Case Information
*1 N OTE : This order is nonprecedential. United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________ ARTHUR LOPEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant v.
UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee ______________________ 2025-1499 ______________________ Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in No. 1:23-cv-01742-LAS, Senior Judge Loren A. Smith.
______________________ ON MOTION ______________________
P ER URIAM .
O R D E R Arthur Lopez appeals from the judgment of the United States Court of Federal Claims dismissing his case for lack of jurisdiction. For the reasons provided herein, we grant the United States’s motion to summarily affirm.
The present litigation, wherein Mr. Lopez alleges col- lusion between the United States and the owner and asso- ciated entities of the Irvine Company LLC, followed *2 previous litigation in federal district court in which Mr. Lopez had alleged Irvine and its associated apartment buildings in Newport Beach, California discriminated against him; violated the Fair Housing Act; and committed unfair business practices arising out of the termination of his lease. See Lopez v. Irvine Company LLC , No. 8:18-cv- 00093 (C.D. Cal. June 4, 2018), Dkt. No. 25.
Several years after the district court dismissed Mr. Lopez’s complaint and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed his appeal, Mr. Lopez brought this suit in the Court of Federal Claims, alleging that the United States “stalked Plaintiff to Harass to the point of Taking his asset(s) property-claims related to the Irvine Company for their standard operating of discrimina- tion, segregation, fraud and more unlawfulness that led to depriving Plaintiff of Newport Beach Housing;” including creating “delays[,] distractions[,] and impediments” to his “legal research” and engaging in various criminal activi- ties, including entrapment. ECF No. 3 at 10–17. He also asked to “take judicial notice that the Social Security De- partment has participated in these Takings schemes against Plaintiff having deprived Social Security Disability Benefits for many years[.]” at 18. The Court of Federal Claims granted the government’s motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. This appeal followed. The Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, limits the jurisdic- tion of the Court of Federal Claims to claims for money damages against the United States based on sources of sub- stantive law that “can fairly be interpreted as mandating compensation by the Federal Government.” United States v. Navajo Nation , 556 U.S. 287, 290 (2009). It also ex- pressly omits from the Court of Federal Claims’s jurisdic- tion claims that “sound[] in tort.” § 1491(a)(1). Moreover, consistent with its “gap-filling role,” the Tucker Act does not apply in those circumstances in which Congress has provided “a precisely drawn, detailed statute” that *3 3 “contains its own judicial remedies.” United States v. Bormes , 568 U.S. 6, 12–13 (2012).
Here, the Court of Federal Claims determined that it did not have jurisdiction to hear Mr. Lopez’s claims. We find that summary affirmance is appropriate because that court’s determination is so clearly correct. See Joshua v. United States , 17 F.3d 378, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Mr. Lopez’s claims of harassment, stalking, and interference with his efforts to sue the Irvine Company sound in tort and thus lie outside the Court of Federal Claims’s jurisdic- tion. “We have also previously informed Mr. Lopez that the Court of Federal Claims’[s] jurisdiction under the Tucker Act does not extend to claims for social security benefits,” Lopez v. United States , No. 24-1860, 2025 WL 685917, at *2 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 4, 2025) (citing Lopez v. United States , No. 23-1522, 2023 WL 7096921, at *1 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 27, 2023)); see Marcus v. United States , 909 F.2d 1470, 1471 (Fed. Cir. 1990), or “criminal actions and suits,” Lopez , 2025 WL 685917, at *2; see Joshua , 17 F.3d at 379. We have considered Mr. Lopez’s arguments in opposi- tion to summary affirmance and find them unpersuasive. Mr. Lopez asserts that he “has uncovered . . . very signifi- cant ‘conflict of interest’ Standard Operating Procedures within the Trial Court” that includes “the repeated occur- rence of assigning bias judicial officers to [his] cases,” ECF No. 11-1 at 3, and alleges that the trial judge’s denial of his request to recuse was an “apparent retaliatory act [that] also negated [his] request for leave to amend complaint to possibly add legal theor[ie]s, facts, claims.” at 4. But, as this court previously explained to Mr. Lopez, to show “that judicial bias during the proceedings deprived him of due process [he] must show a deep-seated favoritism or an- tagonism that would make fair judgment impossible.” Lopez , 2025 WL 685917, at *2 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). As with his prior similar attempts, here again, he “has not satisfied this requirement,” as “[h]is accusations are purely speculative.” Id.
Accordingly,
I T I S O RDERED T HAT :
(1) The United States’s motion is granted. The judg- ment of the United States Court of Federal Claims is sum- marily affirmed.
(2) Each party shall bear its own costs.
F OR THE OURT July 16, 2025
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