Opinion ID: 221719
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Guthrie's claims based upon the graduation clause in the 2003 loan agreement

Text: We must still address our jurisdiction to consider Guthrie's third-party claims against the USDA seeking to enforce the graduation clause in the 2003 loan agreement. We conclude that the United States has not waived its sovereign immunity as to these claims. Generally, the United States, through the APA, has waived its sovereign immunity to [a]n action in a court of the United States seeking relief other than money damages. 5 U.S.C. § 702 [10] ; see also Robbins v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 438 F.3d 1074, 1080 (10th Cir.2006) (noting that 5 U.S.C. § 702 waives sovereign immunity in most suits for nonmonetary relief against the United States, its agencies, and its officers (quotation omitted)). Nevertheless, the APA limits this waiver of sovereign immunity in the last sentence of 5 U.S.C. § 702, which provides that the APA does not confer[] authority to grant relief if any other statute that grants consent to suit expressly or impliedly forbids the relief which is sought. See Kempthorne, 516 F.3d at 841 n. 4; Robbins, 438 F.3d at 1080. Thus, we must read the APA in conjunction with other jurisdictional statutes waiving sovereign immunity in order to determine whether those statutes forbid the relief sought in the case at hand. Robbins, 438 F.3d at 1080 (quotations omitted). In Robbins, this court considered the interaction of the APA with the federal Tucker and Little Tucker Acts. The Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, provides that [t]he United States Court of Federal Claims shall have jurisdiction to render judgment upon any claim against the United States founded ... upon any express or implied contract with the United States. Id. § 1491(a)(1). The Little Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2), grants federal district courts concurrent jurisdiction over contract claims against the government where plaintiffs seek no more than $10,000 in damages. The Supreme Court has long held that neither the Tucker Act nor the Little Tucker Act authorize relief other than money damages for such contract claims. Robbins, 438 F.3d at 1080-81 (footnote omitted). Reading the APA's waiver of sovereign immunity with the Tucker Acts' waiver, Robbins held that the Tucker and the Little Tucker Act, `impliedly forbid' federal courts from ordering declaratory or injunctive relief, at least in the form of specific performance, for contract claims against the government, and that the APA thus does not waive sovereign immunity for such claims. Id. at 1082 (footnote omitted); see also McKay v. United States, 516 F.3d 848, 851 (10th Cir.2008) (noting that, in the contract context, a distinct line of authority preserves the sovereign's immunity from being compelled to perform obligations it prefers to breach and compensate financially, holding that what are `in essence' claims for breach of contract cannot circumvent the Tucker Act and its prohibition on equitable relief by being artfully pled as something else). In this case, Guthrie's claims seeking the enforcement of the graduation clause in Logan-1's 2003 loan agreement with the USDA are claims seeking equitable relief in the nature of specific performance. [11] The United States has not waived its sovereign immunity as to such claims. Therefore, sovereign immunity bars these claims and we affirm the district court's dismissal of these claims without prejudice.