Constantine S. Ananiades v. United States

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.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
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CONSTANTINE ANANIADES , Arcadia, CA, pro se.
MARIANA T ERESA ACEVEDO, Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
tice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, P ATRICIA M. MCCARTHY ,
D OUGLAS K. M ICKLE.
______________________
Before T ARANTO, CHEN, and HUGHES , Circuit Judges.
Case: 23-2278 Document: 18 Page: 1 Filed: 02/09/2024

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ANANIADES v. US 2
P ER 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.
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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.
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ANANIADES v. US 4
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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ANANIADES v. US 6
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
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