Diane P. Giles v. United States

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2006-5120
DIANE P. GILES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee.
Diane P. Giles, of Bombay, India, pro se.
Claudia Burke, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division,
United States Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. With
her on the brief were Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General; David M. Cohen,
Director; and Todd M. Hughes, Assistant Director.
Appealed from: United States Court of Federal Claims
Judge Thomas C. Wheeler

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NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2006-5120
DIANE P. GILES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee.
__________________________
DECIDED: March 13, 2007
__________________________
Before NEWMAN, Circuit Judge, FRIEDMAN, Senior Circuit Judge, and PROST, Circuit
Judge.
PER CURIAM.
Diane P. Giles appeals an August 3, 2006, decision by the United States Court of
Federal Claims (“Court of Federal Claims”) dismissing her complaint for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction. Giles v. United States, No. 06-0056C (Fed. Cl. Aug. 3, 2006).
Because the Court of Federal Claims correctly concluded that it did not have subject
matter jurisdiction over Ms. Giles’s complaint, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Ms. Giles was employed as an auditor for the City of Los Angeles (“City”) from
March 1994 to September 1994. As part of her employment, Ms. Giles reviewed

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invoices and supporting documentation submitted by contractors hired to remove debris
following the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake.
On March 20, 1996, Ms. Giles filed a complaint in the United States District Court
for the Central District of California (“District Court”) alleging that, in the course of her
work as an auditor, she discovered that debris removal contractors were submitting
false claims, in violation of the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729. Ms. Giles contends
that she alerted the City of the alleged fraud, but that her concerns were ignored. Ms.
Giles also alleged that the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursed the
City of Los Angeles for debris removal costs, but that the City later repaid a portion of
these funds to the Federal Government. The United States declined to intervene in the
District Court action.
On January 27, 2002, after protracted litigation, the District Court granted the
defendants’ motion for summary judgment, ruling that, while innocent mistakes or
neglect may have occurred, Ms. Giles failed to make a showing that City employees
knowingly presented false claims for payment. On April 17, 2002, the District Court
denied, without prejudice, Ms. Giles’s request for a portion of the money that the city
returned to the Federal Government. The District Court stated that, if Ms. Giles were to
prevail upon the merits of her qui tam action on appeal, she may be entitled to some
payment pursuant to 31 U.S.C. § 3730(d)(2). However, on December 14, 2004, the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s grant of
summary judgment for the defendants.
On January 23, 2006, Ms. Giles filed a complaint in the Court of Federal Claims
seeking a portion of the payments that the City returned to the Federal Government.
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However, on August 3, 2006, the Court of Federal Claims dismissed Ms. Giles
complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, stating that her claim “falls squarely
under section 3730,” and that 31 U.S.C. § 3732(a) confers exclusive jurisdiction over
such claims to the district courts. Ms. Giles appeals to this court. We have jurisdiction
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
II. DISCUSSION
This court reviews judgments of the Court of Federal Claims to determine
whether they are premised on clearly erroneous factual determinations or otherwise
incorrect as a matter of law. Wheeler v. United States, 11 F.3d 156, 158 (Fed. Cir.
1993). We “review[] de novo whether the Court of Federal Claims possessed
jurisdiction and whether the Court of Federal Claims properly dismissed for failure to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted, as both are questions of law.” Id.
On appeal, Ms. Giles contends that the Court of Federal Claims erred when it
concluded that 31 U.S.C. § 3732(a) applies to administrative actions under 31 U.S.C.
§ 3730(c)(5) and collateral issues under § 3730(d)(1).
Section 3732(a) states, in relevant part, that “[a]ny action under section 3730
may be brought in any judicial district in which the defendant or, in the case of multiple
defendants, any one defendant can be found, resides, transacts business, or in which
any act proscribed by section 3729 occurred.”
This court has construed this statute as conferring exclusive jurisdiction over qui
tam claims upon the district courts. LeBlanc v. United States, 50 F.3d 1025, 1031 (Fed.
Cir. 1995) (“[Q]ui tam suits may only be heard in the district courts. 31 U.S.C.
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§ 3732(a).”). Nonetheless, Ms. Giles contends that § 3732(a) only governs actions
under §§ 3730(a) and (b).
In support, Ms. Giles relies on Graham County Soil & Water Conservation District
v. United States, 545 U.S. 409, 417 (2005), in which the Supreme Court held that the
six-year statute of limitation for “[a] civil action under section 3730,” codified in 31 U.S.C.
§ 3731(b)(1), applies only to civil actions under §§ 3730(a) and (b). In reaching this
conclusion, the Supreme Court relied on the fact that § 3731(b)(1) was “ambiguous
about whether ‘action under section 3730’ means all actions under § 3730, or only
§§ 3730(a) and (b) actions.” Id. at 416. In fact, the Supreme Court noted that another
subsection of 3731 used the same unqualified phrase “‘action brought under section
3730’ to refer to only §§ 3730(a) and (b) actions.” Id. at 417-18.
Section 3732(a), however, does not suffer from the same ambiguity. The statute,
by its own terms, applies to “any action under section 3730.” 31 U.S.C. § 3732(a)
(emphasis added). Nothing in § 3732 implies that “any action under section 3730” does
not extend to all actions under § 3730. In such a situation, “the plain and unambiguous
meaning of a statute prevails in the absence of clearly expressed legislative intent to the
contrary.” Transco Prods. Inc. v. Performance Contracting, Inc., 38 F.3d 551, 556 (Fed.
Cir. 1994). Accordingly, the Court of Federal Claims correctly concluded that § 3732(a)
applies to all actions under § 3730, and not just §§ 3730(a) and (b).
Moreover, even if the Court of Federal Claims could exercise jurisdiction over
Ms. Giles’s claim against the Federal Government, for Ms. Giles to prevail she would
have to establish that her claim was based on a valid qui tam claim. However, we have
consistently held that the Court of Federal Claims has no authority to make such a
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determination. See, e.g., LeBlanc, 50 F.3d at 1031 (For plaintiff to win “would require
the court to determine that [plaintiff] had a valid qui tam suit under the False Claims Act.
The Court of Federal Claims has no authority to make that determination . . . .”). As
such, the Court of Federal Claims properly dismissed Ms. Giles’s complaint.
III. CONCLUSION
Because the Court of Federal Claims properly dismissed the complaint for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction, we affirm.
No costs.
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