Court Opinion

ID: 9949077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-08 19:01:03.117315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:26:35.754457
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-20342        Document: 74-1       Page: 1     Date Filed: 03/08/2024

         United States Court of Appeals
              for the Fifth Circuit                                    United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit

                              ____________                                    FILED
                                                                          March 8, 2024
                                No. 23-20342                             Lyle W. Cayce
                              Summary Calendar                                Clerk
                              ____________

Targeted Justice, Incorporated; Winter O. Calvert; Dr.
Leonid Ber; Dr. Timothy Shelley; Karen Stewart;
Armando Delatorre; Berta Jasmin Delatorre; J. D., A
minor; Deborah Mahanger; L. M., A minor; Lindsay J. Penn;
Melody Ann Hopson; Ana Robertson Miller; Yvonne
Mendez; Devin Delainey Fraley; Susan Olsen; Jin Kang;
Jason Foust; H. F.,

                                                         Plaintiffs—Appellants,
                                     versus
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General of the United States, in his
individual and official capacity; Federal Bureau of Investigation;
Christopher Wray, Director of Federal Bureau of Investigations, in his
individual and official capacity; Charles Kable, Jr., Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Screening Center, in his individual
and official capacity; United States Department of Homeland
Security; Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security, in his individual and official capacity;
Kenneth Wainstein, Department of Homeland Security’s Under
Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, in his individual and official capacity,

                                         Defendants—Appellees.
                ______________________________

                Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Southern District of Texas
                         USDC No. 4:23-CV-1013
                ______________________________
Case: 23-20342            Document: 74-1         Page: 2      Date Filed: 03/08/2024

                                       No. 23-20342

Before Dennis, Elrod, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
       Plaintiffs-Appellants are eighteen individuals and an organization,
Targeted Justice, Inc. The Plaintiffs alleged the government illegally
targeted, surveilled, and injured them with directed energy weapons and
voice-to-skull technology. The Plaintiffs sued numerous federal government
agencies and individual federal government officials in both their individual
and official capacities for violations of the U.S. Constitution, the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and the Privacy Act. The Plaintiffs
sought a writ of mandamus, a preliminary and permanent injunction,
declaratory relief, and damages.
       In one order, the district court (1) granted the Defendants’ motion to
dismiss the constitutional and APA claims for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction, lack of standing, lack of personal jurisdiction over the individual
capacity Defendants, and failure to state a claim; (2) granted the Defendants’
motion to dismiss the Privacy Act claims of most of the Plaintiffs without
prejudice for failure to exhaust their administrative remedies;1 (3) denied the
Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction; and (4) denied other
outstanding motions as moot. The district court then stayed and
administratively closed the case while the Plaintiffs exhausted their Privacy
Act claims. The Plaintiffs appealed, challenging all of these rulings, as well as
the district court’s transfer of the case from the Victoria Division of the
Southern District of Texas to the Houston Division earlier in the case.
       We first have an independent obligation to assess our jurisdiction. See,
e.g., Cleartrac, L.L.C. v. Lanrick Contractors, L.L.C., 53 F.4th 361, 364 (5th
       _____________________
       *
           This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
       1
           The Defendants did not move to dismiss the remaining Privacy Act claims.
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                                 No. 23-20342

Cir. 2022). All of the orders that the Plaintiffs appeal are interlocutory, and
we generally only have jurisdiction to review a district court’s “final
decision.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. However, as an exception to this general rule,
we have jurisdiction over appeals from interlocutory orders denying a request
for a preliminary injunction. 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1); Cardoni v. Prosperity
Bank, 805 F.3d 573, 579 (5th Cir. 2015). “That jurisdiction extends to other
rulings that are inextricably intertwined with the injunction rulings.”
Cardoni, 805 F.3d at 579 (citing Ali v. Quarterman, 607 F.3d 1046, 1048 (5th
Cir. 2010)). The district court denied the preliminary injunction because it
had dismissed the APA claims, constitutional claims, and some Privacy Act
claims, and because the Plaintiffs did not seek a preliminary injunction as to
the remaining Privacy Act claims, which the court also alternatively found
likely failed on their merits. We, therefore, have jurisdiction to review the
district court’s dismissal of the APA claims, constitutional claims, and
Privacy Act claims because they are intertwined with the injunction ruling.
See id.; see also McLaughlin v. Miss. Power Co., 376 F.3d 344, 352–53 (5th Cir.
2004) (reviewing a district court’s ruling that it lacked subject-matter
jurisdiction because that ruling formed the basis of its decision to dissolve an
injunction). However, we do not have jurisdiction to review the order
denying outstanding motions as moot or the transfer of the case to Houston
because they had no bearing on the injunction ruling.
       We review a district court’s ruling on a motion for a preliminary
injunction for abuse of discretion. Women’s Med. Ctr. of Nw. Hous. v. Bell, 248
F.3d 411, 418–19 (5th Cir. 2001) (citing Hoover v. Morales, 164 F.3d 221, 224
(5th Cir. 1998)). We review findings of fact for clear error and legal
conclusions de novo. Id. at 419 (citing Sugar Busters LLC v. Brennan, 177 F.3d
258, 265 (5th Cir. 1999)). Whether there is subject-matter jurisdiction and
whether a plaintiff has stated a claim for relief are legal questions subject to

                                       3
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                                  No. 23-20342

de novo review. See Ramming v. United States, 281 F.3d 158, 161 (5th Cir. 2001)
(citing Hebert v. United States, 53 F.3d 720, 722 (5th Cir. 1995)).
       A preliminary injunction is an “extraordinary remedy” and requires
the plaintiff to prove: “(1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits,
(2) a substantial threat of irreparable harm absent the injunction, (3) that the
harm [they] will suffer without the injunction outweighs the cost to comply
with the injunction, and (4) that the injunction is in the public interest.”
Harrison v. Young, 48 F.4th 331, 342, 339 (5th Cir. 2022) (first quoting PCI
Transp., Inc. v. Fort Worth & W.R. Co., 418 F.3d 535, 545 (5th Cir. 2005); and
then citing Jefferson Cmty. Health Care Ctrs., Inc. v. Jefferson Par. Gov’t, 849
F.3d 615, 624 (5th Cir. 2017)).
       First, the district court properly dismissed the individual Plaintiffs’
constitutional and APA claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because
they are frivolous. The Supreme Court has held that when allegations within
a complaint are “so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid
of merit, wholly insubstantial, obviously frivolous, plainly unsubstantial, or
no longer open to discussion,” a federal court lacks subject-matter
jurisdiction to adjudicate the claim. Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536–37
(1974) (citations omitted). For example, we have affirmed the dismissal of
claims that the federal government “conspired to use [a plaintiff] for mind
experiments, targeted him with ‘Remote Neural Monitoring,’ harassed him
using ‘Voice to Skull’ technology, and otherwise remotely monitored and
controlled his thoughts, movements, sleep, and bodily functions.” Starrett v.
Lockheed Martin Corp., 735 F. App’x 169, 169–70 (5th Cir. 2018)
(unpublished). Here, the Plaintiffs similarly alleged the federal government
targeted them with “Directed Energy Weapon Attacks,” “Voice-to-Skull”
technology, electronic hacking, and “organized stalking” due to their
placement on a secret “blacklist” within the Terrorist Screening Dataset
(TSDS)—which, according to their allegations, they have never seen or

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                                      No. 23-20342

otherwise confirmed—reserved for those who do not meet the normal
standard to be on the TSDS. The district court correctly dismissed these
claims as frivolous.2
        Second, the district court properly dismissed certain Plaintiffs’
Privacy Act claims without prejudice because the Plaintiffs failed to exhaust
their administrative remedies. The Plaintiffs’ claims that the Defendants
violated the Privacy Act by failing to respond to requests for records are
subject to the jurisprudential exhaustion doctrine. See Taylor v. U.S. Treasury
Dep’t, 127 F.3d 470, 476–78 (5th Cir. 1997). On appeal, although the
Plaintiffs briefly state the district court should have reached the merits of
these claims, they do not argue they fully exhausted them or that any
exceptions to exhaustion apply. Any such challenge to the dismissal of these
claims is therefore forfeited. See Rollins v. Home Depot USA, Inc., 8 F.4th 393,
397 (5th Cir. 2021). Further, the Plaintiffs do not argue that their remaining
Privacy Act claims that the district court did not dismiss are likely to succeed
on their merits. That argument is therefore also forfeited. See id.
        For these reasons, the district court correctly concluded the Plaintiffs’
claims are unlikely to succeed on the merits. The Plaintiffs have forfeited the
remaining preliminary injunction factors by failing to brief them on appeal.
See id. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying
the Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction.
        DISMISSED IN PART; AFFIRMED IN PART.

        _____________________
        2
          Because the district court correctly dismissed the Plaintiffs’ constitutional and
APA claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, we need not address its alternative
reasons for dismissing these claims.

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