Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 1 Filed: 08/22/2022
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
FLORDELIZA A. HAWKINS,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2022-1096
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:19-cv-01672-VJW, Senior Judge Victor J. Wolski.
______________________
Decided: August 22, 2022
______________________
FLORDELIZA A. HAWKINS, Oxnard, CA, pro se.
MARGARET JANTZEN, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by
BRIAN M. BOYNTON, DEBORAH ANN BYNUM, PATRICIA M.
MCCARTHY.
______________________
Before NEWMAN, REYNA, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 2 Filed: 08/22/2022
2 HAWKINS v. US
NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
Flordeliza A. Hawkins filed suit in the United States
Court of Federal Claims, alleging violations of her consti-
tutional and civil rights with regard to eviction from her
home in 2013 after foreclosure proceedings by her mortga-
gee, SunTrust Bank. The court granted the government’s
motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Ms. Hawkins timely appealed.
We affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
DISCUSSION
This court reviews issues of jurisdiction de novo.
Acevedo v. United States,
824 F.3d 1365, 1368 (Fed. Cir.
2016). When a party moves to dismiss for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction, the court accepts as true all undis-
puted facts and draws all reasonable inferences in the
plaintiff’s favor. The court may consider extrinsic evidence
when determining disputed jurisdictional facts. Shoshone
Indian Tribe of Wind River Rsrv., Wyo. v. United States,
672 F.3d 1021, 1029–30 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
The Tucker Act jurisdiction,
28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1), re-
quires a constitutional, statutory, or contractual right to
money damages. N.Y. & Presbyterian Hosp. v. United
States,
881 F.3d 877, 881 (Fed. Cir. 2018). There must be
a substantive law that can “fairly be interpreted” as requir-
ing the United States to pay damages.
Id. This standard
requires a lesser showing than is needed to demonstrate a
waiver of sovereign immunity; only requiring that the legal
source of the asserted claim “be reasonably amenable to the
reading that it mandates a right of recovery in damages.”
United States v. White Mountain Apache Tribe,
537 U.S.
465, 472–73 (2003).
Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 3 Filed: 08/22/2022
HAWKINS v. US 3
This case presents no factual dispute. The question is
whether Ms. Hawkins has identified a money-mandating
source of law, due to a violation of a legal right or a breach
of a contract with the federal government. We conclude
that she has not.
Ms. Hawkins identified the Fourteenth Amendment as
the source of her claim. Appellant Br. 2. She previously
also claimed violations of the Bill of Rights and the Thir-
teenth Amendment. While these amendments restrict gov-
ernment action, none of them is in jurisdictional terms
empowered by the Tucker Act except the Takings Clause of
the Fifth Amendment.
Ms. Hawkins’s rights under the Takings Clause have
not been violated. This clause prohibits taking of “private
property for public use, without just compensation.” U.S.
Const. amend. V. Here, a private bank implemented a fore-
closure sale based on contractual provisions of a mortgage
document. Appellee Appx. 0016–17. This does not impli-
cate the Takings Clause. See, e.g., Squires-Cannon v. For-
est Pres. Dist. of Cook Cty.,
897 F.3d 797, 803 (7th Cir.
2018) (finding no taking when a government entity pur-
chased property in a foreclosure sale based on a contractual
right).
Ms. Hawkins’ argues that her mortgage contract was
with the federal government because the Department of
Housing and Urban Development created some of the
mortgage forms and placed its letterhead on those forms.
But the government can generally only be sued for breach
of contract when it is a party to the contract, which requires
intent by the government to enter a contract. Turping v.
United States,
913 F.3d 1060, 1066 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Gov-
ernmental oversight of a contract form is insufficient. Katz
v. Cisneros,
16 F.3d 1204, 1210 (Fed. Cir. 1994). That the
Department of Housing and Urban Development created
mortgage forms and oversees some aspects of mortgages
Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 4 Filed: 08/22/2022
4 HAWKINS v. US
does not make it a party to the mortgage and does not pro-
vide jurisdiction in the Court of Federal Claims.
CONCLUSION
The Court of Federal Claims correctly dismissed for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED
No costs.
