Case: 19-2300 Document: 20 Page: 1 Filed: 02/07/2020
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
JAMEEL IBRAHIM,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2019-2300
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:19-cv-00760-CFL, Senior Judge Charles F. Lettow.
______________________
Decided: February 7, 2020
______________________
JAMEEL IBRAHIM, Newark, NJ, pro se.
ERIN MURDOCK-PARK, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by
JOSEPH H. HUNT, DEBORAH ANN BYNUM, ROBERT EDWARD
KIRSCHMAN, JR.
______________________
Before LOURIE, CHEN, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
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2 IBRAHIM v. UNITED STATES
PER CURIAM.
Mr. Jameel Ibrahim appeals from a decision of the
United States Court of Federal Claims (the “Claims
Court”), dismissing his complaint against the United
States for an alleged breach of an implied-in-law contract.
Ibrahim v. United States, No. 1:19-cv-00760-CFL,
2019 WL
3384849 (Fed. Cl. July 26, 2019) (“Decision”). Because the
Claims Court correctly concluded that it lacked subject
matter jurisdiction pursuant to the Tucker Act, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Ibrahim filed a complaint in the Claims Court in May
2019, alleging that the United States breached an “implied
by law” contract it had made with Ibrahim on April 26,
2000. The Claims Court allowed Ibrahim to supplement
his complaint shortly thereafter. Supplement to
Complaint, Ibrahim v. United States, No. 1:19-cv-00760-
CFL,
2019 WL 3384849 (Fed. Cl. May 28, 2019), ECF No.
5. It appears from this Supplement that the “contract”
Ibrahim refers to is a child support order from the state
court system of New Jersey.
On January 23, 2019, Ibrahim sent a twelve-page letter
to various officials of the State of New Jersey, cabinet
secretaries, and the Supreme Court of the United States,
styled a “Conditional Acceptance for the
Value/Agreement/Counter Offer to Acceptance of Offer.”
Supplement at 7. In the letter, Ibrahim alleged that he had
“received [these parties’] offer and accept[ed]” it, subject to
conditions set forth in the rest of the letter—for the most
part, demands that the recipients justify the existence of
various governmental agencies and practices.
Id. The
letter asserts that failure to do would result in “default,”
and in turn, an obligation to pay Ibrahim $3.5 million in
damages.
Id. at 14.
The Claims Court dismissed Ibrahim’s complaint,
concluding that he had failed to establish the Claims
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IBRAHIM v. UNITED STATES 3
Court’s jurisdiction over his action because, among other
reasons, Ibrahim had failed to plausibly allege that any
contract existed between him and the United States.
Decision,
2019 WL 3384849, at *3–4. The Claims Court
also held that dismissal would be proper under Rule
12(b)(6) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal
Claims because Ibrahim’s complaint “allege[d] implausible
facts about an alleged contract between him and the
United States government” and provided only the signed
letter sent by Ibrahim as support for his allegations.
Id. at
*4.
Ibrahim then filed this appeal. We have appellate
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
DISCUSSION
We review dismissals by the Claims Court for lack of
jurisdiction de novo. Frazer v. United States,
288 F.3d
1347, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2012). A plaintiff bears the burden of
establishing jurisdiction by “supporting [his] allegations by
competent proof.” Thomson v. Gaskill,
315 U.S. 442, 446
(1942). A pro se plaintiff is entitled to a liberal construction
of his complaint, see Haines v. Kerner,
404 U.S. 519, 520
(1972), but this leniency does not lessen his burden of
establishing the Claims Court’s subject matter jurisdiction,
see Kelley v. Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of Labor,
812 F.2d 1378, 1380
(Fed. Cir. 1987).
The Claims Court is a court of limited subject matter
jurisdiction. See Terran ex rel. Terran v. Sec’y of Health &
Human Servs.,
195 F.3d 1302, 1309 (Fed. Cir. 1999). It has
jurisdiction to “render a judgment upon any claim against
the United States founded . . . upon any express or implied
contract with the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a).
Establishing subject matter jurisdiction is a threshold
issue, Dow Jones & Co. v. Ablaise Ltd.,
606 F.3d 1338, 1348
(Fed. Cir. 2010), and every federal court has an
“independent obligation to determine whether subject
matter jurisdiction exists, even in the absence of a
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4 IBRAHIM v. UNITED STATES
challenge from any party.” Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,
546
U.S. 500, 514 (2006). In deciding whether there is subject-
matter jurisdiction, “the allegations stated in the
complaint are taken as true and jurisdiction is decided on
the face of the pleadings.” See Shearin v. United
States,
992 F.2d 1195, 1195–96 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Ibrahim principally argues that the Claims Court erred
in dismissing his complaint because he failed to establish
the existence of a contract between him and the United
States. He contends that his letter was a “counter-offer”
and that the government’s failure to respond constituted
an acceptance of a default, unilateral contract.
The government responds that Ibrahim did not
plausibly allege the existence of a contract and therefore
could not invoke the jurisdiction of the Claims Court. The
government further argues that, even viewed charitably,
Ibrahim’s letter is no more than a conditional counteroffer,
and thus, not a contract.
We agree with the government that Ibrahim failed to
meet his burden of establishing the jurisdiction of the
Claims Court. A non-frivolous allegation that a contract
exists between a plaintiff and the United States is
sufficient to invoke the subject matter jurisdiction of the
Claims Court, but dismissal may be proper for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction “if the claim is ‘wholly
insubstantial and frivolous.’” Lewis v. United States,
70
F.3d 597, 602–04 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (quoting Bell v. Hood,
327
U.S. 678, 682–83 (1946)). As the Claims Court concluded,
Ibrahim’s complaint and supplement do not set forth any
non-frivolous factual allegations from which the Claims
Court could have plausibly concluded that Ibrahim had a
contract with the United States government. Instead, it
only appears that Ibrahim sent several governmental
officials an unsolicited letter, which is not a contract. Cf.
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. United States,
88 F.3d 1012,
1019 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (“[T]he essence of a unilateral
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IBRAHIM v. UNITED STATES 5
contract is that one party’s promise is conditional upon the
other party’s performance of certain acts and when the
other party performs, the first party is bound.” (emphasis
added)). In other words, an offeree’s failure to respond to
an unsolicited offer does not create a contract, regardless
of any contrary terms in the offer.
Even if Ibrahim’s letter were responsive to a previous
communication of the United States government—a
scenario which is both wholly unsupported by the
pleadings and highly improbable—a conditional
counteroffer does not form a contract. See First Commerce
Corp. v. United States,
335 F.3d 1373, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2003)
(“A reply to an offer which purports to accept it but is
conditional on the offeror’s assent to terms additional to or
different from those offered is not an acceptance but is a
counter-offer.” (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF
CONTRACTS § 59 (1979))). Contract law does not permit one
to send unsolicited letters to the government (or anyone
else) declaring that a failure to respond to the letter
constitutes both formation and breach of a contract,
entitling the sender to liquidated damages.
In addition, to the extent Ibrahim alleges that his
contract with the United States was implied-in-law, the
Supreme Court has “repeatedly held that [Tucker Act]
jurisdiction extends only to contracts either express or
implied in fact, and not to claims on contracts implied in
law.” Hercules Inc. v. United States,
516 U.S. 417, 423
(1996) (collecting cases). Thus, the Claims Court would
still have been required to dismiss Ibrahim’s complaint for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Because we conclude that the Claims Court correctly
held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction, we need not
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6 IBRAHIM v. UNITED STATES
reach its alternative ground of dismissal for failure to state
a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). 1
CONCLUSION
We have considered the rest of Ibrahim’s arguments
but find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, the
judgment of the Claims Court is
AFFIRMED
1 We have previously noted that, while dismissal for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction may be appropriate in
some frivolous cases, “the Supreme Court has made clear
that such jurisdictional dismissals for frivolousness must
be ‘confin[ed]’ to cases ‘that are very plain.’”
Lewis, 70 F.3d
at 603–04 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (quoting Hart v. B.F. Keith Vau-
deville Exch.,
262 U.S. 271, 274 (1923)). And unlike dis-
missal for failure to state a claim, jurisdictional dismissal
does not give rise to claim preclusion. See
Lewis, 70 F.3d
at 603.
