ATAKAPA INDIAN DE CREOLE NATION v. STATE OF LOUISIANA, Office of Indian Affairs; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
No. 19-30032
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
December 10, 2019
Consolidated with 19-30064
Before OWEN, Chief Judge, and BARKSDALE and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
STUART KYLE DUNCAN, Circuit Judge:
The plaintiff, a lawyer who styles himself both a monarch and a deity, brought claims on behalf of an Indian tribe alleging that the defendants have, among other misdeeds, monopolized “intergalactic foreign trade.” The district court dismissed the case based on sovereign immunity. We affirm on the alternate basis that the plaintiffs claims are frivolous and the district court therefore lacked jurisdiction to entertain them. See Southpark Square Ltd. v. City of Jackson, Miss., 565 F.2d 338, 344 (5th Cir. 1977).
This action was originally brought as a habeas corpus proceeding by Edward Moses, Jr., a lawyer who calls himself the trustee of the “Atakapa Indian de Creole Nation.” This group is not a federally recognized Indian tribe, and its precise nature is unclear. See Indian Entities Recognized by and Eligible To Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, 84 Fed. Reg. 1200 (Feb. 1, 2019). The initial complaint alleged the Atakapa “are being held as wards of the State through the Louisiana Governor‘s Office of Indian Affairs” and “in pupilage under the United States,” and sought formal recognition as “indigenous to Louisiana.” The claims were based on a gumbo of federal and state laws, including eighteenth-century federal treaties with France and Spain, as well as sources such as the “Pactum De Singularis Caelum, [or] the Covenant of One Heaven.” The plaintiff subsequently filed something resembling an amended complaint, which sought to reclassify the action as a “libel suit” under maritime jurisdiction.
The United States and Louisiana moved to dismiss, arguing the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The magistrate judge recommended granting the motion. The plaintiff objected and moved to file a second amended complaint, alleging jurisdiction under federal antitrust laws and Title VII. The district court dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. It also denied the plaintiffs separate motions for new trial and reconsideration, for leave to file a third amended complaint, and for an emergency injunction. Finally, the court issued an order finding the plaintiff‘s filings “constitute[d] potential violations under
The plaintiff appeals the dismissal of his claims as well as the denial of various motions. The appeals have been consolidated.
We review de novo the district court‘s dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Rothe Dev., Inc. v. U.S. Dep‘t of Def., 666 F.3d 336, 338 (5th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted).
III.
The district court dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds, but we need not go that far to resolve this appeal. The plaintiff‘s claims are entirely frivolous and the district court therefore lacked power to entertain them.
Some claims are “so insubstantial, implausible, . . . or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to involve a federal controversy.” See Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. v. Oneida Cty., 414 U.S. 661, 666 (1974). Federal courts lack power to entertain these “wholly insubstantial and frivolous” claims. Southpark Square, 565 F.2d at 343-44. Determining whether a claim is “wholly insubstantial and frivolous” requires asking whether it is “obviously without merit” or whether the claim‘s “unsoundness so clearly results from the previous decisions of (the Supreme Court) as to foreclose the subject.” Id. at 342.
Unsurprisingly, we can find no Supreme Court precedent controlling or even addressing the plaintiffs exotic claims. We must therefore ask: are the claims “obviously without merit“? We say yes.
The pleadings speak for themselves. To begin with, the Atakapa‘s counsel, Edward Moses, Jr.—who appears to be the real plaintiff—refers to himself throughout under such titles as: “His Majesty,” “[T]he Christian King de Orleans,” “[T]he God of the Earth Realm,” and the “Trust Protector of the American Indian Tribe of משֶׁה Moses” (bold and Hebrew script in original).
The plaintiffs claims are no less bizarre. For instance, the original complaint alleges, without any explanation, that the Atakapa are being held in “pupilage” by the United States and as “wards” of Louisiana. The first
We will not try to decipher what any of this means. “[T]o do so might suggest that these arguments have some colorable merit.” Crain v. Comm‘r, 737 F.2d 1417, 1417 (5th Cir. 1984) (per curiam). Despite all this, jurisdiction would still lie if the plaintiff presented a non-frivolous federal question. We find none. For example, the plaintiff asserts various antitrust violations, but fails to allege any colorable basis for them. The best he can do is to allege anticompetitive behavior by Thompson Reuters. He seeks an injunction, not to stop anything defendants are doing to the Atakapa, but instead to “restrain[] the Doctrine of Discovery and the Doctrine of Conquest more commonly known as the Doctrine of White Supremacy.” Many of the arguments depend, not on the alleged violation of any federal statute or rule, but instead on the assertion that “[t]he 1803 Louisiana Purchase Treaty is not ‘Law of the Land.‘”
AFFIRMED