Opinion ID: 4537683
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Doe’s LTA Claim

Text: Doe next contends that the district court erred in dismissing her LTA claim, and that that we should reconsider our prior ruling regarding our jurisdiction over this claim. We disagree. The LTA vests district courts with concurrent jurisdiction for “civil action[s] or claim[s] against the United States, not exceeding $10,000 in amount, founded . . . upon any express or implied contract with the United States . . . in cases not sounding in tort.” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2). Section 1295(a)(2) grants “exclusive jurisdiction” to the Federal Circuit over nontax appeals from decisions of the district courts when “the jurisdiction of that court was based, in whole or in part,” on the LTA. United States v. Hohri, 482 U.S. 64, 7 68–69, 75–76 (1987) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(2)). However, 28 U.S.C. § 1346 “is itself only a jurisdictional statute; it does not create any substantive right enforceable against the United States for money damages.” United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 392, 398 (1976). As such, a plaintiff bringing a claim under the LTA must identify some statute, regulation, or contractual provision that provides for payment of money damages in the event of a breach. See id. Before we decided Doe I, Doe moved to transfer the government’s appeal to the Federal Circuit, arguing that it had exclusive jurisdiction because the district court’s jurisdiction was based in part on the LTA. A motions panel of this Court denied that motion, finding that “the district court’s jurisdiction was not based on the [LTA], since [Doe’s] contract claim failed to present a substantial federal question.” J. App’x 98 (the “Motions Panel’s Order”). After the district court’s final judgment following Doe I, Doe appealed to the Federal Circuit, which granted the government’s subsequent motion to transfer the appeal to the Second Circuit. The Federal Circuit concluded that the Motions Panel’s jurisdictional determination was “law of the case,” and that the Federal Circuit lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal “[b]ecause the district court’s jurisdiction was not based in whole or in part on the [LTA].” J. App’x 168–71. Doe now asks us to overturn the Motions Panel’s Order denying her motion to transfer the government’s appeal and to send her appeal back to the Federal Circuit. We decline to do so. 8 The “law of the case” doctrine “posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case.” Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 815–16 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted). While a court has the “power to revisit prior decisions of its own or of a coordinate court in any circumstance, . . . as a rule courts should be loathe to do so in the absence of extraordinary circumstances such as where the initial decision was ‘clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.’” Id. at 817 (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 n.8 (1983)). The doctrine of the law of the case is, of course, “even less binding in the context of interlocutory orders,” as “a motions panel’s decision is based on an abbreviated record and made without the benefit of full briefing by the parties, which may result in a less than thorough exploration of the issues.” Rezzonico v. H & R Block, Inc., 182 F.3d 144, 149 (2d Cir. 1999). Nonetheless, “[t]he major grounds justifying reconsideration” remain “an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Doe v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 709 F.2d 782, 789 (2d Cir. 1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the record here was in a sense “abbreviated” given the interlocutory nature of the appeal, Rezzonico, 182 F.3d at 149, the motion was nonetheless fully briefed and argued by two sophisticated parties. Moreover, this is not a case in which the Motions Panel “silently address[ed] the jurisdictional question” or where a pro se litigant 9 failed to brief a complex jurisdictional issue. See Lora v. O’Heaney, 602 F.3d 106, 109 (2d Cir. 2010). And, as explained below, we do not question our jurisdiction over this appeal. In sum, as Doe points to no factual or legal development that the Motions Panel failed to consider, and does not otherwise point to a “clear error” or “manifest injustice” warranting reconsideration, we decline to revisit the Motions Panel’s Order, deny Doe’s implicit request to transfer this appeal back to the Federal Circuit, and proceed to consider the district court’s dismissal of Doe’s claim on the merits. In substance, Doe contends that the “Oath of Allegiance” that she signed when she agreed to attend West Point carried an “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing” that the United States breached by failing to address the hostile culture toward women that existed at the institution. But the Oath of Allegiance did not create a binding contract with the United States for the purposes of the LTA. West Point cadets are appointed, see 10 U.S.C. §§ 7441a, 7442, 7446, and the Supreme Court has emphasized that an appointment does not create a “contract” for the purposes of LTA jurisdiction, see Army & Air Force Exch. Serv. v. Sheehan, 456 U.S. 728, 735–38 (1982); see also United States v. Hopkins, 427 U.S. 123, 128 (1976) (“[A]bsent specific command of statute or authorized regulation, an appointed employee subjected to unwarranted personnel action does not have a cause of action against the United States.”); Chu v. United States, 773 F.2d 1226, 1229 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Accordingly, Doe’s claim simply “sound[s] in tort,” and therefore did not give rise to a claim under the LTA. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2); Bembenista v. United 10 States, 866 F.2d 493, 496 (D.C. Cir. 1989). We therefore affirm the dismissal of Doe’s LTA claim. We have reviewed the remainder of Doe’s arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the order of the district court is AFFIRMED. FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court 11