UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-2424

MINISTER TRAZELL,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

ARLINGTON COUNTY,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at 

Alexandria. Leonie M. Brinkema, District Judge. (1:19-cv-01491-LMB-TCB)

Submitted: June 11, 2020 Decided: July 9, 2020

Before DIAZ and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Minister Trazell, Appellant Pro Se.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Minister Trazell appeals the district court’s order sua sponte dismissing his civil 

action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Trazell alleged discrimination against him as 

an Indigenous American, in not hiring him for an open position for which he qualified, and 

claimed violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, Title VII of the Civil Rights 

Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17 (2018), and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 

1983, 1985, 1986 (2018). He asserted the district court had federal question jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (2018). The district court applied the well-pleaded complaint rule

and dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the court was unable 

to discern the substance of plaintiff’s factual allegations. We vacate and remand. 

“If the court determines at any time that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, the court 

must dismiss the action.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3); see Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 

500, 514 (2006); United States ex rel. Carson v. Manor Care, Inc., 851 F.3d 293, 303 (4th 

Cir. 2017). A plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction. Demetres v. E.W. 

Const., Inc., 776 F.3d 271, 272 (4th Cir. 2015). In a facial challenge, a plaintiff is afforded 

the same procedural protections as he would receive under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), 

wherein the facts alleged are taken as true, and the action must not be dismissed if the 

complaint alleges sufficient facts to invoke subject matter jurisdiction. Beck v. McDonald, 

848 F.3d 262, 270 (4th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). A federal court is also required to 

dismiss an in forma pauperis action or appeal if it is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a 

claim on which relief may be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is 

immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) (2018). Pro se pleadings must be 
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liberally construed. Bazemore v. Best Buy, 957 F.3d 195, 200 (4th Cir. 2020). To avoid 

dismissal for failure to state a claim, a complaint must “contain factual allegations that 

‘raise a right to relief above the speculative level, thereby nudging [the] claims across the 

line from conceivable to plausible.’” Id. (citations omitted). We review de novo a dismissal 

for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Carson, 851 F.3d at 302, and a dismissal for failure 

to state a claim under § 1915, Martin v. Duffy, 858 F.3d 239, 248 (4th Cir. 2017). 

“In recent years, the Supreme Court has cautioned against drive-by jurisdictional 

rulings, that dismiss a claim for lack of jurisdiction when some threshold fact has not been 

established, without explicitly considering whether the dismissal should be for lack of 

subject matter jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim.” Holloway v. Pagan River 

Dockside Seafood, Inc., 669 F.3d 448, 452 (4th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and 

citations omitted). “Its admonition is grounded in the principle that the subject matter 

jurisdiction of a federal court is not generally resolved by concluding that the plaintiff has 

failed to allege an element of a federal cause of action or that the plaintiff might not be able 

to prove an element of a federal cause of action.” Id. “Rather, a court must look more 

fundamentally at whether the plaintiff’s claim is determined by application of a federal law 

over which Congress has given the federal courts jurisdiction.” Id. “If it is, his complaint 

should not be dismissed for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, as the federal courts have 

been given the power and the authority to hear and resolve such claims.” Id. “In short, 

subject matter jurisdiction relates to a federal court’s power to hear a case, and that power 

is generally conferred by the basic statutory grants of subject matter jurisdiction, such as 

28 U.S.C. § 1331 or 28 U.S.C. § 1332.” Id. at 453 (citation omitted). 
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“If a plaintiff invoking § 1331 pleads a colorable claim arising under the 

Constitution or laws of the United States, he invokes federal subject matter jurisdiction, 

and deficiencies of the claim should be addressed by the other mechanisms provided by 

the federal rules.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In Holloway, we 

concluded there was subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiff’s claim since his complaint 

“alleged a colorable Jones Act claim in that it was not ‘so insubstantial, implausible, 

foreclosed by prior decisions . . . or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to involve 

a federal controversy.’” Id. at 450 (citation omitted). Here, it is not clear from the district 

court’s order that it applied this standard; and it did not explicitly consider whether the 

dismissal should be for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim.

Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order and remand for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would 

not aid the decisional process.

VACATED AND REMANDED