Court Opinion

ID: 9931517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 14:00:49.91577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:22:38.456420
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-2278   Document: 18     Page: 1    Filed: 02/09/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

           CONSTANTINE S. ANANIADES,
                Plaintiff-Appellant

                            v.

                   UNITED STATES,
                   Defendant-Appellee
                 ______________________

                       2023-2278
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
 in No. 1:22-cv-01666-BAF, Senior Judge Bohdan A. Futey.
                  ______________________

                Decided: February 9, 2024
                 ______________________

    CONSTANTINE ANANIADES, Arcadia, CA, pro se.

     MARIANA TERESA ACEVEDO, Commercial Litigation
 Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
 tice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
 sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY,
 DOUGLAS K. MICKLE.
                 ______________________

   Before TARANTO, CHEN, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
Case: 23-2278    Document: 18     Page: 2    Filed: 02/09/2024

 2                                           ANANIADES v. US

 PER CURIAM.
     In 1984, Constantine Ananiades entered into a re-
 search contract with the United States Air Force, and in
 connection with his proposal and project work, he submit-
 ted a physical container to an office of the Air Force for
 storage. Over thirty years later, in December 2019, Mr.
 Ananiades asked the Air Force, for the first time, to return
 the container. The Air Force responded that records re-
 lated to the project had been destroyed in 2004.
     In November 2022, Mr. Ananiades filed a complaint in
 the United States Court of Federal Claims (Claims Court),
 alleging, among other claims, that the federal government
 had committed a taking of his personal property (both
 physical and intellectual) and had breached duties under
 an implied-in-fact contract. In June 2023, the Claims
 Court determined that Mr. Ananiades’s claims are time-
 barred and dismissed his complaint. Ananiades v. United
 States, No. 22-1666, 2023 WL 4058399 (Fed. Cl. June 14,
 2023). On Mr. Ananiades’s appeal, we affirm.
                              I
     In January 1984, Mr. Ananiades submitted a proposal
 concerning a “Sneak Circuit Design” to the Air Force, seek-
 ing funding under its Small Business Innovation Research
 program. Appx9, 35. 1 In September 1984, Mr. Ananiades
 and the Air Force executed a contract. Appx9, 36–39. After
 at least one amendment to the contract, the completion
 date of his contract was set as September 30, 1985.
 Appx41–42. Mr. Ananiades does not assert that he com-
 pleted any project work after that date.
    In connection with his proposal and project work, Mr.
 Ananiades submitted a physical container to an office of

     1    “Appx” refers to the appendix that Mr. Ananiades
 filed in this court with his brief as appellant.
Case: 23-2278      Document: 18    Page: 3    Filed: 02/09/2024

 ANANIADES v. US                                            3

 the Air Force in November 1984. Appx10, 45. He alleges
 that Air Force personnel assured him that the property
 was retrievable at any time upon request. Appx10. Not
 until December 10, 2019, however, did Mr. Ananiades ask
 the Air Force to return the container, which he did by send-
 ing a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force making that
 request. Appx11, 86. Between 2014 and 2022, Mr. Anani-
 ades also filed requests concerning documents related to
 his project work, including a request for a declassification
 review, Appx11–12, 31, 52, and a request under the Free-
 dom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, Appx12–13, 24–30,
 44.
     In a February 2022 letter responding to the declassifi-
 cation-review request, the Air Force informed Mr. Anani-
 ades that records related to his project proposal had been
 sent to a Federal Records Center in 1996 and then de-
 stroyed in April 2004. Appx34. Similarly, in a June 2022
 letter responding to his Freedom of Information Act re-
 quest, the Air Force certified that it had no records respon-
 sive to his request and explained that records associated
 with the relevant contract number and program name had
 been destroyed in 2004. Appx46–49.
     On November 8, 2022, Mr. Ananiades filed a complaint
 against the United States in the Claims Court under the
 Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a), seeking compensation
 based on allegations that the government had taken his
 personal and intellectual property and breached its duties
 under an implied-in-fact contract related to the retention
 of his personal property. Appx6, 8–21. On January 9,
 2023, the government filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to
 Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the United States Court of Fed-
 eral Claims. Appx55–59. The government argued that the
 Claims Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because
 Mr. Ananiades’s claims were time-barred under the six-
 year statute of limitations set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2501.
 Appx56–58. The Claims Court granted the government’s
 motion to dismiss and entered judgment on June 14, 2023.
Case: 23-2278     Document: 18      Page: 4    Filed: 02/09/2024

 4                                             ANANIADES v. US

 Ananiades, 2023 WL 4058399, at *3; Appx5. Mr. Anani-
 ades timely appealed on August 9, 2023. See 28 U.S.C.
 §§ 2522, 2107(b). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
 § 1295(a)(3).
                               II
     Whether the Claims Court properly dismissed an ac-
 tion for lack of jurisdiction generally presents a question of
 law, decided de novo on appeal. Taha v. United States, 28
 F.4th 233, 237 (Fed. Cir. 2022). But the Claims Court may
 inquire into disputed jurisdictional facts to decide the pres-
 ence of jurisdiction, and if it does so, we review the court’s
 findings of fact for clear error. General Mills, Inc. v. United
 States, 957 F.3d 1275, 1284 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (citing Roco-
 vich v. United States, 933 F.2d 991, 993 (Fed. Cir. 1991)).
     Under 28 U.S.C. § 2501, “[e]very claim of which the
 United States Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction
 shall be barred unless the petition thereon is filed within
 six years after such claim first accrues.” Compliance with
 the statute of limitations is a jurisdictional requirement
 that cannot be waived by the Claims Court or the parties.
 John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U.S. 130,
 133–36, 139 (2008). “Because the statute of limitations is
 jurisdictional, the plaintiff bears the burden of proof.”
 Petro-Hunt, L.L.C., v. United States, 862 F.3d 1370, 1378
 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
     “In general, a cause of action against the government
 accrues ‘when all the events have occurred which fix the
 liability of the [g]overnment and entitle the claimant to in-
 stitute an action.’” FloorPro, Inc. v. United States, 680 F.3d
 1377, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (quoting Goodrich v. United
 States, 434 F.3d 1329, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). For a takings
 claim under the Fifth Amendment, a claim accrues “when
 the government deprives an owner of the use of his or her
 property.” Petro-Hunt, 862 F.3d at 1378. “[I]n the case of
 a breach of a contract, a cause of action accrues when the
 breach occurs.” Alder Terrace, Inc. v. United States, 161
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 ANANIADES v. US                                              5

 F.3d 1372, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks
 omitted).
     For the present suit to have been timely filed in accord-
 ance with the six-year limitations rule of § 2501, Mr. Ana-
 niades had to show that his claims did not accrue before
 November 8, 2016. But as correctly explained by the
 Claims Court, Ananiades, 2023 WL 4058399, at *3, even if
 accrual is assessed with maximum leniency towards Mr.
 Ananiades, for both his takings and contract-based claims
 the latest event relevant to the fixation of the government’s
 liability was the destruction of records related to the pro-
 ject—which occurred in 2004, see Appx34, 48.
      Mr. Ananiades argues that the government continues
 to retain the contents of the physical container and that the
 responses to his declassification review and Freedom of In-
 formation Act requests show only that administrative rec-
 ords related to his project have been destroyed—not that
 the contents of the physical container have been destroyed.
 But Mr. Ananiades made the same assertions in his com-
 plaint, see Appx12–14, and in opposition to the govern-
 ment’s motion to dismiss, see Appx64, and the Claims
 Court determined that the records in the submitted con-
 tainer were transferred to a Federal Records Center in
 1996 and destroyed in 2004, Ananiades, 2023 WL 4058399,
 at *1. That factual finding is not clearly erroneous on the
 record. See Appx46 (quoting Mr. Ananiades’s Freedom of
 Information Act request as including information about
 “[d]ocuments inside the ‘Accountable Container’”); Appx48
 (explaining that “the records were destroyed” and that
 “[t]he file was . . . destroyed on 5 April 2004”). Particularly
 in light of the fact that Mr. Ananiades’s Freedom of Infor-
 mation Act request specifically referred to the documents
 inside the physical container, the no-records certification
 provided by the Air Force is reasonably found to establish
 that all records sought—including the files within the
 physical container—were destroyed in 2004.
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 6                                            ANANIADES v. US

     To the extent that Mr. Ananiades is arguing that his
 claims are timely because he was unaware of the existence
 of his claims until he demanded the return of his personal
 property and the government failed to comply, this argu-
 ment is unavailing. Under the accrual-suspension rule, ac-
 crual under the § 2501 statute of limitations may be
 suspended “until the claimant knew or should have known
 that the claim existed.” Martinez v. United States, 333 F.3d
 1295, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (en banc); see also Petro-Hunt,
 862 F.3d at 1378; Goodrich, 434 F.3d at 1333. But for this
 accrual-suspension rule to apply, Mr. Ananiades “must ei-
 ther show that [the government] has concealed its acts with
 the result that [he] was unaware of their existence or . . .
 that [his] injury was ‘inherently unknowable’ at the accrual
 date.” Martinez, 333 F.3d at 1319 (quoting Welcker v.
 United States, 752 F.2d 1577, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1985)).
      Mr. Ananiades has made no such showing. Although
 he asserts that the Air Force has engaged in a “concerted
 cover-up” of the existence of his property, see Appx13–16,
 there is no evidence that supports the assertion. There also
 is no evidence that establishes a government failure to
 comply fully with disclosure obligations. Nor has Mr. An-
 aniades demonstrated, or even suggested, that he would
 have been unable to obtain the factual information about
 the destruction of records in 2004 (the accrual date, for pre-
 sent purposes). He did not even seek return of his property
 until 2019. See Appx78 (Mr. Ananiades acknowledging his
 December 2019 letter requesting the return of his property
 was his “first such request”). Thus, Mr. Ananiades cannot
 rely on the accrual-suspension rule, and any cause of action
 he may have had with respect to the government’s failure
 to return his personal property accrued no later than April
 2004. Because this suit was not commenced until Novem-
 ber 2022, the asserted claims fall outside the six-year limi-
 tations period of § 2501, thus depriving the Claims Court
 of jurisdiction.
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 ANANIADES v. US                                            7

     We have considered Mr. Ananiades’s other arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. Because Mr. Ananiades’s
 claims are time-barred, we affirm the Claims Court’s deci-
 sion dismissing the complaint.
    The parties shall bear their own costs.
                        AFFIRMED