Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-16-02403/USCOURTS-ca3-16-02403-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Howard P. Brobst
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 16-2403

___________

HOWARD P. BROBST, 

individually and as officer of H.C. & S Enterprises,

Inc., and for the Estate of Carol L. Brobst,

Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil Action No. 3-15-cv-01468)

District Judge: Honorable Robert D. Mariani

____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

September 1, 2016

Before: FISHER, SHWARTZ and COWEN, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: September 8, 2016)

___________

OPINION*

___________

PER CURIAM

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.

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Appellant Howard P. Brobst appeals the dismissal of his Complaint based on a 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) motion for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 

We will affirm.

I.

Brobst’s Complaint alleged at its core that the disposition of his bankruptcy 

proceedings in the 1990s had been procured by fraud, and that the presiding Bankruptcy 

Judge and other agents of the federal judiciary and executive departments perpetrated that 

fraud. Through a business he owned, Brobst had personally guaranteed the mortgage on 

a property that suffered severe storm damage, resulting in acrimonious relationships 

between him, his insurance company, and his bank. Brobst and the business filed for 

bankruptcies. In the midst of the bankruptcy proceedings, Brobst alleged that his own 

counsel entered into fraudulent stipulations with his creditors as part of a conspiratorial 

cabal arrayed against Brobst’s own interests. Brobst alleges that he informed the 

presiding bankruptcy judge, Judge Twardowski, of the supposed fraud, but that Judge 

Twardowski failed to act and that this, in turn, constituted a “fraud upon the court.” The 

bankruptcies were discharged in 2000. On July 29, 2015, Brobst filed suit against the 

United States of America seeking damages and “a ruling that the United States 

perpetrated a fraud upon the Court.” Compl. at 25. 

The United States filed a Motion to Dismiss pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) 

and 12(b)(6). The Magistrate Judge issued a Report and Recommendation concluding 

that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Brobst’s claim because it 

was barred by sovereign immunity. Brobst objected and moved for the appointment of 

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counsel. The District Court adopted the Report and Recommendation and denied the 

motion for appointment of counsel on the ground that the court did not have jurisdiction 

to hear the case. Brobst now appeals.

II.

We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We engage in 

plenary review of the District Court’s dismissal of the Complaint pursuant to Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). Solis v. Local 234, Transp. Workers Union, 585 F.3d 

172, 176 (3d Cir. 2009). We review a district court’s denial of counsel to an indigent 

civil litigant for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Montgomery v. Pinchak, 294 F.3d 492, 

498 (3d Cir. 2002). We can affirm on any ground supported by the record. Hughes v. 

Long, 242 F.3d 121, 122 n.1 (3d Cir. 2001).

Having carefully reviewed the record on appeal, we agree with the District Court’s 

conclusion that appellant’s claims as presented are barred by the doctrine of sovereign 

immunity. Here, the only named defendant is the United States of America. It is wellsettled that the United States has sovereign immunity except where it consents to be sued. 

See United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 212 (1983). The District Court properly 

concluded, therefore, that it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to hear Brobst’s 

claims against the United States.1

 

1 The Federal Tort Claims Act is of no assistance to Brobst because claims arising out of 

“misrepresentation [or] deceit” are specifically exempted from the FTCA’s waiver of 

sovereign immunity. 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). Accordingly, Brobst’s “fraud on the court” 

claims would fall squarely within this carveout to the FTCA.

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Because this lack of jurisdiction deprived the court of its “very power to hear the 

case,” Petruska v. Gannon Univ., 462 F.3d 294, 302 (3d Cir. 2006), the District Court did 

not abuse its discretion in declining to appoint counsel to represent Brobst, Montgomery, 

294 F.3d at 499. Brobst now argues that the District Court should have granted his 

motion for the appointment of counsel so that he could have amended his complaint to 

name “executives or officials in the government as a proxy for the government itself, 

thereby giving the court subject-matter jurisdiction.” Appellant’s Br. at 3-4. The United 

States contends that Brobst has waived this argument by not raising it in the District 

Court.

In the context of a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion, we have instructed that, 

“[w]hen a plaintiff does not seek leave to amend a deficient complaint after a defendant 

moves to dismiss it, the court must inform the plaintiff that he has leave to amend within 

a set period of time, unless amendment would be inequitable or futile.” Grayson v. 

Mayview State Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 108 (3d Cir. 2002). Here, the District Court was 

silent on amendment. While we have not spoken to this issue directly in the context of a 

Rule 12(b)(1) motion, the District Court’s silence is of no moment because amendment 

would nonetheless have been futile, for two reasons. First, the only proper defendant in 

an FTCA action is the United States and so Brobst could not seek to take advantage of 

any of its provisions with individual defendants. Second, the Complaint contains no 

allegations that would support claims of a constitutional tort against new individual 

defendants. See generally Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Fed. Bureau of 

Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Accordingly, it was not an abuse of discretion for the 

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District Court to decline to give Brobst leave to amend his complaint or to appoint 

counsel for the purpose of filing a futile amended complaint. 

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment.

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