N OTE : This disposition is nonprecedential. 

# United States **Court of Appeals**  **for the Federal Circuit**

______________________

SOLOMON UPSHAW , Plaintiff

- Appellant,

v.

UNITED STATES, Defendant

- Appellee.

______________________

2014

- 5104

______________________ Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in No. 1: 14

- cv

- 00058

- JFM

, Senior Judge James F. Merow

.

______________________

Decided: November 10, 2014

______________________

S OLOMON U PSHAW , of Cape Neddick, Maine

, pro se

.

W ILLIAM B. L AZARUS , Attorney, Environment and Natural Resources Division , United States Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, for defendant -appellee.

______________________

Before L OURIE , S CHALL , and D YK , Circuit Judges.UPSHAW v. US 2

P ER C URIAM

. Solomon Upshaw (“Upshaw”) appeals from the dec ision of the United States Court of Federal Claims (the “Claims Court”) dismissing his complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12 (b)(1) of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims

. See Upshaw v. United States , No. 14- cv

- 0058 (Fed. Cl. May 30, 2014) (“ Order ”). Because the Claims Court did not err in di smissing Upshaw’s complaint, we affirm

. B ACKGROUND On January 24, 2014, Upshaw fi led a complaint against the United States in the Claims Court

, in which he sought damag es from the United States based on a January 2014 decision by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (“Band”) declining to enroll him as a member. Order at 1. The government moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction

. In response, Upshaw submitted documents showing the rejection in 1907 of an application by Georgeana Upshaw , in which Georgeana Upshaw r equested a share of a fund appropriated by Congress for the Cherokee Indians . Upshaw asserted that he was a descendant of Georgeana Upshaw and that he had su ffered injury by reason of the 1907 rejec tion. Id. The c ourt granted the government’s motion and dismissed Upshaw’s complaint after conclud ing that his claims we re beyond the jurisdiction of the Claims Court. Id. at 2.
Upshaw appealed to this court. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

D ISCUSSION

We review the Claims Court’s decision to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo

. Waltner v. United States , 679 F.3d 1329, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2012). A plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence, Taylor v. United States

, 303 F.3d 1357, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2002), and “the leniencyUPSHAW v. US 3

afforded pro se litigants with respect to mere formalities does not relieve them of jurisdictional requirements,” Demes v. United States , 52 Fed. Cl. 365, 368 (2002) (citing Kelley v. Sec ’y, U.S. Dep’t of Labor , 812 F.2d 1378, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 1987)).
Upshaw generally alle ges that the Claims Court erred by fail ing “ to take into account power and authority.” Appellant’s Informal Br. 1. The government responds that Upshaw has provided no argument to establish how the Claims Court specifically erred and that the Claims C ourt correctly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over Upshaw’s complaint.
We agree with the government that the Claims Court lacked jurisdiction. The Claims Court is a court of limited jurisdiction. Brown v. United States , 105 F.3d 621, 623 (Fed. Cir. 19 97). The Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, limits the jurisdiction of the Claims Court to claims for money damages against the United States based on sources of substantive law that “can fairly be interpreted as manda ting compensation by the Federal Governmen t.” United States v. Navajo Nation , 556 U.S. 287, 290 (2009) (inte rnal quotation marks omitted).
Here, the Claims Court correctly determined that it lacked jurisdiction over Upshaw’s claims relating to his failure to enroll with the Band because the federal go vernment has no statutory obligation to act in Cherokee enrollment issues

. Moreover, to the extent that Upshaw specifically attempt s to seek damages based on the 1907 rejection of Georgeana Upshaw’s application

, even if the provision of the fund appropriated by Congress could be considered to be a money

- mandating statute, we agree with the Claims Court ’s finding that the matter was time

barred by the six

- year statute of limitations and thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Claims Court for that

rea son

.UPSHAW v. US 4

We have considered Upshaw’s remaining arguments and conclude that they are without merit. For the foreg oing reasons, the decision of the Claims Court is affirmed

. AFFIRMED

C OSTS

No Costs.