NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________

MICHAEL ANTHONY RADOGNA,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________

2022-1811

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims 

in No. 1:22-cv-00442-DAT, Judge David A. Tapp.

______________________

Decided: October 4, 2022

______________________

MICHAEL ANTHONY RADOGNA, Easton, PA, pro se.

 GEOFFREY MARTIN LONG, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, STEVEN JOHN GILLINGHAM,

PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY.

______________________

PER CURIAM.

Case: 22-1811 Document: 33 Page: 1 Filed: 10/04/2022
2 RADOGNA v. US

Michael Radogna appeals the United States Court of 

Federal Claims’ dismissal of his complaint for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

On April 4, 2022, Mr. Radogna filed a pro se complaint

in the Court of Federal Claims. SAppx. 7–9.1 He alleged 

that his “Constitutional rights . . . have been violated by 

the United States by not monitoring nor directing oversight 

upon the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s actions” relating 

to a case involving the Pennsylvania Catholic Diocese and 

allegations of child sexual abuse. SAppx. 8. Mr. Radogna 

also alleged the United States violated his rights by “not 

monitoring nor directing oversight of . . . the Secretary of 

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” and requested that 

the court investigate the Secretary’s “background and political connections.” Id. As for alleging jurisdiction of the 

Court of Federal Claims, Mr. Radogna cited “Constitutional violations, [e]quality under the [l]aw violations, 

[d]iscrimination upon [his] class of community victimized 

citizens,” as well as 42 U.S.C. § 5106a. SAppx. 7.

The Court of Federal Claims liberally construed 

Mr. Radogna’s complaint to include several categories of 

arguments but concluded it did not have jurisdiction to 

hear any of them. Accordingly, the trial court sua sponte

dismissed Mr. Radogna’s complaint under Rule 12(h)(3) of 

the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims. Radogna 

v. United States, 159 Fed. Cl. 447 (2022) (Dismissal Order).

Mr. Radogna appealed. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

DISCUSSION

“Either party, or the court sua sponte, may challenge 

the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction at any time.” Walby 

1 “SAppx.” refers to the supplemental appendix filed 

by the Government.

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RADOGNA v. US 3

v. United States, 144 Fed. Cl. 1, 5 (2019) (citing Arbaugh 

v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 506 (2006)). The rules of the 

Court of Federal Claims require the court to dismiss an action if “the court determines at any time that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction.” R. Ct. Fed. Cl. 12(h)(3). We 

review the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of a complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction de novo. Creative Mgmt. Servs., LLC v. United States, 989 F.3d 955, 961 

(Fed. Cir. 2021). We construe pro se filings like Mr. Radogna’s liberally, but that does not alleviate Mr. Radogna’s 

burden to establish jurisdiction. Henke v. United States, 60 

F.3d 795, 799 (Fed. Cir. 1995); Minehan v. United States, 

75 Fed. Cl. 249, 253 (2007).

The Court of Federal Claims is a court of limited jurisdiction, meaning it can hear only certain types of legal 

claims.2 Here, even broadly interpreting Mr. Radogna’s 

complaint, the Court of Federal Claims determined none of 

his arguments were of the type that the court has the power 

to adjudicate, and thus that it was required to dismiss his 

complaint. We agree and affirm.

The Court of Federal Claims construed Mr. Radogna’s 

complaint as asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 5106a, a 

provision of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment 

2 Specifically, the Court of Federal Claims is primarily authorized to hear money claims founded upon the Constitution, federal statutes, executive regulations, or 

contracts with the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 1491 provides that the court also has jurisdiction over claims for 

just compensation for the taking of private property under 

the Fifth Amendment, requests for the refund of federal 

taxes, claims regarding military and civilian pay, and 

claims for damages for the government’s breaches of contract. The court also has jurisdiction over bid protests involving government contracts, vaccine compensation, 

claims of patent and copyright infringement against the 

United States, and certain suits brought by Indian tribes.

Case: 22-1811 Document: 33 Page: 3 Filed: 10/04/2022
4 RADOGNA v. US

Act, and various Constitutional provisions. Dismissal Order, 159 Fed. Cl. at 448. On appeal, Mr. Radogna reasserts 

these claims and also raises a new claim based on 18 U.S.C. 

§ 242. Appellant’s Br. 2, 6–7.3 We address each of these

claims in turn.

We turn first to the court’s determination that Mr. Radogna’s § 5106a claim was not within its jurisdiction. For 

the Court of Federal Claims to have jurisdiction over a 

claim, the statute upon which the claim is based must mandate that the Government make a monetary payment to 

the person making the claim; in other words, the statute 

must be money mandating. See Fisher v. United States, 

402 F.3d 1167, 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“[T]he absence of a 

money-mandating source [is] fatal to the court’s jurisdiction under the Tucker Act.”); see also 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(a)(1). 

The Court of Federal Claims properly determined that 

§ 5106a is not money mandating. Dismissal Order, 159 

Fed. Cl. at 449–50. We agree that § 5106a—which generally concerns “[g]rants to States for child abuse or neglect 

prevention and treatment programs”—nowhere provides a 

right to monetary damages for an individual. In other 

words, as the Court of Federal Claims explained, § 5106a 

“cannot be fairly interpreted as creating an individual’s entitlement to money damages for any violation of the provisions therein.” Dismissal Order, 159 Fed. Cl. at 450. 

Accordingly, the court correctly determined it did not have 

jurisdiction to consider this claim.

We turn next to the trial court’s dismissal of Mr. Radogna’s constitutional claims for lack of jurisdiction. We 

have held that the clauses of the Constitution (including 

the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and 

3 “Appellant’s Br. __” refers to pages in Mr. Radogna’s informal brief as numbered by operation of an electronic file viewing system.

Case: 22-1811 Document: 33 Page: 4 Filed: 10/04/2022
RADOGNA v. US 5

Immunities Clauses) are not sources of substantive law 

that create the right to money damages, i.e., are not money 

mandating. See U.S. CONST. art. IV, § 2, cl. 1 (lacking any 

money mandating provision); LeBlanc v. United States, 50 

F.3d 1025, 1028 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (holding that clauses of 

the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were insufficient 

for jurisdiction “because they do not mandate payment of 

money by the government”); United States v. Connolly, 716 

F.2d 882, 887 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Accordingly, the trial court 

correctly determined that it lacked jurisdiction over 

Mr. Radogna’s constitutional claims, as those provisions 

are not money mandating. 

On appeal, Mr. Radogna cites 18 U.S.C. § 242 for the 

first time. Appellant’s Br. 2, 6–7. This is a criminal statute 

proscribing the “deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities” based on alienage or race. § 242. Mr. Radogna 

also cites on appeal to “Pennsylvania’s commonwealth documents law,” Appellant’s Br. 2 (cleaned up), which seems 

to implicate laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

As an initial matter, because Mr. Radogna “did not raise 

th[ese claims] before the Court of Federal Claims, [they 

are] waived on appeal.” San Carlos Apache Tribe v. United 

States, 639 F.3d 1346, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2011). 

Even if Mr. Radogna had raised these claims before the 

Court of Federal Claims, that court would lack jurisdiction 

to consider them. As it explained in its decision, the Court 

of Federal Claims does not have jurisdiction over claims involving “criminal decisions, state court actions, or direct actions by state agencies or officials.” Dismissal Order, 159 

Fed. Cl. at 449; see also Joshua v. United States, 17 F.3d 

378, 379 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (affirming dismissal of complaint 

alleging violation of criminal statutes, because the Court of 

Federal Claims has no jurisdiction to adjudicate claims under the criminal code). Similarly, the Court of Federal 

Claims does not have jurisdiction over state law claims. 

Souders v. S.C. Pub. Serv. Auth., 497 F.3d 1303, 1307 (Fed. 

Cir. 2007) (“Claims founded on state law are [] outside the 

Case: 22-1811 Document: 33 Page: 5 Filed: 10/04/2022
6 RADOGNA v. US

scope of the limited jurisdiction of the Court of Federal 

Claims.”); see also Lawton v. United States, 621 F. App’x 

671, 672 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“The Court of Federal Claims 

lacks jurisdiction over states, state officials, and state 

agencies.”) (citing United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 

588 (1941)). Thus, even if Mr. Radogna had raised these 

claims before the Court of Federal Claims, that court would 

have been required to dismiss them for lack of jurisdiction.

Finally, on appeal, Mr. Radogna argues that he should 

have been allowed to file a post-judgment amended complaint. Appellant’s Br. 2. The Court of Federal Claims rejected Mr. Radogna’s motion to amend his complaint

because, among other reasons, he failed to attach a copy of 

his proposed amended complaint and thus the court could 

not evaluate whether amendment would be helpful. 

SAppx. 10. 

We review a trial court’s denial of a motion to amend 

for an abuse of discretion. Steffen v. United States, 995 

F.3d 1377, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2021). In this case, Mr. Radogna

did not file a proposed amended complaint, and his motion 

stated only that he sought “to amend the complaint to conform it to omissions and[/]or defects in it, or not in it, as 

originally provided.” SAppx. 11. Because Mr. Radogna did 

not identify any “specific amendments that would cure the 

. . . deficiencies” in his complaint, the trial court did not 

abuse its discretion in declining to consider it. Jackson v. 

United States, 664 F. App’x 922, 925 (Fed. Cir. 2016); see 

also Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962) (identifying 

“futility of amendment” as a basis for denying leave to 

amend). Furthermore, for the reasons described above, the 

Court of Federal Claims correctly determined that it did 

not have jurisdiction to consider Mr. Radogna’s claims, 

even giving a broad reading to what he alleged in his complaint. We do not see how amendment would overcome 

these jurisdictional defects, and thus we affirm the court’s 

denial of leave to amend.

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RADOGNA v. US 7

We have considered Mr. Radogna’s remaining arguments in his briefing and various letters and other documents filed by Mr. Radogna (see ECF Nos. 26, 29, 30, and 

31) and find them unpersuasive. 

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the Court of 

Federal Claims’ dismissal of Mr. Radogna’s complaint.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

Case: 22-1811 Document: 33 Page: 7 Filed: 10/04/2022