Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01205/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01205-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Antonio Chavez
Appellant
United States
Appellee
Aaron Wilson
Not party

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

ANTONIO CHAVEZ,

Plaintiff-Appellant

AARON WILSON,

Plaintiff

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________

2024-1205

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims 

in No. 1:23-cv-01215-EJD, Senior Judge Edward J. 

Damich.

______________________

Decided: December 13, 2024

______________________

ANTONIO CHAVEZ, Fort Leavenworth, KS, pro se. 

 EVAN WISSER, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented 

by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M.

MCCARTHy.

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 1 Filed: 12/13/2024
2 CHAVEZ v. US

 ______________________

Before STOLL, CLEVENGER, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Antonio Chavez appeals the dismissal of his action for 

lack of jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1500, which 

precludes the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (the “Claims 

Court”) from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over 

“any claim for or in respect to which the plaintiff or his 

assignee has pending in any other court any suit or process 

against the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1500; see Chavez 

v. United States, No. 23-1215, 2023 WL 6458956 (Fed. Cl. 

Oct. 4, 2023). Because § 1500 prohibits the Claims Court 

from having jurisdiction over this action, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Chavez received disability retirement from the 

United States Army in June 2012, retiring at the rank of 

Captain. In April 2019, the Army recalled him to active 

duty for the purpose of trial by court-martial. The Army 

charged Mr. Chavez with crimes committed between 

January 2004 and June 2005, during his time of active 

service. Mr. Chavez pled guilty, and a general courtmartial convicted him in August 2019. The United States 

Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction, and 

the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces 

denied review. Throughout his prosecution, Mr. Chavez 

argued that the military courts lacked jurisdiction over him 

because of his status as a disability retiree. The Army 

dismissed Mr. Chavez from service in January 2021. 

Because the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) 

adjusted his credit for honorable service time and lowered 

his disability rating to 10 percent, Mr. Chavez owed 

$299,696.03 in overpaid benefits and his disability 

compensation went from $3,433.50 per month to $522.39

per month.

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CHAVEZ v. US 3

Mr. Chavez filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus 

in the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia in December 2021. SAppx1008–23.

1 That court 

transferred the habeas petition to the United States 

District Court for the District of Kansas in January 2022.

2 

In July 2023, Mr. Chavez filed a Complaint in the Claims 

Court (1) challenging the jurisdiction of the military courts 

over disability retirees pursuant to article 2(a)(4) of the 

Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) (10 U.S.C. 

§ 802(a)(4)), and (2) seeking to collaterally attack the 

jurisdiction of the courts-martial that convicted him, 

backpay, and alteration of his military records. 

SAppx1074–98.

In October 2023, the Claims Court granted the 

Government’s motion to dismiss Mr. Chavez’s Complaint 

pursuant to Claims Court Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject 

matter jurisdiction because § 1500 bars it. Section 1500 

provides that “[t]he United States Court of Federal Claims 

shall not have jurisdiction of any claim for or in respect to 

which the plaintiff or his assignee has pending in any other 

court any suit or process against the United States.” 

28 U.S.C. § 1500. The Claims Court determined 

that: (1) Mr. Chavez’s habeas petition is an earlier-filed

pending suit or process for § 1500 purposes, and (2) the 

same operative facts gave rise to both Mr. Chavez’s district 

court habeas petition and his Claims Court Complaint. 

Mr. Chavez filed a motion for reconsideration, which the 

Claims Court denied. Motion, Chavez v. United States, 

No. 23-1215 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 9, 2023), ECF No. 22; Order, 

1 “SAppx” refers to the Supplemental Appendix filed 

with the Government’s Informal Response Brief.

2 In December 2023, after the Claims Court 

dismissed this case, Mr. Chavez amended his habeas 

petition in the District of Kansas. SAppx1024–73.

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 3 Filed: 12/13/2024
4 CHAVEZ v. US

Chavez v. United States, No. 23-1215 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 13, 

2023), ECF No. 23.

Mr. Chavez appeals. He requests that the court take 

the following actions: (1) perform a comparison under

Trusted Integration, Inc. v. United States, 659 F.3d 1159

(Fed. Cir. 2011), to determine whether the operative facts

of his two lawsuits are the same; (2) “use his courtapproved amended habeas corpus petition to perform the 

determination”;

3 and (3) remand this matter to the Claims 

Court, but to a different judge, upon a determination that 

§ 1500 does not bar Mr. Chavez’s lawsuit. Appellant’s 

Br. 21 (citation omitted). We have jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

DISCUSSION

We review the Claims Court’s dismissal of a case for 

lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Trusted 

Integration, 659 F.3d at 1163. Mr. Chavez “bears the 

burden of establishing the [Claims Court’s] jurisdiction 

over [his] claims by a preponderance of the evidence. In 

determining jurisdiction, a court must accept as true all 

undisputed facts asserted in the plaintiff’s complaint and 

draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Id.

(citation omitted).

3 The Government does not object to or oppose a 

comparison between Mr. Chavez’s Claims Court Complaint 

and his amended habeas petition. The Government even 

provides a copy of the amended petition in its

Supplemental Appendix. SAppx1024–73. Mindful of 

Mr. Chavez’s pro se status and the “uniformly applied” 

understanding that an amended pleading supersedes the 

original, we conduct our analysis using Mr. Chavez’s 

amended habeas petition. See, e.g., In re Samsung Elecs. 

Co., 2 F.4th 1371, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2021).

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 4 Filed: 12/13/2024
CHAVEZ v. US 5

Courts must make two inquiries to determine whether 

§ 1500 applies: “(1) whether there is an earlier-filed ‘suit 

or process’ pending in another court, and, if so, (2) whether 

the claims asserted in the earlier-filed case are ‘for or in 

respect to’ the same claim(s) asserted in the later-filed 

Court of Federal Claims action.” Brandt v. United States, 

710 F.3d 1369, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (quoting Trusted 

Integration, 659 F.3d at 1163–64). “If the answer to either 

of these questions is negative, then the Court of Federal 

Claims retains jurisdiction.” Id. “[T]wo suits are ‘for or in 

respect to’ the same claim ‘if they are based on 

substantially the same operative facts, regardless of the 

relief sought.’ Importantly, the legal theories underlying 

the asserted claims are irrelevant to this inquiry.” Id.

(quoting United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation, 

563 U.S. 307, 317 (2011)).

Mr. Chavez does not dispute that his habeas petition 

was still pending in the District of Kansas when he filed 

his Complaint in the Claims Court. Accordingly, we focus 

our discussion on the second inquiry of the § 1500

analysis—whether Mr. Chavez’s two lawsuits “are based 

on substantially the same operative facts, regardless of the 

relief sought.” Tohono, 563 U.S. at 317. “Because 

determining whether claims arise from substantially the 

same operative facts requires a comparison of the relevant 

claims, we address each claim” in Mr. Chavez’s Claims 

Court Complaint. Trusted Integration, 659 F.3d at 1165. 

As the Claims Court accurately explained, Mr. Chavez’s 

Claims Court Complaint contains two Counts: (1) “the 

United States violated the Due Process Clause by recalling 

[him], taking away [his] disability retirement pay, and 

sentencing [him] to confinement;” and (2) “the Army did 

not have jurisdiction to convene a general court-martial 

against [him] because [he was a] civilian[].” Chavez, 

2023 WL 6458956, at *4; SAppx1096–97.

In Count I of his Claims Court Complaint, Mr. Chavez

alleges that: (1) the Government deprived him of “certain 

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6 CHAVEZ v. US

rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, Fifth 

Amendment . . . by illegally ‘recalling’ [him] although there 

is no statutory authority to order an involuntary recall . . . 

pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 688”; (2) the Government “violated 

the due process of law by subjecting [Mr. Chavez] to 

Article 2(a)(4) UCMJ jurisdiction by intentionally 

misinterpreting the term ‘pay’”; (3) the Government 

“violated due process of law by . . . convening a general 

court-martial and imposing a judgment and a sentence of

dismissal and confinement against [Mr. Chavez] who [is a] 

civilian[]”; (4) the Government “illegally deprived 

[Mr. Chavez] due process of law by taking [his] property 

interest to disability retired pay”; (5) the Government 

“illegally deprived [Mr. Chavez] due process of law by

taking [his] property interest in VA disability compensation 

pay”; and (6) the Government “illegally deprived 

[Mr. Chavez] of [his] liberty in violation of due process by 

placing [him] in confinement at the United States 

Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, KS.” 

SAppx1096 ¶¶ 85–91. The first, second, third, and sixth

allegations match those in Count I of Mr. Chavez’s 

amended habeas petition almost verbatim. Compare id., 

with SAppx1069 ¶¶ 72–76.

In Count II of his Claims Court Complaint, Mr. Chavez

reiterates that: (1) the “general courts-martial . . . had no 

jurisdiction” because Mr. Chavez “w[as] tried as [a] 

civilian[],” (2) “[he] w[as] illegally deprived of [his] property 

right to disability retired pay,” and (3) “[he] w[as] illegally 

deprived of [his] property right to VA disability 

compensation pay.” SAppx1097 ¶¶ 93–95. As such, 

Mr. Chavez repeats his fourth and fifth allegations from 

Count I of the Complaint. These Count II allegations 

overlap with those in Counts II and III of Mr. Chavez’s 

amended habeas petition. In Count II of the amended 

habeas petition, Mr. Chavez includes “[d]eclare ‘[d]isability 

retired pay’ granted,” and in Count III of that petition, he 

alleges that he “was illegally apprehended by U.S. Army 

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 6 Filed: 12/13/2024
CHAVEZ v. US 7

military authorities . . . [and] [t]hese military authorities 

had no jurisdiction.” SAppx1070 ¶¶ 80, 86.

Comparing the conduct pled in Counts I–II of 

Mr. Chavez’s Claims Court Complaint with that pled in 

Counts I–III of his amended habeas petition, “it is 

apparent that each count involves nearly identical 

conduct.” Trusted Integration, 659 F.3d at 1165. The 

Government argues that “Mr. Chavez asked two separate 

courts to review the same matter—the legitimacy of his 

court-martial,” and that the “only difference between the 

two cases [is] the specific consequences he sought to 

reverse”: in his habeas petition, a reversal of his 

incarceration; and in his Claims Court Complaint, a

reversal of “the administrative consequences of his court 

martial, including the change in his character of discharge 

and the reduction of his VA disability benefits.” Appellee’s 

Br. 6. We agree. Compare SAppx1068–72, with

SAppx1096–98. And under Tohono, when determining 

whether two suits “are based on substantially the same 

operative facts,” we disregard “the relief sought in each 

suit.” 563 U.S. at 317. 

The problem with Mr. Chavez’s position is that he 

emphasizes the distinction in relief sought, which Supreme 

Court caselaw requires us to disregard. He argues:

The Court of Federal Claims erred because [his] 

claim for monetary damages and correction of 

military records . . . is not barred under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1500, because the “operative facts” in a writ of 

habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. § 2241) are limited to 

custody and detention—there are no “operative 

facts” in relation to a monetary claim to compare.

Appellant’s Br. 13; see also Appellant’s Br. 4 (“[T]here are 

no ‘operative facts’ to compare between the two lawsuits, 

because such comparisons are premised on both suits 

making monetary claims . . . .”). Contrary to Mr. Chavez’s 

arguments, however, that his petition for a writ of habeas 

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 7 Filed: 12/13/2024
8 CHAVEZ v. US

corpus is not a claim for monetary relief does not mean that 

§ 1500 does not bar his monetary claims filed in the Claims 

Court. As the Supreme Court explained in Tohono:

Reading [§ 1500] to require only factual and not 

also remedial [i.e., relief sought] overlap makes 

sense in light of the unique remedial powers of the 

[Claims Court]. The [Claims Court] is the only 

judicial forum for most nontort requests for 

significant monetary relief against the United 

States. Unlike the district courts, however, the 

[Claims Court] has no general power to provide 

equitable relief against the Government or its 

officers. The distinct jurisdiction of the [Claims 

Court] makes overlapping relief the exception and 

distinct relief the norm. For that reason, a statute 

aimed at precluding suits in the [Claims Court] 

that duplicate suits elsewhere would be unlikely to 

require remedial overlap.

563 U.S. at 313–14 (citations omitted). And in Tohono, 

even though one suit sought equitable relief and the other 

sought money damages, id. at 310, the Court held that 

“[u]nder § 1500, the substantial overlap in operative facts 

between the . . . District Court and [Claims Court] suits 

preclude[d] jurisdiction in the [Claims Court].” Id. at 318. 

Here, under the same statute, the substantial overlap in 

operative facts between Mr. Chavez’s amended habeas 

petition and his Claims Court Complaint precludes

jurisdiction in the Claims Court. 

Because the Claims Court lacks jurisdiction, we need 

not decide whether a different Claims Court judge should 

preside over this case were we to remand.

CONCLUSION

Because Counts I and II of Mr. Chavez’s Claims Court 

Complaint arise from the same operative facts as the 

claims asserted in his amended habeas petition filed in 

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 8 Filed: 12/13/2024
CHAVEZ v. US 9

district court, the Claims Court properly held that § 1500

bars these claims. We thus affirm.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

Case: 24-1205 Document: 28 Page: 9 Filed: 12/13/2024