UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

DANIELLE M. 

SOMERVILLE-WHITE, et al., ) 

 ) 

Plaintiff, ) 

v. ) Civil Action No. 1:22-cv-03672 (UNA) 

 ) 

TOM VILSACK, et al., ) 

 ) 

 ) 

Defendants. ) 

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the court on its initial review of plaintiff’s pro se complaint, ECF No. 

1, and application for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, ECF No. 2. The court will grant the in 

forma pauperis application and dismiss the case for the reasons explained below. 

Plaintiff, a resident of Jonesville, Virginia, attempts to bring this suit as a class action, and 

sues the United States Secretary of Agriculture (“UDSA”), the United States Patent Office, and 

Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health USA, Inc. and its CEO. The complaint begins somewhat 

coherently, as plaintiff appears to be challenging USDA’s implementation of an initiative she 

refers to as the “ORV bait program,” which she asserts is a federal plan to immunize wild raccoons 

to prevent the spread of rabies. Plaintiff alleges that the defendants have illegally manufactured

and then distributed these baits, on both public and private property (without permission), and that 

these actions have caused disastrous effects. However, plaintiff believes that the ORV bait 

program, and its alleged consequences, were intentionally created by a long-term nefarious 

conspiracy by defendants and others “with CIA controlled Google and other corporations who

have technology to create a slave labor force of robots and clones to replace humans[,]” and to use 

“metal RIFD chips to track and monitor individuals without their permission.” She contends that 
Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health “made up rabies” as a ruse, and that these “[g]enetically 

altered rabies vaccines are capable of creating a zombie epidemic[.]” She equates this conspiracy 

to a centuries-long “biowarfare against humans[,]” orchestrated by “many high-ranking 

government officials, Bankers and Pharmaceutical CEO[]s . . . scientists[,]” and others. She 

alleges that people have been similarly poisoned by the COVID-19 vaccine, because

“pharmaceutical CEO[]s and elites are suspected of colluding to cause illness among the masses, 

then coming in to profit off the cure to make themselves look like the savior[,]” and that these 

“Elite bankers and government officials have the motive to suppress the American people via manmade diseases in the heart of Patriot country.” She seeks injunctive relief, a criminal investigation 

and prosecution of defendants, and $1 billion in damages. 

First, plaintiff cannot bring this suit as a class action because a pro se litigant can represent 

only herself in federal court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1654 (“In all courts of the United States the parties 

may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel . . . ”); Georgiades v. Martin–

Trigona, 729 F.2d 831, 834 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (individual “not a member of the bar of any court . . 

. may appear pro se but is not qualified to appear in [federal] court as counsel for others”) (citation 

and footnote omitted); see also U.S. ex rel. Rockefeller v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., 274 F. Supp. 

2d 10, 16 (D.D.C. 2003), aff'd sub nom. Rockefeller ex rel. U.S. v. Washington TRU Solutions 

LLC, No. 03–7120, 2004 WL 180264 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 21, 2004) (“[A] class member cannot 

represent the class without counsel, because a class action suit affects the rights of the other 

members of the class”), citing Oxendine v. Williams, 509 F.2d 1405, 1407 (4th Cir. 1975). 

Second, the court cannot exercise subject matter jurisdiction over a frivolous complaint.

Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536–37 (1974) (“Over the years, this Court has repeatedly held 

that the federal courts are without power to entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if 
they are ‘so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit.’ ”), quoting 

Newburyport Water Co. v. Newburyport, 193 U.S. 561, 579 (1904); Tooley v. Napolitano, 586 

F.3d 1006, 1010 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (examining cases dismissed “for patent insubstantiality,” 

including where the plaintiff allegedly “was subjected to a campaign of surveillance and 

harassment deriving from uncertain origins.”). A court may dismiss a complaint as frivolous 

“when the facts alleged rise to the level of the irrational or the wholly incredible,” Denton v. 

Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992), or “postulat[e] events and circumstances of a wholly fanciful 

kind,” Crisafi v. Holland, 655 F.2d 1305, 1307–08 (D.C. Cir. 1981). The instant complaint falls 

squarely into this category. 

Consequently, this case will be dismissed without prejudice. A separate order accompanies 

this memorandum opinion.

 AMY BERMAN JACKSON 

Date: December 19, 2022 United States District Judge