Tatum v. United States of America
Filing
12
ORDER signed by Judge Rudolph T. Randa on 9/17/2015 DENYING 11 Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration. (cc: all counsel, via mail to Robert Tatum at Wisconsin Secure Program Facility) (cb)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
ROBERT L. TATUM,
on behalf of Blacks (African Americans),
Plaintiff,
-vs-
Case No. 15-CV-453
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant.
DECISION AND ORDER
The plaintiff has filed a motion to alter, amend, or reconsider the
Court’s July 8, 2015, order dismissing this case for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction,
and
denying
his
motion
for
three-panel
judge/class
certification/appointment of counsel. For the reasons explained below, the
Court will deny the plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration.
Altering or amending a judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e) is
permissible when there is newly discovered evidence or where there has
been a manifest error of law or fact. Harrington v. City of Chicago, 433
F.3d 542, 546 (7th Cir. 2006) (citing Bordelon v. Chi. Sch. Reform Bd. of
Trs., 233 F.3d 524, 529 (7th Cir. 2000)); Cosgrove v. Bartolotta, 150 F.3d
729, 732 (7th Cir. 1998).
A “manifest error” is a “wholesale disregard,
misapplication, or failure to recognize controlling precedent.” Oto v. Metro.
Life Ins. Co., 224 F.3d 601, 606 (7th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted). Whether
to grant a motion to amend judgment “is entrusted to the sound judgment
of the district court.” In re Prince, 85 F.3d 314, 324 (7th Cir. 1996).
The Court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and
determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s
claims. The complaint sought to bring a class action for damages as the
result of slavery on behalf of all African-American Black people born in the
United States. The complaint also sought damages for two breaches of
contract in which the United States allegedly failed to fulfill the written
and verbal contract “to provide Blacks ‘40 Acres & a Mule’ as
Compensation for slave labor and for the routine and systematic denial of
contractual rights secured to Blacks under the U.S. Constitution.” (ECF
No. 1 at 6.)
In determining that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring these
claims, the Court reasoned as follows:
In Cato v. United States, 70 F.3d 1103, 1105 (9th Cir.
1995), descendants of enslaved African-Americans filed a
complaint against the United States government seeking
damages due to the enslavement of, and subsequent
discrimination against, African-Americans. The plaintiffs in
Cato alleged injuries based on “disparities in employment,
income, and education” between African-Americans and other
racial groups. Id. at 1109. The Cato court found that such
allegations were insufficient to establish an injury personal to
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the plaintiffs so as to establish the plaintiffs’ standing; rather,
such injuries were “a generalized, class-based grievance . . . .”
Id. Other courts faced with similar complaints have also found
that those plaintiffs had failed to establish their standing to
litigate claims based on continuing injuries alleged to be the
result of slavery. See, e.g., Bell v. United States, No. Civ. A.
301CV0338D, 2001 WL 1041792, at *2 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 31,
2001) (plaintiff lacked standing to file suit against United
States government seeking damages for the enslavement of
African-Americans); Bey v. United States DOJ, No. 95 CIV
10401, 1996 WL 413684, at *1 (S.D. N.Y. July 24, 1996)
(same); Langley v. United States, No. C 95-4227, 1995 WL
714378, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 30, 1995) (same); Himiya v.
United States, No. 94 C 4065, 1994 WL 376850, *2 (N.D. Ill.
July 15, 1994) (“Although it is extremely regrettable that this
country's history, as well as the history of many other
countries, includes a significant history of slavery, the plaintiff
does not have proper standing under the law to recover
damages for this reprehensible time period.”); see also Long v.
United States, Civil Action No. 1:06CV-P176-M, 2007 WL
2725973 (W.D. Ky. 2007); Hamilton v. United States, Civil
Action No. 1:10-CV-808, 2012 WL 760691 (E.D. Tex. 2012).
The direct victims of slavery are the plaintiff’s ancestors.
As the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals explained:
[T]here is a fatal disconnect between the victims
and the plaintiffs. When a person is wronged he
can seek redress, and if he wins, his descendants
may benefit, but the wrong to the ancestor is not a
wrong to the descendants. For if it were, then
(problems of proof to one side) statutes of
limitations would be toothless. A person whose
ancestor had been wronged a thousand years ago
could sue on the ground that it was a continuing
wrong and he is one of the victims.
In re African-American Slave Descendants Litig., 471 F.3d
754, 759 (7th Cir 2006). The plaintiff has failed to demonstrate
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the requisite standing to invoke this Court’s jurisdiction. See
e.g., Cato, 70 F.3d at 1109-10 (finding that the plaintiff does
not “have standing to litigate claims based on the stigmatizing
injury to all African Americans caused by racial
discrimination” and that “she does not trace the presence of
discrimination and its harm to the United States rather than
to other persons or institutions”).
Given that the plaintiff lacks standing on his own, he
does not have standing to represent the interest of all African
Americans born in the United States. Even if the plaintiff had
standing to represent all African Americans, as a pro se
litigant the plaintiff may only represent himself. See Green v.
Benden, 281 F.3d 661, 665 (7th Cir. 2002); see also 28 U.S.C. §
1654.
(Dkt. No. 9 at 7-8.)
In support of his motion for reconsideration, the plaintiff contends
that Blacks have standing in this matter, based on the principle of
“transferred intent” for intentional tortfeasors.
He contends that the
injuries suffered by Blacks today are “concrete, actual, and imminent” and
“invade legally protected interests such as equal protection of law, rights
against physical, emotional, economic harms, etc., which meet the
definition of ‘Harm to the Person’ entitling one to recover damages for
those harms.” (Docket No. 11 at 2.) According to the plaintiff,
Blacks (of today’s) injuries did not actually occur with the
previous generations, those generations suffered their own
injuries and damages, but the intent of harming those earlier
generations was transferred to later Blacks, both those
intended to be later harmed by the conduct of the U.S. and
-4-
those harms unforeseeable, and Blacks set forth an
illustration of their own to provide their position on
transferred intent: Parties of the U.S. take a freshly arrived
boatload of Blacks to a common area bound and shackled
during the initial slave trading period. The U.S. takes a
random sampling of the Blacks from the boatload, then
intentionally and severely beats, maims, and/or kills the
random sampling, with the intent to cause fear of disobedience
and apprehension of imminent offensive contact in those
Blacks witnessing the atrocities, causes that fear and
apprehension – an assault on Blacks (or unlawful
imprisonment by threat of force). Those Blacks then teach
their children to fear that conduct, and later those children
have that apprehension of imminent offensive contact upon
being in the U.S.’s presence (or submits to unlawful
imprisonment without disobeying). The U.S. could be liable to
those children for assault (or unlawful imprisonment) under
transferred intent.
(Docket No. 11 at 3.)
The plaintiff cites to the Restatement (Third) in support of his
contention that he and all Black people have standing based on the
transferred intent doctrine.
However, the plaintiff’s illustration of the
United States’ liability does not accurately describe the doctrine.
Restatement provides:
The doctrine of transferred intent, specific to intentional
torts, does some of the work of expanding the scope of liability
for an intentional tortfeasor, although it is not formally an
aspect of scope of liability. Instead, it is treated as an aspect of
whether the intent element is satisfied and provides that, if an
actor has the requisite intent to cause harm to one person,
that intent will be “transferred” if the actor harms another
person, even if that other person is unforeseeable. Transferred
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The
intent is particularly applicable in the trespassory torts, which
are the intentional torts most likely to involve physical harm,
the primary type of injury covered by this Restatement.
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Phys. & Emot. Harm § 33 (2010).
The plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration does not change the
Court’s analysis that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over his claims.
The plaintiff may not proceed on these claims, whatever constitutional or
statutory provision he brings them under. Also, the plaintiff has not shown
that this Court should transfer his case to the United States Supreme
Court.
NOW, THEREFORE, BASED ON THE FOREGOING, IT IS
HEREBY ORDERED THAT the plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration
(ECF No. 11) is DENIED.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this 17th day of September, 2015.
BY THE COURT:
__________________________
HON. RUDOLPH T. RANDA
U.S. District Judge
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