourly wage.^[8] Although Mr. Mohn claims he began to experience “mental anguishes, emotional distress, and loss of quality of life” after his 2015 move to Colorado, he explains “these injuries did not seem to warrant a cause of action at that time.”^[9]He alleges he would not have sued the Department of Education “if his student loan and college degree benefits eventually outweighed the costs in the following years.”^[10] But eventually the “injuries to his finances, emotional distress, mental anguishes, and loss of quality of life damages became so grievous as to warrant a cause of action and thus this complaint.”^[11]

Progressive Insurance fired Mr. Mohn in August 2017. Mr. Mohn sued Progressive Insurance in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado alleging harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination on the basis of his sex in violation of Title VII.^[12] In his Colorado action, Mr. Mohn alleged Progressive promoted women without college degrees over him. He alleged Progressive perceived him as an “overeducated/overqualified male” and paid him less money, deprived him of paid time-off benefits, and deprived him of priority in choosing job roles and schedules than less educated women. But Judge Krieger granted summary judgment for Progressive, and the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.^[13] The United States Supreme Court denied Mr. Mohn's petition for certiorari on August 24, 2020.^[14]

Mr. Mohn returned to Pennsylvania to live with his parents.^[15] He alleges the move back to Pennsylvania caused “significant quality of life damages, mental anguishes, emotional distress, [and] took away what little financial freedom, social mobility, and independence he had.”^[16] He alleges the loss of his Progressive job caused him to stop paying his student loans.^[17]

Mr. Mohn sues Secretary Cardona and the Department.

Mr. Mohn then sued Secretary Cardona, in his official capacity, and the Department on March 1, 2022.^[18] We granted his petition to proceed in forma pauperis.^[19] He alleged (a) the Department's student loan is “predatory”; (b) the Department “hid and or misrepresented the risks and or appropriateness of [his] federal student loans”; and (c) the Department misapplied the Higher Education Act^[20] “to make his life worse off” had he not attended college funded by the student loan.^[21] He sought ten million dollars in damages, an order directing the Department to discharge or forgive his student loan, and reimbursement for the principal amount he already paid.

We screened Mr. Mohn's complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), applying the same standard used under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).^[22] We liberally construed Mr. Mohn's complaint as raising four claims: (1) negligent misrepresentation; (2) fraudulent concealment; (3) fraudulent nondisclosure; and (4) misapplication of the Higher Education Act.

We dismissed the negligent misrepresentation claim for failing to allege an affirmative material misrepresentation; dismissed the fraudulent concealment claim for failing to allege intent or a special relationship giving rise to a duty; dismissed the fraudulent nondisclosure claim for failing to allege a relationship triggering a duty; and dismissed the Higher Education Act claim because there is no private right of action under the Act.^[23] We allowed Mr. Mohn to timely amend his complaint to show how his time-barred claims merit an exception and to plead facts in good faith allowing us to plausibly infer claims consistent with Rule 11.

Mr. Mohn's amends his Complaint.

Mr. Mohn returns with an amended Complaint.^[24] He reasserts his claims for negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent misrepresentation, and fraudulent concealment. He discontinued his claim under the Higher Education Act but brought a new claim alleging the Department's “deceptive conduct” in violation of Pennsylvania's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.^[25] He again seeks ten million dollars in damages, an order directing the Department to discharge or forgive his student loans, and reimbursement for the principal he already paid on the student loans.

II. Analysis

We must screen Mr. Mohn's amended Complaint as required by Congress under section 1915(e)(2)(B). Congress directs we must dismiss a case filed without paying fees if we determine the action is frivolous or malicious; fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted; or seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief.^[26] Mr. Mohn's claims against the Department of Education, an agency of the United States, must be dismissed because the United States is immune from suit and Mr. Mohn does not allege a waiver by the United States of its immunity.

A. The United States is immune from Mr. Mohn's alleged common law tort claims and Pennsylvania's consumer protection law.

We begin with the premise the United States “enjoys baseline immunity from suit.”^[27]Absent a waiver, the United States, its agencies and their employees acting in their official capacities are immune from suit.^[28] “Sovereign immunity is jurisdictional in nature ... [and] the ‘terms of the [United States'] consent to be sued in any court define that court's jurisdiction to entertain the suit.'”^[29] Consent to be sued “must be unequivocally expressed, and the terms of such consent define the court's subject matter jurisdiction.”^[30]

Mr. Mohn does not allege how the United States waived its sovereign immunity to his tort claims. Liberally construing Mr. Mohn's complaint, we consider whether his claims may fall within a limited waiver of sovereign immunity provided in the Federal Tort Claims Act.^[31] The Federal Tort Claims Act waives sovereign immunity in claims for money damages for certain tortious conduct defined as “injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death arising or resulting from the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment.”^[32] The Federal Tort Claims Act is “the exclusive remedy for most claims against Government employees arising out of their official conduct.”^[33]

Under the Act, we have jurisdiction over damages claims against the United States “for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.”^[34]

If applicable, the Act “itself is the source of federal courts' jurisdiction to hear tort claims made against the Government that meet various criteria: ‘[T]he district courts ... shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States.'”^[35] Our jurisdiction, if we have it, does “not come from the general grant of federal-question jurisdiction of 28 U.S.C. § 1331.”^[36] Our jurisdiction, if it exists, arises from the Federal Tort Claims Act and section 1346.

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