Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-16-02356/USCOURTS-ca13-16-02356-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 346
Nature of Suit: 
Cause of Action: 

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NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

GENE S. RANA,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2016-2356

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal 

Claims in No. 1:15-cv-01060-MCW, Judge Mary Ellen 

Coster Williams.

______________________ 

Decided: November 8, 2016

______________________ 

GENE S. RANA, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, pro se. 

MOLLIE LENORE FINNAN, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

Justice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also 

represented by BENJAMIN C. MIZER, ROBERT E.

KIRSCHMAN, JR., STEVEN J. GILLINGHAM.

______________________ 

Before TARANTO, LINN, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

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2 RANA v. US

PER CURIAM. 

Gene Rana, a former captain in the Army, was discharged from active duty in 2004 and honorably discharged from the Army Reserve in 2005. In three 

proceedings before the Army Board for Correction of 

Military Records, he sought correction of his military 

records. Eventually, he brought suit in the United States 

Court of Federal Claims. Arguing that he was wrongfully 

discharged in reprisal for whistleblowing, he presented 

claims under the Military Pay Act and the Military Whistleblower Protection Act as well as various tort claims. 

The court dismissed Mr. Rana’s claims for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm.

I 

Mr. Rana enlisted in the Army on November 4, 1990, 

and he was promoted to first lieutenant on September 27, 

1995. He left active duty and was transferred to the U.S. 

Army Reserve on February 10, 1998. On March 18, 2001, 

Mr. Rana was ordered to active duty as part of the Active 

Guard Reserve program for a three-year term with the 

323rd Military Intelligence Battalion, 99th Reserve 

Support Command. He was promoted to captain on 

March 20, 2001.

The records of Mr. Rana’s Board for Correction proceedings in 2004, 2007, and 2009 disclose many of the 

facts relevant to this case. Mr. Rana received several 

negative officer evaluation reports in 2001 and 2002, 

referring to poor interpersonal skills. On September 6, 

2002, he made a complaint to the Army’s Inspector General alleging reprisal against him for requesting a commander’s inquiry into alleged misconduct by another 

armed services member. 

On October 17, 2002, Mr. Rana’s battalion commander suspended his security clearance, citing unsatisfactory 

performance, and ordered him to undergo mental and 

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physical health evaluations. He was detailed to the 

5115th Garrison Support Unit for rehabilitation on October 29, 2002. On December 12, 2002, Mr. Rana’s former 

commander initiated a flag, thereby precluding subsequent duty, while the flag was in force, in the Active 

Guard Reserve program. Army Regulation 135–18 table 

2–6.1 The stated justification for the flag was multiple 

periods of absence without leave and the illegal extension 

of a “sick in quarters” period. According to Board for 

Correction records and the opinion of the Court of Federal 

Claims, Mr. Rana received a second flag in early 2003. 

J.A. 2, 19. 

A Board of Inquiry was convened to consider the negative reports concerning Mr. Rana, and it did so on September 20–21, 2003.2 More than a year later, on October 

14, 2004, he was notified that the Board of Inquiry never 

made a final decision because, before that Board’s work 

was complete, he had been released from active duty in a 

 

1 A flag is an administrative tool used “to prevent 

and/or preclude . . . [e]xecution of favorable actions to a 

Soldier who may be in an unfavorable status . . . [or 

m]ovement of a Soldier when it is in the best interests of 

the Army for the Soldier to remain in his or her current 

unit or at his or her current location until cleared of 

ongoing actions.” Army Regulation 600–8–2 ¶ 2–1(a). 

Flags are lifted when the disciplinary or administrative 

action is concluded. Id. ¶ 2–1(c). 

2 A Board of Inquiry is used in the Army to establish and record facts related to an officer’s alleged misconduct, substandard performance of duty, or conduct 

incompatible with military service. Army Regulation 

600–8–24 ¶ 4–6. Based on findings of fact, the Board 

makes a recommendation for the officer’s disposition. Id.

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separate administrative action.3 Specifically, Mr. Rana 

was told on March 1, 2004, that he would be released from 

active duty because the flags served as nonwaivable 

disqualifications from the Active Guard Reserve program, 

and he was actually released from active duty on March 

17, 2004. He was then transferred to the U.S. Army 

Control Group. Mr. Rana was notified on March 24, 2005, 

that a second Board of Inquiry had recommended his 

discharge from the Control Group, and he was honorably 

discharged from the Control Group, and hence from the 

Army Reserve, the next day. 

The Board for Correction considered Mr. Rana’s challenges to his treatment, which sought correction of his 

records, in three separate proceedings. Dissatisfied with 

the results of the proceedings, the last of which was 

announced in July 2009, Mr. Rana filed a complaint in the 

Court of Federal Claims on September 22, 2015, alleging 

that he had been wrongfully discharged because of his 

actions as a military whistleblower. Compl. at 2–4. 

According to his complaint, the negative records were 

fabricated in response to prior whistleblowing activities 

and it was the fabricated records that ultimately led to his 

2004 and 2005 discharges. Compl. at 2–3. Mr. Rana 

sought back pay, correction of military records, and 

$10,000,000 in compensation for pain and suffering, loss 

of livelihood, and defamation. Compl. at 12–13.

On the government’s motion, the Court of Federal 

Claims dismissed Mr. Rana’s claims for lack of subjectmatter jurisdiction. Mr. Rana appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3). 

 

3 Later, the Inspector General concluded that the 

Army committed certain errors in the Board of Inquiry 

proceeding but that the errors did not impair Mr. Rana’s 

ability “to be heard and to protect [his] rights at the Board 

of Inquiry.” J.A. 54.

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II

We review de novo the decision to dismiss a case for 

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. E.g., Boyle v. United 

States, 200 F.3d 1369, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000). “[W]e accept 

a plaintiff’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true and 

draw all reasonable inferences in its favor.” Pennington 

Seed, Inc. v. Produce Exch. No. 299, 457 F.3d 1334, 1338 

(Fed. Cir. 2006). 

For the Court of Federal Claims to have jurisdiction 

over Mr. Rana’s claims, the claims must come within the 

Tucker Act. The Tucker Act provides as follows: 

The United States Court of Federal Claims shall 

have jurisdiction to render judgment upon any 

claim against the United States founded either 

upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or 

any regulation of an executive department, or upon any express or implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated or unliquidated 

damages in cases not sounding in tort. 

28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). That statute “does not create any 

substantive right enforceable against the United States 

for money damages”; such a right must be found outside 

the Tucker Act itself. United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 

392, 398 (1976). 

A 

At the outset, we reject Mr. Rana’s contention, which 

relies on Reynolds v. Army and Air Force Exchange Service, 846 F.2d 746 (Fed. Cir. 1988), that the Court of 

Federal Claims improperly dismissed his case “without 

affording [him] a fair hearing of the case.” Petitioner’s Br. 

4. Here, unlike in Reynolds, it is clear that the plaintiff 

“was afforded an opportunity to establish . . . jurisdictional facts before dismissal.” Reynolds, 

846 F.2d at 748. Mr. Rana was given an adequate opportunity to be heard on the jurisdictional issues: he was 

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allowed to file four documents opposing the government’s 

motion to dismiss. J.A. 8–9. Mr. Rana complains that he 

was not allowed to present evidence about the merits of 

his claims, but fair process as to the jurisdictional motion 

required only that he have an adequate opportunity to 

present evidence bearing on jurisdiction. Reynolds, 846 

F.2d at 748. He had that opportunity.

B 

Mr. Rana challenges the jurisdictional dismissal of his 

claim under the Military Pay Act, 37 U.S.C. § 204. The 

Tucker Act generally covers Military Pay Act claims 

where the plaintiff alleges “that, because of the unlawful 

discharge, the plaintiff is entitled to money in the form of 

the pay that the plaintiff would have received but for the 

unlawful discharge.” Martinez v. United States, 333 F.3d 

1295, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (en banc). But there is an 

additional requirement for the Court of Federal Claims to 

have jurisdiction: such a claim must be filed in a timely 

fashion under 28 U.S.C. § 2501, which states that “[e]very 

claim of which the United States Court of Federal Claims 

has jurisdiction shall be barred unless the petition thereon is filed within six years after such claim first accrues.” 

See John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U.S. 

130, 134 (2008) (holding that § 2501 is jurisdictional and 

not subject to equitable tolling). A discharge claim seeking back pay “accrues at the time of the plaintiff’s discharge.” Martinez, 333 F.3d at 1304. 

The Court of Federal Claims dismissed the claim here 

for untimeliness. We agree that Mr. Rana’s claim was 

untimely. Contrary to Mr. Rana’s contention, the six-year 

clock for challenging his active-duty and Reserve discharges in 2004 and 2005 began running when they 

occurred, well before the Board for Correction rendered its 

decision in 2009 (and denied reconsideration in 2010 and 

2011). “This court and the [Court of Federal Claims] have 

frequently addressed and rejected the argument that the 

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cause of action for unlawful discharge does not accrue 

until the service member seeks relief from a correction 

board and the correction board enters a final decision 

denying relief.” Martinez, 333 F.3d at 1304. Seeking the 

merely permissive administrative remedy available from

a correction board is not a prerequisite to filing a suit 

challenging a discharge, and so the six-year clock begins 

to run without waiting for the correction board. Id.; see 

also Heisig v. United States, 719 F.2d 1153, 1155 (Fed. 

Cir. 1983). Mr. Rana’s claims accrued fully by 2005, 

which is far more than six years before he filed this suit in 

2015. 

Mr. Rana argues that his claims nevertheless are not 

barred by the statute of limitations because he recently 

learned of new relevant evidence. He invokes the doctrine 

under which accrual of a claim is sometimes suspended

“until the claimant knew or should have known that the 

claim existed.” Martinez, 333 F.3d at 1319. But that 

doctrine is “strictly and narrowly applied.” Id. The 

plaintiff “must either show that [the] defendant has 

concealed its acts with the result that the plaintiff was 

unaware of their existence or it must show that its injury 

was inherently unknowable at the accrual date.” Id. Mr. 

Rana has not made either showing so as to make the 2015 

suit timely. 

Mr. Rana points to some evidence about what the 

Board for Correction believed regarding the chain of 

command and about the vacatur of the September 2003 

Board of Inquiry decision. But neither point undermines 

the simple facts that his claim addresses his discharge, 

not various military board decisions, and he knew that he 

was discharged from active duty in 2004 and believed that 

discharge to be wrongful at the time (hence his institution 

of the 2004 Board for Correction review). We rejected an 

accrual-suspension argument in Martinez where the 

plaintiff knew, “[a]s of the date of his discharge from 

active duty, . . . that he had been discharged and, as far as 

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he was concerned, his discharge had been unlawfully 

procured.” 333 F.3d at 1319. There is no basis for a 

different conclusion here. Dismissal of the Military Pay 

Act claim was therefore proper.4 

C 

Mr. Rana challenges the jurisdictional dismissal of his 

claim under the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, 

which prohibits reprisal against a member of the armed 

forces for making certain communications to an Inspector 

General. 10 U.S.C. § 1034(b)(1). To come within the 

Tucker Act, the Military Whistleblower Protection Act 

would have to be money-mandating, i.e., carry a monetary-compensation remedy for its violation. E.g., Moden 

v. United States, 404 F.3d 1335, 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2005). 

The Court of Federal Claims concluded that this whistleblower statute is not money-mandating. J.A. 5.

We agree. We drew the same conclusion a few years 

ago in a non-precedential decision, where we relied on the 

fact that the Military Whistleblower Protection Act provides for a specific non-monetary remedy—correction of 

the record of a prohibited personnel action—but does not 

provide for monetary relief. Lewis v. United States, 476 F. 

App’x 240, 244 (Fed. Cir. 2012); see 10 U.S.C. § 1034(g)(5) 

(“The Secretary concerned shall order such action . . . as is 

necessary to correct the record of a [prohibited] personnel 

action.”). We see no reason to draw a different conclusion 

now. Dismissal of Mr. Rana’s reprisal claim was therefore 

proper. 

 

4 Mr. Rana makes various factual assertions in the 

Memorandum in Lieu of Oral Argument that he submitted to us. We see nothing in those assertions, which 

appear to bear on whether he was properly discharged, 

that would satisfy the standard for suspending the accrual of his claim for timeliness purposes. 

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D 

Mr. Rana does not explicitly appeal the dismissal of 

his claims for loss of livelihood, defamation of character, 

and pain and suffering. Regardless, we see no error in 

that dismissal. Such claims, “sounding in tort,” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(a)(1), are outside the Tucker Act’s jurisdiction. See 

U.S. Marine, Inc. v. United States, 722 F.3d 1360, 1372 

(Fed. Cir. 2013).

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of 

the Court of Federal Claims. 

No costs.

AFFIRMED

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