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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 12, 2015 Decided September 18, 2015

No. 14-5002

WAYNE M. ANDERSON,

APPELLANT

v.

ASHTON B. CARTER, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cv-01243)

Jeffrey L. Light argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Bruce D. Brown and Gregg P. Leslie were on the brief for

amicus curiae The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the

Press in support of appellant.

Wayne H. Williams, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued

the cause for appellees. With him on the briefs were Ronald C.

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence and Jane M.

Lyons, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: HENDERSON and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, and

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

SENTELLE.

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part filed by

Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellant Wayne M.

Anderson is a freelance journalist. In July of 2010, he was

working as an embed journalist at a NATO base in Afghanistan. 

After he reported on a controversial shooting incident at an

adjoining Afghan national army base over the objections of

United States military personnel assigned to the NATO

operation, his embed status was withdrawn, and he was returned

to the United States. Anderson brought the present action

against the Secretary of Defense and subordinate officers in both

their personal and official capacities, seeking, as is relevant to

the present appeal, reversal of the memorandum terminating his

embed status and reinstatement of his credentials and

accommodation status. The district court dismissed appellant’s

claims in their entirety. Because we conclude that Anderson has

asserted no claim cognizable by this court, we affirm the

judgment of dismissal. 

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Allegations

Because the basis of our decision that this case must be

dismissed for lack of jurisdiction is not dependent upon any

detail of the underlying facts, our discussion will be brief. 

Further detail may be found in the district court’s opinion. See

Anderson v. Gates, 20 F. Supp. 3d 114 (D.D.C. 2013). 

In 2010, Anderson, a freelance journalist working under

contract for a Washington, DC, newspaper, applied for status of

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a military-embed journalist in Afghanistan with the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”) International Security

Assistance Force, an international force created by the United

Nations Security Council to assist in maintaining security in

Afghanistan. In process of becoming an embedded reporter,

Anderson signed and submitted an acknowledgment of the

“Media Ground Rules” required by the International Security

Assistance Force. That acknowledgment included a statement

by the embed journalist that:

I have read the media ground rules provided to me by

International Assistance Force Afghanistan (ISAF) Public

Affairs staff and agree, with my signature, to abide by them. 

I also understand that any violation of these ground rules is

cause for the revocation of my accommodated media status

with ISAF.

In July of 2010, during his first week as an embedded

reporter, Anderson videotaped and photographed casualties from

a shooting incident near the base where he was assigned. 

According to defendants, the video showed the identifiable faces

of wounded soldiers. He posted the video on YouTube without

receiving consent from the soldiers and before their next of kin

could be notified, all in violation of the Ground Rules. 

Anderson disputes the accusation that his photographs and video

product revealed the identity of the soldiers. Neither we nor the

district court need resolve that factual dispute in order to dispose

of this litigation.

A few days after the photographing and videoing incident,

Colonel Hans E. Bush reviewed a request to terminate

Anderson’s accommodated status based on his alleged violation

of the Ground Rules. Colonel Bush found that plaintiff had

violated the Ground Rules and approved the termination. As a

result of termination of his status, the military returned

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Anderson to the United States. Upon his return, he appealed the

termination through the International Security Assistance Force

Public Affairs channels. In January of 2011, Colonel Gregory

Julian, Chief of Public Affairs of the Supreme Headquarters

Allied Powers Europe and Allied Command Operations, denied

Anderson’s appeal. Both Bush and Julian were subsequently

named as defendants in this litigation.

B. The Litigation

Anderson, at that time acting without counsel, filed a threecount complaint in the United States District Court for the

District of Columbia against Robert Gates, then-Secretary of

Defense; John M. McHugh, then-Secretary of the Army;

Colonels Bush and Julian; and Colonel Sean Mulholland. The

complaint purported to seek relief against defendants in both

their individual and official capacities. See Anderson, 20 F.

Supp. 3d at 119. Count I of the complaint alleged that

defendants in their individual capacities violated Anderson’s

First Amendment rights by terminating his status in retaliation

for his constitutionally protected speech, and by refusing or

neglecting to prevent such deprivations or denials of his First

Amendment rights. Count II alleged a breach-of-contract claim

based on the theory that the defendants had breached an

agreement arising from the acknowledgment of the “Ground

Rules.” Count III sought “a judicial declaration that defendants’

conduct deprived Anderson of his rights under the U.S.

Constitution and the laws of the United States.” Id. (quoting

Anderson’s complaint at ¶ 63). 

All defendants moved to dismiss “for lack of personal

jurisdiction over defendants in their individual capacities under

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(5) and 12(b)(2), for

failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under

Rule 12(b)(6), and for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under

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Rule 12(b)(1).” Id. The district court granted the motion and

dismissed the action. Anderson filed the present appeal.

II. THE APPEAL

On appeal, Anderson, now acting through counsel, alleges

no error in the dismissal of the claims against the defendants in

their individual capacities. Indeed, he acknowledges that “[t]his

appeal is limited to a suit against [d]efendants-[a]ppellees in

their official capacities . . . .” Reply Br. at 16. Of course, even

without the acknowledgment, any error not asserted and argued

on appeal is deemed forfeited. We therefore confine our

discussion to the claims against defendants in their official

capacities.

Briefly put, appellant is now arguing that he has sufficiently

alleged “a claim for retaliation under the First Amendment and

a claim for violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.” 

Appellant’s Br. at 9. As in all cases, our first duty is to ascertain

whether the district court, and derivatively this court, have

jurisdiction to determine those claims. See, e.g., Steel Co. v.

Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–101 (1998). For

two reasons, we conclude that appellant’s claims are not within

the jurisdiction of the courts. 

III. ANALYSIS

The Supreme Court has taught in Steel Co. and numerous

other cases that when a federal court has no jurisdiction over a

case, it cannot determine any other question concerning the

merits of that action. However, since the two grounds affecting

our decision in this action are equally threshold questions, we

will observe that appellant’s claims founder on either or both of

them.

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First, appellant’s allegations do not bring his claims within

the jurisdictional statute he asserts. Briefly put, this action is

barred by the sovereign immunity of the United States. 

Appellant forthrightly admits that, as he has asserted no error in

the district court’s dismissal of the claims against the individual

defendants, “[t]his appeal is limited to a suit against the

[d]efendants-[a]ppellees in their official capacities and therefore

the suit is subject to governmental defenses including sovereign

immunity.” Reply Br. at 16 (citing Kentucky v. Graham, 473

U.S. 159, 166–67 (1985)). What appellant does not concede, but

what is correct, is that an action against the United States cannot

surpass the barrier of sovereign immunity without a statutory

waiver. “It is axiomatic that the United States may not be sued

without its consent and that the existence of consent is a

prerequisite for jurisdiction.” United States v. Mitchell, 463

U.S. 206, 212 (1983). The government’s consent to be sued

may not be inferred, but must be “unequivocally expressed” in

statutory text. Fed. Aviation Admin. v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1441,

1448 (2012). “Moreover, a waiver of the Government’s

sovereign immunity will be strictly construed, in terms of its

scope, in favor of the sovereign.” Lane v. Pena, 518 U.S. 187,

192 (1996).

Appellant asserts that his claim is cognizable under the

Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 702. 

Unfortunately for appellant, that statute does not waive

sovereign immunity for the present claims. We note in

considering Anderson’s argument that it is not at all clear that he

actually asserted this position below, but affording as we do

lenience in our review of the pleading of pro se litigants, as

appellant then was, we will at least consider the argument for the

APA as an applicable exception to sovereign immunity. Having

so considered, we determine that the APA excludes the present

action by its terms.

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The APA, in 5 U.S.C. § 701, provides review of actions of

an agency of the United States. See 5 U.S.C. § 701(b)(1). The

statutory definition of “agency” expressly “does not include —

military authority exercised in the field in time of war.” Id.

§ 701(b)(1)(G). From the very face of the complaint, all of the

events surrounding the controversy between the embed

journalist and the military occurred within that excluded

circumstance. While certainly the conflict in Afghanistan was

not a declared war, it cannot be gainsaid that it was a “war”

nonetheless. As the Supreme Court noted in Bas v. Tingy, 4

U.S. 37, 40 (1800), “hostilities may subsist between two

nations” on a limited basis, which would be properly termed

“imperfect war,” in our era to be called “undeclared war.” 

Justice Washington in the Bas decision went on to note that the

true definition of war is “an external contention by force,

between some of the members of the two nations, authorised by

the legitimate powers,” even if it is not a “perfect” declared war. 

Id. at 40–41. In the present case, the facts relied upon by

appellant, including the wounding of the soldiers whose

photographs were at issue between Anderson and the military

make it clear that, like the French in Bas v. Tingy, the Afghans

in the present case are enemies of the United States, and the

military authority against which Anderson seeks to litigate was

being exercised in the field and time of war. In short, the APA

does not provide a waiver of the sovereign immunity defense

creating jurisdiction over Anderson’s cause.

Despite the clear terms of the statute, appellant asserts that

the military authority exception does not preclude judicial

review of the decision to terminate his embed status. While

appellant’s brief does not provide a succinct expression of why

the exception does not apply, the gist of his argument seems to

be that the statutory exception should only apply when

attempted litigation “involves military decisionmaking.” Reply

Br. at 12. Appellant argues that his case does not come within

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that category, as he “does not ask for judicial review of the rules

contained in the MGR,” nor “encroach[ ] on issues such as how

a military leader ‘handles a casualty of one of the men or women

he is charged to lead,’” nor “how a military leader should handle

a casualty.” Id. at 13.

Perhaps if the statutory exception to the APA waiver of

sovereign immunity were so limited, appellant might have a

colorable argument, albeit one he did not raise in the district

court. But the statute is not so limited. It says what it says. 

Courts “assume that Congress means what it says in a statute

. . . .” Williams v. Paromo, 775 F.3d 1182, 1188 (9th Cir. 2015). 

The current litigation does not come within the terms of

reviewing an agency under the APA. Sovereign immunity is not

waived. 

As we noted above, “a waiver of the government’s

sovereign immunity will be strictly construed, in terms of its

scope, in favor of the sovereign.” Lane, 518 U.S. at 192. We

cannot afford the statute the liberal and countertextual

interpretation forwarded by appellant. We do not have

jurisdiction. 

We do not rule out the possibility that under other

circumstances and based on other pleadings a plaintiff similarly

situated to appellant might bring a retaliatory claim for violation

of First Amendment rights within the jurisdiction of the court,

but this is not that case. While appellant’s lengthy complaint in

the district court cited the First Amendment and alleged its

violation in general terms, ultimately his prayer for relief made

it plain that his complaint was for a lack of “procedural due

process,” not for the violation of his First Amendment rights. 

For the procedural due process claim to have any legs at all,

appellant would have had to establish that he was deprived of

something to which he was constitutionally entitled. As he has

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shown no constitutional entitlement to the status of embed

journalist, his claim did not survive the motion to dismiss in the

district court, nor will it survive the lack of jurisdiction in face

of sovereign immunity in this court. Cf. Flynt v. Rumsfeld, 355

F.3d 697 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (holding that a journalist has no

constitutional right to be actively embedded in military units).

C. Mootness

While the Supreme Court in Steel Co. makes clear that once

we have established that we have no subject-matter jurisdiction,

we can proceed no further, we do not violate this admonition

when we observe that more than one threshold basis bars

adjudication. As we have noted before:

 While Steel Co. reasoned that subject-matter jurisdiction

necessarily precedes a ruling on the merits, the same

principle does not dictate a sequencing of jurisdictional

issues. “[A] court that dismisses on . . . non-merits grounds

such as . . . personal jurisdiction, before finding subjectmatter jurisdiction, makes no assumption of law-declaring

power that violates the separation of powers principles

underlying . . . Steel Company.”

Public Citizen v. United States District Court, 486 F.3d 1342,

1346 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (quoting Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil

Co., 526 U.S. 574 (1999)). We will therefore note that even if

we err in our determination that Anderson brought no justiciable

claim in the first instance, any claim which he may have asserted

is now moot.

As Anderson himself acknowledges, “‘[a] case is moot if

events have so transpired that the decision will neither presently

affect the parties’ rights nor have a more-than-speculative

chance of affecting them in the future.’” Appellant’s Supp. Br.

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at 2 (quoting Transwestern Pipeline Co. v. FERC, 897 F.2d 570,

575 (D.C. Cir. 1990)). Otherwise put, “‘if an event occurs while

a case is pending on appeal that makes it impossible for the

court to grant any effectual relief whatever to a prevailing party,

the appeal must be dismissed.’” Id. (quoting Church of

Scientology v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992)).

The prayer for relief in Anderson’s complaint asks the

court, in pertinent part, “to reverse the memorandum terminating

plaintiff’s embed accommodation status without procedural due

process . . . .” Appellees assert, and appellant has not disputed,

that as the war in Afghanistan has drawn down, the remaining

embed program is operated by NATO, which is not a party to

this action. Further, Anderson is at liberty to apply for the

limited embed program still available. There appears to be

nothing this court can do that will put him back in the same

position he occupied before the events alleged in the complaint

and nothing the court can do to make whole any loss caused by

the removal. He has not sought damages, nor is it clear that we

would have jurisdiction to grant them if he did. This is

quintessential mootness, and we have no jurisdiction over moot

controversies.

Anderson attempts to escape from the trap of mootness by

asserting that his additional prayer for declaratory relief

underlies a live controversy. That is, he asserts that he has a

reputational injury which will be relieved by a judicial

declaration that his First Amendment rights were violated. In

support of this proposition, he principally relies on Foretich v.

United States, 351 F.3d 1198 (D.C. Cir. 2003). It is true, as

Anderson asserts, that we did hold in Foretich that declaratory

relief that would “remove the imprimatur of government

authority from an [a]ct that effectively denounces Dr. Foretich

as a danger to his own daughter” left open a live controversy and

escaped mootness. 351 F.3d at 1215. But the Foretich decision

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does not carry the day for Anderson.

In that unique case, Congress had passed a bill of attainder,

and we did hold that under the extreme circumstances there

present, “where reputational injury derives directly from an

unexpired and unretracted government action, that injury

satisfies the requirements of Article III standing to challenge the

action.” Id. at 1213.1

However, a more full examination of the reasoning of

Foretich discloses that “[o]ur case law makes clear that where

reputational injury is the lingering effect of an otherwise moot

aspect of a lawsuit, no meaningful relief is possible and the

injury cannot satisfy the requirements of Article III.” Id. at

1212. 

Similarly in Foretich, we discussed Penthouse

International, Ltd. v. Meese, 939 F.2d 1011 (D.C. Cir. 1991). In

Penthouse International, “because the reputational injury . . .

was the lingering effect of an otherwise moot action, we

distinguished cases in which the reputational injury was the

‘direct effect of the legal action the government had taken.’” Id.

Unlike Foretich, in which there remained among

congressionally enacted statutes essentially a declaration of guilt

against an untried citizen, in the present case, as in Penthouse

International, the alleged reputational injury is the “lingering

effect of an otherwise moot action,” and this case is moot.

1

Though the particular quote from Foretich speaks in terms of

standing rather than mootness, the decision taken as a whole is on

point to a mootness discussion.

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CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the judgment of

dismissal entered by the district court.

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SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and 

dissenting in part: For the reasons well explained by my 

colleagues, appellant’s claim under the Administrative 

Procedure Act fails because the statute precludes judicial 

review of “military authority exercised in the field in time of 

war.” 5 U.S.C. § 701(b)(1)(G). That provision applies to 

appellant’s APA claim, and I fully concur in the court’s 

decision with regard to that claim. I believe, however, that 

appellant also raises a First Amendment retaliation claim, and 

that claim, in my view, is not moot. I therefore respectfully 

dissent from the court’s affirmance of the dismissal of 

appellant’s constitutional claim.

Count one of appellant’s complaint, as the court

observes, ante at 4, alleges that defendants unconstitutionally 

terminated his embed status in retaliation for his protected 

First Amendment activity. That claim might ultimately fail 

on the merits for a variety of reasons. But the sole question at 

this stage is whether the claim should be dismissed at the 

outset of the case. I believe it should survive dismissal and 

would remand it to the district court for further proceedings. 

Sovereign immunity poses no obstacle to appellant’s First 

Amendment claim. Ante at 5-6, 8-9. Appellant’s briefing on 

appeal specifies that he seeks only equitable relief (not 

damages). And as we have explained, “[i]t is well-established 

that sovereign immunity does not bar suits for specific relief 

against government officials where the challenged actions of 

the officials are alleged to be unconstitutional.” Clark v. 

Library of Congress, 750 F.2d 89, 102 (D.C. Cir. 1984). 

To the extent my colleagues believe that appellant, based 

on his complaint’s prayer for relief, raises only a Fifth 

Amendment due process claim rather than a First Amendment 

claim, ante at 8, I read the complaint differently. The 

complaint was drafted by a pro se plaintiff, and count one 

speaks in the language of a First Amendment retaliation 

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claim, alleging that defendants “caused the termination of 

[appellant’s] journalist-embed status without just cause of his 

constitutionally protected speech.” J.A. 19. Even assuming

the precise language of a complaint’s prayer for relief could in 

theory annul a claim raised in the body of the complaint, I do 

not understand the complaint’s prayer to do so. Rather, in

addition to a general plea for the grant of any relief the court 

deems appropriate, J.A. 23, the prayer seeks, among other 

things, “a declaratory judgment” that the defendants “violated 

the First and Fifth Amendments.” J.A. 22. That language, by

specifically referring to the First Amendment, reinforces the 

First Amendment retaliation claim raised in count one.

In my view, moreover, appellant’s First Amendment 

retaliation claim has not been mooted by the drawdown of 

military operations in Afghanistan. It may have become more 

difficult for reporters to embed in Afghanistan, but there is no 

showing that it has become “impossible.” Church of 

Scientology v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992). It is true 

that NATO, a non-party to this case, administers the embed 

program; but the prior mission was also led by NATO, 

leaving it unclear—at least at this stage of the proceedings—

whether the current embed requirements mark a significant 

change from prior procedures. Even if there is no guarantee 

that appellant would be reinstated if he were to prevail, “the 

availability of a partial remedy is sufficient to prevent [a] case 

from being moot.” Calderon v. Moore, 518 U.S. 149, 150 

(1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). The government, 

which bears the burden of demonstrating mootness, has not 

shown that the transition to a NATO-led mission has made it 

impossible for the court to provide any relief bearing on a 

United States journalist’s ability to embed.

Appellant also seeks declaratory relief. He may be able 

to reapply to the embed program, but the order terminating his 

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embed status remains in effect. That order “memorializes 

judgments” about him—namely, that he violated the ISAF 

Ground Rules—that inflict ongoing personal and professional 

harm. Foretich v. United States, 351 F.3d 1198, 1215 (D.C. 

Cir. 2003). A declaratory judgment pronouncing the 

defendants’ actions unconstitutional could help restore 

appellant’s reputation and status in the journalistic 

community, potentially affecting his ability to obtain 

employment. The harm appellant alleges is therefore not a 

“lingering effect of an otherwise moot government action,” id. 

at 1213, but rather is the primary and continuing effect of an 

unretracted termination order. See McBryde v. Comm. to 

Review Circuit Council Conduct & Disability Orders, 264 

F.3d 52, 57 (D.C. Cir. 2001). 

For those reasons, I would conclude that appellant’s First 

Amendment retaliation claim survives dismissal and should 

be remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

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