Appeal
from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Texas
Before
JOLLY, SMITH, and GRAVES, Circuit Judges.
JERRY
E. SMITH, Circuit Judge.
Michael
Sammons, proceeding pro se, brought a takings claim
against the United States. The district court concluded that,
under the Tucker Act, Sammons must pursue his claim in the
Court of Federal Claims ("CFC"), so it dismissed
for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. Sammons contends
that the Tucker Act is unconstitutional because it requires
him to litigate his claim in an Article I court. We affirm.
I.
Congress
created the Federal National Mortgage Association
("Fannie Mae") and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage
Corporation ("Freddie Mac") to provide, among other
things, liquidity to the residential mortgage market. During
the financial crisis of 2008, the two entities faced a sharp
reduction in the value of their assets and a loss of investor
confidence. In response, Congress passed the Housing and
Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which created the Federal
Housing Finance Agency ("FHFA") and empowered it to
act as conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Shortly
after the FHFA placed the enterprises into conservatorship,
the Treasury Department purchased $1 billion of preferred
stock in each entity. That "Senior Preferred Stock"
enjoyed preference as to all other preferred stock and was
entitled to an annual cumulative dividend equal to ten
percent of the money given to the enterprises from the
Treasury. In 2012, the FHFA and the Treasury amended the
stock-purchase agreement to change the dividend to one
hundred percent of the current and future profits of the
enterprises.
Sammons
holds $1 million in noncumulative preferred shares in Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac, and he contends that the 2012 amendment
permanently deprived him of the economic value of his
preferred shares. He thus asserts that the amendment amounted
to a regulatory taking and that he is entitled to $900, 000
in just compensation.
The
government moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)
because the Tucker Act vests exclusive jurisdiction for
takings claims over $10, 000 in the CFC. 28 U.S.C. §
1491(a)(1). Sammons moved for a declaratory judgment that the
Tucker Act is unconstitutional as applied to his claim. The
court rejected Sammons's constitutional challenge and
dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We review de
novo a Rule 12(b)(1) dismissal for lack of
jurisdiction.[1]
II.
The
Tucker Act provides that "[t]he United States Court of
Federal Claims shall have jurisdiction to render judgment
upon any claim against the United States founded either upon
the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or any regulation of
an executive department, or upon any express or implied
contract with the United States, or for liquidated or
unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort." 28
U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). It does not "create
substantive rights, but [is] simply [a] jurisdictional
provision[] that operate[s] to waive sovereign immunity for
claims premised on other sources of law".[2]
Under
the Tucker Act, the CFC has exclusive jurisdiction over
claims against the United States for more than $10,
000.[3] Sammons concedes that, because he
seeks more than that, the district court had no statutory
jurisdiction. He attempts to get around that by attacking the
Tucker Act, theorizing that it violates Article III by
vesting the power to hear constitutional takings claims in
the CFC, an Article I court.
There
are several classes of cases that Congress can permissibly
assign to non-Article III courts.[4] One includes cases involving "public
rights, which may be presented in such form that the judicial
power is capable of acting on them, and which are susceptible
of judicial determination, but which congress may or may not
bring within the cognizance of the courts of the United
States, as it may deem proper."[5] One way a right can be "public"
is if it is asserted against the United States in its
sovereign capacity, such that the government has
immunity.[6] In such circumstances,
"Congress may set the terms of adjudicating a suit when
the suit could not otherwise proceed at all."
Stern, 564 U.S. at 489.
The
dispute thus reduces to whether the United States, in the
absence of the Tucker Act, has sovereign immunity over
takings claims. If it does, then Congress can attach
conditions to its Tucker-Act waiver, such as requiring
claimants to litigate in the CFC. The government maintains
that before Congress passed the Tucker Act in 1887, it had
not waived sovereign immunity over takings claims. The
government observes that, before then, citizens had to
request individual waivers of sovereign immunity through
private bills in Congress.[7] Sammons counters that the Fifth Amendment
automatically waives sovereign immunity. He principally
relies on Supreme Court precedent describing the
"self-executing" nature of the takings
clause.[8]
But
whatever the merits of the parties' positions, the issue
is foreclosed. "It is well-established in this circuit
that one panel of this Court may not overrule another."
United States v. Segura, 747 F.3d 323, 328 (5th Cir.
2014). Moreover, "[t]he binding force of a prior-panel
decision applies not only to the result but also to those
portions of the opinion ...