Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-02925/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-02925-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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For the Northern District of California

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States District C

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For the Northern District of California

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

E.K. WADE,

Plaintiff,

 v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Defendant.

 /

No. C 06-2925 CRB

Related Case No. C 06-2346 CRB

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Plaintiff E.K. Wade, acting in pro per, now brings this action against the United States

of America for claims based on race discrimination and improper retaliation arising out of his

related Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”) lawsuit. Three related actions were previously

dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and the Court issues a separate

order in a fourth related case also subject to a motion to dismiss. Now pending before the

Court is defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. After carefully

considering the record, and with the benefit of oral argument, defendant’s motion is hereby

GRANTED.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff alleges that individuals at the Department of Veteran Affairs (“VA”) hospital

in Martinez, California, denied him mental health and prescription benefits because of his

race and as an act of retaliation in response to his FTCA suit against the hospital. Compl. ¶ 

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28 1Unlike the related case, plaintiff did not request a jury trial in this matter, so that request

is not at issue in this matter. 

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8. Plaintiff argues that the practitioners’ stated reasons for the refusal–that plaintiff was

already covered by Kaiser Permanente and could not receive benefits from both the VA and

Kaiser– were pretextual. Compl. ¶ 10. Plaintiff brings four claims apparently arising out of

federal statutes: 1) denial of equal access and equal protection, 2) racial discrimination, 3)

retaliatory discrimination, and 4) conspiracy to interfere with civil rights. As a result of the

hospital’s actions, plaintiff claims he “sustained injuries of shock, anxiety, exacerbated

emotional distress, and increased rage, all of which have caused, and continue to cause

Plaintiff great mental and nervous pain and suffering.” Compl. ¶¶ 12, 16, 20, 24.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

To survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), the

plaintiff must prove that the Court has jurisdiction to decide the case. Kokkonen v. Guardian

Life Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994) (“Federal courts are of limited jurisdiction.... It is to

be presumed that a cause lies outside this limited jurisdiction, and the burden of establishing

the contrary rests upon the party asserting jurisdiction”) (citations omitted). The Court

accepts the allegations of the complaint as true and construes them in the light most favorable

to the plaintiff. See Love v. United States, 915 F.2d 1242, 1245 (9th Cir. 1989). The Court

may dismiss a claim only if “it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the plaintiff can prove

no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Id. (quoting Gibson

v. United States, 781 F.2d 1334, 1337 (9th Cir. 1986)). 

DISCUSSION

Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the original Complaint. Similar to the related

case, Wade v. United States, Case No. C 06-2346 CRB, defendant argues that the VA was an

improper party and should be dismissed, and that plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages

should be stricken.1 For the same reasons outlined in the related case–namely, that defendant

properly filed an Amended Complaint after the motion to dismiss which removed the claim

for punitive damages and replaced the VA with the United States–those arguments are no

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2

Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint apparently attempts to cure the deficiencies of

his First Amended Complaint by adding both claims and laws which establish defendant’s

liability. These laws, however, are exclusively federal or constitutional in origin. Thus, even

if this Court were to accept the Second Amended Complaint, it would not change the analysis

of the First Amended Complaint that follows. 

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longer relevant. Plaintiff subsequently submitted a Second Amended Complaint seven days

after he filed the first. Yet he did not move for leave to file it, as required by Rule 15(a), and

the Court therefore disregards it.2

Defendant further argues that replacing the VA with the United States as the proper

defendant does not cure the Amended Complaint’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction. A

plaintiff suing the United States for damages must do so under federal legislation that

expressly waives federal sovereign immunity. See F.D.I.C. v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 475

(1994) (“Absent a waiver, sovereign immunity shields the Federal Government and its

agencies from suit.”). Subject matter jurisdiction in federal court is dependent on such

consent. See United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 212 (1983) (“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.”). Here, where plaintiff’s claims sound in tort, the FTCA is the

sole basis under which plaintiff may file his claims for damages against the United States. 

See F.D.I.C. v. Craft, 157 F.3d 697, 706 (9th Cir. 1998). FTCA claims, however, must be

based on the “law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). The

Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean the law of the state in which the tort was alleged

to have happened. See Meyer, 510 U.S. at 478 (“[W]e have consistently held that § 1346(b)’s

reference to the ‘law of the place’ means law of the State–the source of substantive liability

under the FTCA.”). Therefore, violations of rights derived from the constitution or from

federal statutes do not provide a basis for recovery under the FTCA. Id. at 478 (“[F]ederal

law, not state law, provides the source of liability for a claim alleging the deprivation of a

federal constitutional right.”); see also Love v. U.S., 60 F.3d 642, 644 (9th Cir. 1995) (“The

breach of a duty created by a federal law is not, by itself, actionable under the FTCA.”). 

Indeed, “the United States simply has not rendered itself liable under § 1346(b) for

constitutional tort claims.” Meyer, 510 U.S. at 478.

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G:\CRBALL\2006\2925\order re mtd.wpd 4

At oral argument, plaintiff expressly argued that he was not suing under the FTCA.

Instead, he argued that his lawsuit was permitted by a recent Supreme Court case, United

States v. Georgia, 126 S.Ct. 877 (2006). Yet that case dealt exclusively with state sovereign

immunity, not federal sovereign immunity, and therefore is inapposite. Even if the Court

were to construe plaintiffs claims as arising under the FTCA, he does not identify any state

law as the basis for damages recovery as required by the statute. The Amended Complaint

mentions 28 U.S.C. section 2675(a) and 31 U.S.C. section 1304(b)(1)(B) as sources of the

United States’ liability, and also refers to a number of federal statutes, regulations and

constitutional amendments. But these federal statutes, regulations and constitutional

provisions are insufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction in this Court. See Delta

Savings Bank v. United States, 265 F.3d 1017, 1024 (9th Cir. 2001) (Plaintiffs cannot

“suggest, without support, that an FTCA claim can be brought for violations of federal

statutes that provide private federal causes of action, even if there is no analogous state

law.”) Because plaintiff’s claims against the United States do not rely on California state

law, the Amended Complaint fails to properly allege a cause of action under the FTCA. 

Therefore, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this lawsuit, and the motion to

dismiss is hereby GRANTED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 7, 2006 

 

CHARLES R. BREYER

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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