Antonio Chavez v. United States

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ANTONIO CHAVEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant
AARON WILSON,
Plaintiff
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2024-1205
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:23-cv-01215-EJD, Senior Judge Edward J.
Damich.
______________________
Decided: December 13, 2024
______________________
ANTONIO CHAVEZ, Fort Leavenworth, KS, pro se.
EVAN WISSER, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice,
Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented
by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M.
MCCARTHy.
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CHAVEZ v. US 2
______________________
Before STOLL, CLEVENGER, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit
Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Antonio Chavez appeals the dismissal of his action for
lack of jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1500, which
precludes the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (the “Claims
Court”) from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over
“any claim for or in respect to which the plaintiff or his
assignee has pending in any other court any suit or process
against the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1500; see Chavez
v. United States, No. 23-1215, 2023 WL 6458956 (Fed. Cl.
Oct. 4, 2023). Because § 1500 prohibits the Claims Court
from having jurisdiction over this action, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Chavez received disability retirement from the
United States Army in June 2012, retiring at the rank of
Captain. In April 2019, the Army recalled him to active
duty for the purpose of trial by court-martial. The Army
charged Mr. Chavez with crimes committed between
January 2004 and June 2005, during his time of active
service. Mr. Chavez pled guilty, and a general court-
martial convicted him in August 2019. The United States
Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction, and
the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
denied review. Throughout his prosecution, Mr. Chavez
argued that the military courts lacked jurisdiction over him
because of his status as a disability retiree. The Army
dismissed Mr. Chavez from service in January 2021.
Because the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”)
adjusted his credit for honorable service time and lowered
his disability rating to 10 percent, Mr. Chavez owed
$299,696.03 in overpaid benefits and his disability
compensation went from $3,433.50 per month to $522.39
per month.
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CHAVEZ v. US 3
Mr. Chavez filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus
in the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia in December 2021. SAppx1008–23.1 That court
transferred the habeas petition to the United States
District Court for the District of Kansas in January 2022.2
In July 2023, Mr. Chavez filed a Complaint in the Claims
Court (1) challenging the jurisdiction of the military courts
over disability retirees pursuant to article 2(a)(4) of the
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) (10 U.S.C.
§ 802(a)(4)), and (2) seeking to collaterally attack the
jurisdiction of the courts-martial that convicted him,
backpay, and alteration of his military records.
SAppx1074–98.
In October 2023, the Claims Court granted the
Government’s motion to dismiss Mr. Chavez’s Complaint
pursuant to Claims Court Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction because § 1500 bars it. Section 1500
provides that “[t]he United States Court of Federal Claims
shall not have jurisdiction of any claim for or in respect to
which the plaintiff or his assignee has pending in any other
court any suit or process against the United States.”
28 U.S.C. § 1500. The Claims Court determined
that: (1) Mr. Chavez’s habeas petition is an earlier-filed
pending suit or process for § 1500 purposes, and (2) the
same operative facts gave rise to both Mr. Chavez’s district
court habeas petition and his Claims Court Complaint.
Mr. Chavez filed a motion for reconsideration, which the
Claims Court denied. Motion, Chavez v. United States,
No. 23-1215 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 9, 2023), ECF No. 22; Order,
1 “SAppx” refers to the Supplemental Appendix filed
with the Government’s Informal Response Brief.
2 In December 2023, after the Claims Court
dismissed this case, Mr. Chavez amended his habeas
petition in the District of Kansas. SAppx1024–73.
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CHAVEZ v. US 4
Chavez v. United States, No. 23-1215 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 13,
2023), ECF No. 23.
Mr. Chavez appeals. He requests that the court take
the following actions: (1) perform a comparison under
Trusted Integration, Inc. v. United States, 659 F.3d 1159
(Fed. Cir. 2011), to determine whether the operative facts
of his two lawsuits are the same; (2) “use his court-
approved amended habeas corpus petition to perform the
determination”;3 and (3) remand this matter to the Claims
Court, but to a different judge, upon a determination that
§ 1500 does not bar Mr. Chavez’s lawsuit. Appellant’s
Br. 21 (citation omitted). We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
DISCUSSION
We review the Claims Court’s dismissal of a case for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Trusted
Integration, 659 F.3d at 1163. Mr. Chavez “bears the
burden of establishing the [Claims Court’s] jurisdiction
over [his] claims by a preponderance of the evidence. In
determining jurisdiction, a court must accept as true all
undisputed facts asserted in the plaintiff ’s complaint and
draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Id.
(citation omitted).
3 The Government does not object to or oppose a
comparison between Mr. Chavez’s Claims Court Complaint
and his amended habeas petition. The Government even
provides a copy of the amended petition in its
Supplemental Appendix. SAppx1024–73. Mindful of
Mr. Chavez’s pro se status and the “uniformly applied”
understanding that an amended pleading supersedes the
original, we conduct our analysis using Mr. Chavez’s
amended habeas petition. See, e.g., In re Samsung Elecs.
Co., 2 F.4th 1371, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2021).
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CHAVEZ v. US 5
Courts must make two inquiries to determine whether
§ 1500 applies: “(1) whether there is an earlier-filed ‘suit
or process’ pending in another court, and, if so, (2) whether
the claims asserted in the earlier-filed case are ‘for or in
respect to’ the same claim(s) asserted in the later-filed
Court of Federal Claims action.” Brandt v. United States,
710 F.3d 1369, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (quoting Trusted
Integration, 659 F.3d at 1163–64). “If the answer to either
of these questions is negative, then the Court of Federal
Claims retains jurisdiction.” Id. “[T]wo suits are ‘for or in
respect to’ the same claim ‘if they are based on
substantially the same operative facts, regardless of the
relief sought.’ Importantly, the legal theories underlying
the asserted claims are irrelevant to this inquiry.” Id.
(quoting United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation,
563 U.S. 307, 317 (2011)).
Mr. Chavez does not dispute that his habeas petition
was still pending in the District of Kansas when he filed
his Complaint in the Claims Court. Accordingly, we focus
our discussion on the second inquiry of the § 1500
analysis—whether Mr. Chavez’s two lawsuits “are based
on substantially the same operative facts, regardless of the
relief sought.” Tohono, 563 U.S. at 317. “Because
determining whether claims arise from substantially the
same operative facts requires a comparison of the relevant
claims, we address each claim” in Mr. Chavez’s Claims
Court Complaint. Trusted Integration, 659 F.3d at 1165.
As the Claims Court accurately explained, Mr. Chavez’s
Claims Court Complaint contains two Counts: (1) “the
United States violated the Due Process Clause by recalling
[him], taking away [his] disability retirement pay, and
sentencing [him] to confinement;” and (2) “the Army did
not have jurisdiction to convene a general court-martial
against [him] because [he was a] civilian[].” Chavez,
2023 WL 6458956, at *4; SAppx1096–97.
In Count I of his Claims Court Complaint, Mr. Chavez
alleges that: (1) the Government deprived him of “certain
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CHAVEZ v. US 6
rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, Fifth
Amendment . . . by illegally ‘recalling’ [him] although there
is no statutory authority to order an involuntary recall . . .
pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 688”; (2) the Government “violated
the due process of law by subjecting [Mr. Chavez] to
Article 2(a)(4) UCMJ jurisdiction by intentionally
misinterpreting the term ‘pay’”; (3) the Government
“violated due process of law by . . . convening a general
court-martial and imposing a judgment and a sentence of
dismissal and confinement against [Mr. Chavez] who [is a]
civilian[]”; (4) the Government “illegally deprived
[Mr. Chavez] due process of law by taking [his] property
interest to disability retired pay”; (5) the Government
“illegally deprived [Mr. Chavez] due process of law by
taking [his] property interest in VA disability compensation
pay”; and (6) the Government “illegally deprived
[Mr. Chavez] of [his] liberty in violation of due process by
placing [him] in confinement at the United States
Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, KS.”
SAppx1096 ¶¶ 85–91. The first, second, third, and sixth
allegations match those in Count I of Mr. Chavez’s
amended habeas petition almost verbatim. Compare id.,
with SAppx1069 ¶¶ 72–76.
In Count II of his Claims Court Complaint, Mr. Chavez
reiterates that: (1) the “general courts-martial . . . had no
jurisdiction” because Mr. Chavez “w[as] tried as [a]
civilian[],” (2) “[he] w[as] illegally deprived of [his] property
right to disability retired pay,” and (3) “[he] w[as] illegally
deprived of [his] property right to VA disability
compensation pay.” SAppx1097 ¶¶ 93–95. As such,
Mr. Chavez repeats his fourth and fifth allegations from
Count I of the Complaint. These Count II allegations
overlap with those in Counts II and III of Mr. Chavez’s
amended habeas petition. In Count II of the amended
habeas petition, Mr. Chavez includes “[d]eclare ‘[d]isability
retired pay’ granted,” and in Count III of that petition, he
alleges that he “was illegally apprehended by U.S. Army
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CHAVEZ v. US 7
military authorities . . . [and] [t]hese military authorities
had no jurisdiction.” SAppx1070 ¶¶ 80, 86.
Comparing the conduct pled in Counts I–II of
Mr. Chavez’s Claims Court Complaint with that pled in
Counts I–III of his amended habeas petition, “it is
apparent that each count involves nearly identical
conduct.” Trusted Integration, 659 F.3d at 1165. The
Government argues that “Mr. Chavez asked two separate
courts to review the same matter—the legitimacy of his
court-martial,” and that the “only difference between the
two cases [is] the specific consequences he sought to
reverse”: in his habeas petition, a reversal of his
incarceration; and in his Claims Court Complaint, a
reversal of “the administrative consequences of his court
martial, including the change in his character of discharge
and the reduction of his VA disability benefits.” Appellee’s
Br. 6. We agree. Compare SAppx1068–72, with
SAppx1096–98. And under Tohono, when determining
whether two suits “are based on substantially the same
operative facts,” we disregard “the relief sought in each
suit.” 563 U.S. at 317.
The problem with Mr. Chavez’s position is that he
emphasizes the distinction in relief sought, which Supreme
Court caselaw requires us to disregard. He argues:
The Court of Federal Claims erred because [his]
claim for monetary damages and correction of
military records . . . is not barred under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1500, because the “operative facts” in a writ of
habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. § 2241) are limited to
custody and detention—there are no “operative
facts” in relation to a monetary claim to compare.
Appellant’s Br. 13; see also Appellant’s Br. 4 (“[T]here are
no ‘operative facts’ to compare between the two lawsuits,
because such comparisons are premised on both suits
making monetary claims . . . .”). Contrary to Mr. Chavez’s
arguments, however, that his petition for a writ of habeas
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CHAVEZ v. US 8
corpus is not a claim for monetary relief does not mean that
§ 1500 does not bar his monetary claims filed in the Claims
Court. As the Supreme Court explained in Tohono:
Reading [§ 1500] to require only factual and not
also remedial [i.e., relief sought] overlap makes
sense in light of the unique remedial powers of the
[Claims Court]. The [Claims Court] is the only
judicial forum for most nontort requests for
significant monetary relief against the United
States. Unlike the district courts, however, the
[Claims Court] has no general power to provide
equitable relief against the Government or its
officers. The distinct jurisdiction of the [Claims
Court] makes overlapping relief the exception and
distinct relief the norm. For that reason, a statute
aimed at precluding suits in the [Claims Court]
that duplicate suits elsewhere would be unlikely to
require remedial overlap.
563 U.S. at 313–14 (citations omitted). And in Tohono,
even though one suit sought equitable relief and the other
sought money damages, id. at 310, the Court held that
“[u]nder § 1500, the substantial overlap in operative facts
between the . . . District Court and [Claims Court] suits
preclude[d] jurisdiction in the [Claims Court].” Id. at 318.
Here, under the same statute, the substantial overlap in
operative facts between Mr. Chavez’s amended habeas
petition and his Claims Court Complaint precludes
jurisdiction in the Claims Court.
Because the Claims Court lacks jurisdiction, we need
not decide whether a different Claims Court judge should
preside over this case were we to remand.
CONCLUSION
Because Counts I and II of Mr. Chavez’s Claims Court
Complaint arise from the same operative facts as the
claims asserted in his amended habeas petition filed in
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CHAVEZ v. US 9
district court, the Claims Court properly held that § 1500
bars these claims. We thus affirm.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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