BEAVER v. USA

Filing 8

ORDER of Dismissal granting 5 Motion to Dismiss - Rule 12(b)(1) and (6). The Clerk is directed to enter judgment dismissing the complaint without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Signed by Judge Thomas C. Wheeler. (dls) Copy to parties.

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Iftr tlle @rfte! sltuteg @ourt of /elersl {.Iuimg
No. l3-509C
(Filed: January 6,2014)
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MARTIN WILLIAM

BEAVER,

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FILED
iAN 6 2014
U.S. COURT OF
FEDERAL CLAIMS

Plaintiff,

THE UNITED STATES,
Defendant.

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ORDER OF DISMISSAL
On September 24,2013, counsel for the Govemment filed a motion to dismiss pro
se Plaintiff Martin William Beaver's complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction
under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the court of Federal claims ("RCFC") and for failure
to state a claim under Rule l2(bx6). Because Mr. Beaver did not respond by the due
date, the Court issued an order to show cause, requiring him to explain why his complaint
should not be dismissed. On November 20, 2013, Mr. Beaver filed his response,
augmenting his complaint with additional allegations and appealing to notions of justice
and reasonableness. Although the Court sympathizes with Mr. Beaver's current personal
situation, it must, for the reasons set forth below, dismiss his complaint for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim upon which reliefcan be granted.

A.

Subj ect

Matter Jurisdiction

Subject matter jurisdiction is defined as a court's authority to hear and decide the
case before it. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 89 (1998). Thus, the
existence of subj ect matter jurisdiction must first be established before this Court can
consider the merits of a complaint. Id. at 94-95. lf the court determines that it lacks
jurisdiction, then it must dismiss the action. RCFC l2(hX3).

In accordance with the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. $ 1491, this Court's jurisdiction is
generally limited to claims founded on a "contract, regulation, statute, or constitutional
provision that provides for money damages against the United States." Smith v. United
States, 709 F.3d 1114, 1116 (Fed. Cir.2013), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 259 (2013). ln
other words, a plaintiffs claims must be based on a source of law that requires the
Govemment to pay a sum of money as compensation for the loss or injury it caused.
United States v. Mitchell,463 U.S. 206,216 (1983).
Whether this standard has been met is determined by reference to the complaint,
which must "state the necessary elements of the plaintiff s claim." Holley v. United
States, 124 F.3d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Although pro se pleadings are held to a
relatively lenient standar d, pro se litigants still bear the burden of establishing jurisdiction
by a preponderance of the evidence. Kalick v. United States, 109 Fed. Cl. 551' 556
(2013), aff'd, No. 2013-5065,2013 WL 5992074 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 13, 2013). When the
complaint is not clearly articulated, the Court will "look to the true nature of the action in
determining the existence or not ofjurisdiction." Katz v. Cisneros, 16 F.3d 1204, 1207
(Fed. Cir. 1994).

In this case, the "true nature of the action" involves only private parties, not the
Govemment, and therefore is not within this Court's jurisdiction' Specifically' Mr.
Beaver states that he "was 'separated' from Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS) on April
17, 2012 after over 24 years of service," and was "compelled" to sign a severance
agreement, including a provision that RMS would never rehire him. Compl. 1-2; Resp. 3.
As relief, Mr. Beaver requests the Court to "order Raytheon Corporate Human Resources
to expunge that provision and immediately reinstate [him] back to [his] Raytheon 'home'
in Santa Barbara," Compl. 4, and award him $5,339,692.09 in damages, Compl.4, 12.

The incident underlying Mr. Beaver's separation from RMS occurred

in
For approximately the
November 2011, when he moved to a new workspace. Compl. 1.
previous seventeen years, RMS had provided Mr. Beaver with an extemal hard drive,
where he stored 'tens of thousands" of unclassified but confidential company files,
including "documents and data associated with [RMS's] development of the AN/ALE-5O
system and related activities." Compl. 1. Mr. Beaver was aware that over the years some
of that originally unclassified data may have been upgraded in classification level, for
example, to secret. Compl. 2. Because his new workspace did not permit storage of the
drive, he asked his supervisor and other individuals at RMS what to do with it, but, as his
In the
move date approached, he still had not received clear guidance. Compl.
absence of guidance, Mr. Beaver "decided the only professional, responsible thing to do
was to encrypt" the drive and take "it to [his] home office, which is alarmed and/or
guarded 2417." CompL
In December 2011, a few weeks after Mr. Beaver took the
hard drive to his home, he was contacted by an RMS human resources officer and told he

l.

l.

was suspended with pay, then driven home by RMS security personnel, who retrieved
both the hard drive and Mr. Beaver's laptop. Compl. 2; Resp. 3. On April 17 ' 2012, Mr.
Beaver was separated from RMS with "no explanation." Compl. 2.

The critical point is that these allegations, which form the foundation of Mr.
Beaver's complaint, involve actions by private parties only, and any claims arising from
these acts performed by RMS necessarily fall outside this Court's jurisdiction. See May
v. United States, No. 2012-5109, 2013 WL 3984993, at *3 (Fed' Cir. Aug. 6, 2013) (.'Ulf
the relief sought is against others than the United States the suit as to them must be
ignored as beyond the jurisdiction of the court." (quoting United States v. Sherwood,3l2
U.S. 584, 588 (19a1))); Hufford v. United States, 85 Fed. C1.607,608 (2009) ("[T]his
Court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to entertain controversies between private
parties."). Nonetheless, Mr. Beaver attempts to state claims against the Govemment on
two grounds: first, because he "believe[s] that Raytheon simply acted as [the
Govemment's] puppet"; second, because his future career prospects have been
"destroyed" by the Govemment's investigation into his conduct. Compl. 4.

B.

Stating a Claim

In order to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a
complaint must be "plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,678 (2009).
Facial plausibility exists when the complaint, viewed in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff, contains "factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference
that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id. Determining whether such
an inference is reasonable is "a context-specific task that requires the . . ' court to draw on
its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679.

Mr. Beaver's first argument for stating a claim against the Government fails
because it is based not on facts, but on "conclusion[s] couched as ... facfual
allegation[s]." Kam-Almaz v. United States, 682 F.3d 1364, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2012)
(quoting Bell Atl. Com. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544,555 (2007)). For example, although
Mr. Beaver "infer[s] . . . that [his separation from RMS] was in the Govemment's hands,"
Compl. 2, and concludes that "[t]he situation resulted from excessive undue action by the
U.S. Air Force," Compl. 1, there are no concrete allegations that would support such an
inference or conclusion. In fact, according to Mr. Beaver, RMS informed him that he
"would never be reinstated," regardless of the results of the Govemment's investigation.
Compl. 3. In other words, his separation from RMS was a decision made by his private
employer and, therefore, cannot support a claim against, or jurisdiction over, the
Government.

His second argument fails because "no one has a 'right' to a security clearance,"
let alone to be free from security investigations. Gargiulo v. Dep't of Homeland Sec.,
727 F.3d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (quoting Dep't of Naw v. Eqan, 484 U.S. 518, 528
(1988). Regardless of whether Mr. Beaver is correct that "[b]eing a subject of an FBI
investigation ... is a career killer," Compl. 3, the fact that his conduct resulted in an
investigation does not give rise to a cause ofaction in this Court. Indeed, the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has "consistently held that employees do 'not have a
liberty or property interest in access to classified information, and the termination of that
access therefore [does] not implicate any due process concems."' Id. at 1185 (quoting
Jones v. Dep't of Navy,978F.2d 1223, 1225 (Fed. Cir. 1992)).

C. Transfer
When dismissing an action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Court shall,
"if it is in the interest ofjustice, transfer such action or appeal to any other such court in
which the action . . . could have been brought at the time it was filed." 28 U.S.C. $ 163 l.
In this case, however, transfer would not be in the interest of justice because the
complaint does not state a cognizable claim against any party. In essence, Mr. Beaver's

complaint boils down to his termination by a private company for taking home a
company hard drive which may have contained classified information. Nowhere does
Mr. Beaver allege any actual wrongdoing on the pat of either the Govemment or RMS,
and therefore there is no justification for transferring this action to another court.

D. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Defendant's motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and
Plaintiffs complaint is DISMISSED without prejudice for lack of subject matter

jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

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THOMAS C. WHEELER
Judge

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