Tamsen Bowles, Reggie Bowles v. United States

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
TAMSEN BOWLES, REGGIE BOWLES,
Plaintiffs-Appellants
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2024-2354
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:24-cv-01260-DAT, Judge David A. Tapp.
______________________
Decided: May 13, 2025
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T AMSEN BOWLES , Tulsa, OK, pro se.
REGGIE B OWLES , Tulsa, OK, pro se.
K ATY M. BARTELMA , Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by
BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ELIZABETH MARIE HOSFORD, P ATRICIA
M. MCCARTHY .
______________________
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BOWLES v. US 2
Before L OURIE, D YK, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
P ER CURIAM .
Tamsen and Reggie Bowles appeal pro se from the de-
cision of the United States Court of Federal Claims (“the
Claims Court”) dismissing their complaint sua sponte for a
lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Bowles v. United States,
No. 24-1260, 2024 WL 3861735 (Fed. Cl. Aug. 19, 2024)
(“Decision”). For the following reasons, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
The Bowles parties filed a complaint in the Claims
Court seeking over $20 million in damages from the United
States. S.A. 4–8.1 The complaint alleged that they were
harmed by the United States Department of Health and
Human Services (“HHS”) based on the department’s coor-
dination with Oklahoma state agencies to wrongfully re-
move their children from their custody. S.A. 5. The
complaint identified 14 statutory provisions as the basis for
the Claims Court’s jurisdiction. S.A. 4.
The Claims Court dismissed the complaint for a lack of
jurisdiction. Decision, at *1. In reviewing the 14 identified
statutes, the Claims Court first determined that the seven
provisions under Title 18 of the United States Code were
criminal statutes, and thus outside its jurisdiction. Id. For
the next provision, 22 U.S.C. § 6401, the International Re-
ligious Freedom Act, the Claims Court determined that it
was not money-mandating and did not provide a private
cause of action for civil litigants, and therefore must also
be dismissed. Id. For the remaining six identified provi-
sions under Title 42 of the United States Code, the court
determined that those too failed to provide a basis for ju-
risdiction. Id. at *2. The court concluded that those
1 S.A. refers to the appendix submitted with Defend-
ant-Appellee’s brief.
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BOWLES v. US 3
provisions covered a statute regarding social security fraud
with no private right of action, 42 U.S.C. § 1307, civil rights
statutes without money-mandating provisions concerning
the United States, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1988, and an Ameri-
cans with Disabilities Act provision exclusively within the
jurisdiction of the district courts, 42 U.S.C. § 12203. Id.
Finally, the Claims Court determined that “[i]gnoring
Plaintiffs’ cited statutes, an extremely liberal reading of
their allegations may allege negligent oversight by HHS”;
a tort claim expressly outside the jurisdiction of the Claims
Court. Id. at *2 (noting 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1)’s exclusion
of cases “sounding in tort”). The court therefore dismissed
the complaint for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The
Bowleses timely appealed, and we have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
D ISCUSSION
We review the Claims Court’s dismissal of a complaint
for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Res. Con-
servation Grp., LLC v. United States, 597 F.3d 1238, 1242
(Fed. Cir. 2010). Under the Tucker Act, the Claims Court
has jurisdiction over certain actions for monetary relief
against the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 1491. The Tucker
Act itself does not create a substantive cause of action; ra-
ther, a plaintiff must identify a separate source of substan-
tive law that is “money-mandating.” Fisher v. United
States, 402 F.3d 1167, 1172 (Fed. Cir. 2005). While docu-
ments filed pro se are held to less stringent standards,
Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972), a pro se litigant
still bears the burden of proving that the court possesses
subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint, Sanders v.
United States, 252 F.3d 1329, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2001)
We see no reversible error in the Claims Court’s dis-
missal of the complaint for a lack of subject matter juris-
diction. None of the 14 statutory provisions identified in
the compliant provides the “money-mandating” source of
law required under the Tucker Act. See Joshua v. United
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BOWLES v. US 4
States, 17 F.3d 378, 379 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (“The [Claims
Court] has no jurisdiction to adjudicate any claims whatso-
ever under the federal criminal code.”); 42 U.S.C. § 1307
(discussing penalties for social security fraud); 22 U.S.C.
§ 6401 (establishing the United States policy towards reli-
gious freedom abroad); Allen v. United States, 546 F. App’x
949, 951 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (“[T]he ADA is not a money-man-
dating source of law.”); D.C. v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 424–25
(1973) (noting that civil rights statutes such as 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 “[do] not reach . . . actions of the Federal Govern-
ment”).
On appeal, the Bowles parties do not appear to chal-
lenge the Claims Court’s holding with respect to the stat-
utes identified in their complaint. See Appellants’ Inf. Br.
at 1–3. Rather, they argue that (1) Claims Court did not
appreciate that their First and Fourteenth Amendment
rights were violated, id. at 1, (2) the Tucker Act alone
“grants the Federal Claims Court jurisdiction to waive the
governments sovereign immunity,” id. at 2, and (3) “Plain-
tiff’s entered into a federal tort” for which they “continue to
seek remedy,” id. at 2.
However, it is well established that the First and Four-
teenth Amendments generally do not provide the requisite
“money-mandating” source of law under the Tucker Act,
Smith v. United States, 709 F.3d 1114, 1116 (Fed. Cir.
2013), United States v. Connolly, 716 F.2d 882, 887 (Fed.
Cir. 1983), and that the Tucker Act alone cannot establish
the jurisdiction of the Claims Court, United States v.
Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 216–17 (1983). Furthermore, as the
Claims Court correctly noted, cases “sounding in tort” are
expressly excluded from its jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C.
§ 1491(a)(1); see Decision, at *2. The arguments presented
on appeal therefore do not persuade us that the Claims
Court erred in dismissing their complaint for a lack of sub-
ject matter jurisdiction.
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BOWLES v. US 5
CONCLUSION
We have considered the Bowles’ remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
affirm the decision of the Claims Court.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
The parties shall bear their own costs.
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