PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 09-4209
CHARLES F. KERCHNER, JR.;
LOWELL T. PATTERSON;
DARRELL JAMES LENORMAND;
DONALD H. NELSEN, JR.,
Appellants
v.
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, II,
President Elect of the United States of America,
President of the United States of America, and Individually;
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;
UNITED STATES CONGRESS;
UNITED STATES SENATE;
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES;
RICHARD B. CHENEY, President of the Senate,
Presiding Officer of Joint Session of Congress,
Vice President of the United States and Individually;
NANCY PELOSI, Speaker of the House and Individually
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
(D.C. Civil No.1-09-cv-00253)
District Judge: Hon. Jerome B. Simandle
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
June 29, 2010
Before: SLOVITER, BARRY and HARDIMAN, Circuit Judges
(Filed: July 2, 2010)
Mario Apuzzo, Esquire
Jamesburg, New Jersey 08831-0000
Attorney for Appellants
Tony West
Assistant Attorney General
Paul J. Fishman
United States Attorney
Mark B. Stern, Esquire
Eric Fleisig-Greene, Esquire
Attorneys, Appellate Staff
Civil Division
United States Department of Justice
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Attorneys for Appellees
OPINION OF THE COURT
SLOVITER, Circuit Judge.
Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., Lowell T. Patterson, Darrell J.
LeNormand, and Donald H. Nelsen, Jr. (hereafter “Appellants”)
filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of
New Jersey, alleging that President Barack Obama is ineligible
to hold his Office as President. They rely on Article II, Section
1, Clause 4 of the United States Constitution which provides that
“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the
United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,
shall be eligible to the Office of President. . . .” U.S. Const., art.
II, § 1, cl. 4.1 Appellants challenge the District Court’s order
1
There is a dispute, among courts and commentators, as to
whether the provision known as the “Natural Born Citizen” clause
should be cited as clause 4 or clause 5 of Article II, § 1 of the
Constitution. Compare Hollander v. McCain, 566 F. Supp. 2d 63,
2
dismissing their complaint. We will affirm the order of
dismissal and direct Appellants’ counsel to show cause why just
damages and costs should not be imposed on him for having
filed a frivolous appeal.
I.
Appellants, seeking to compel President Obama to
“conclusively prove[ ]” that he is eligible to serve as President,
Appellants’ Br. at 6, named as defendants President Obama, the
United States of America, the United States Congress, the
United States Senate, the United States House of
Representatives, former Vice President and President of the
Senate Richard Cheney, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
(hereafter “Appellees”). Appellants allege that President Obama
violated their rights under the Fifth and Ninth Amendments
when he assumed office without “conclusively” proving that he
is eligible for the presidency and that the legislative branch
violated Appellants’ right under the Petition Clause of the First
Amendment when Appellants’ request to investigate the
President’s birthplace and citizenship was ignored. Appellants
also assert claims under the Fifth and Twentieth Amendments
against Congress, former Vice President Cheney, and Speaker
Pelosi, for failing to “properly vet and verify” Obama’s
citizenship. Appellants’ Br. at 10. They moreover bring an
equal protection claim on the ground that Congress “fully
investigated . . . whether Republican Presidential candidate John
65 (D.N.H. 2008) (citing the provision as clause 4), Rhodes v.
MacDonald, No. 4:09-CV-106, 2009 WL 2997605, at *1 n.1
(M.D.Ga. Sept. 16, 2009) (same), and Gerard N. Magliocca,
Constitutional False Positives and the Populist Movement, 81
N OTRE D AME L. R EV. 821, 874 (2006) (same), with Mathews v.
Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 78 n.12 (1976) (citing the provision as clause 5),
and Andrew B. Coan, The Irrelevance of Writtenness in
Constitutional Interpretation, 158 U. P A. L. R EV. 1025, 1051
(2010) (same). In any event, the parties agree as to the substance
of the Natural Born Citizen clause, and we use the same citation as
we used in Berg v. Obama, 586 F.3d 234, 237 n.1 (3d Cir. 2009).
3
McCain is an Article II ‘natural born Citizen,’” but made no
such inquiry as to President Obama. Appellants’ Br. at 10-11.
At this procedural posture, we must “accept all factual
allegations as true, construe the complaint in the light most
favorable to [Appellants], and determine whether, under any
reasonable reading of the complaint, [Appellants] may be
entitled to relief.” Byers v. Intuit, Inc., 600 F.3d 286, 291 (3d
Cir. 2010) (quoting Grammar v. John J. Kane Reg’l Ctrs.-Glen
Hazel, 570 F.3d 520, 523 (3d Cir. 2009)). Nonetheless, “a
complaint must . . . ‘state a claim . . . that is plausible on its
face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (quoting
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
The District Court concluded that Appellants lacked
Article III standing.2 See Kerchner v. Obama, 669 F. Supp. 2d
477, 479 (D.N.J. 2009). We agree. It is axiomatic that standing
to sue is a prerequisite to Article III jurisdiction. Friends of the
Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167,
180-81 (2000). This constitutional mandate requires that
Appellants show, inter alia, an “injury in fact.” Lujan v.
Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). “An ‘injury in
fact’ is ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a)
concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not
conjectural or hypothetical.’” Berg v. Obama, 586 F.3d 234, 239
(3d Cir. 2009) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560).
The appeal in Berg presented us with a claim similar to
the one here, in which the plaintiff challenged President-elect
Obama’s eligibility to run for and serve as President. The
district court in that case dismissed the suit on standing grounds
because “the alleged harm to voters like [the Plaintiff] stemming
from [Obama’s] failure to satisfy the eligibility requirements of
the Natural Born Citizen Clause is not concrete or particularized
2
Appellants invoked the District Court’s jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343(a)(3)-(4), 1346(a)(2), 1361, 1651(a), and
2201(a)-2202. We have jurisdiction to review the District Court’s
order of dismissal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
4
enough to satisfy Article III standing. . . .” Id. at 238 (quotation,
citation and original internal brackets and ellipses omitted). This
court affirmed the order dismissing the suit, agreeing that “a
candidate’s ineligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause
does not result in an injury in fact to voters.” Id. at 239
(quotation and citation omitted).
In this case, Appellants seek to respond to the District
Court’s dismissal on standing grounds by claiming that they
have “suffered individual injuries . . . not shared by all members
of the public,” Appellants’ Br. at 51, because they voted in the
November 4, 2008 presidential election and because they, unlike
the majority of voters, “perceive themselves to have suffered [a]
violation of their constitutional rights regarding Obama’s
eligibility to hold office.” Appellants’ Br. at 44. Additionally,
Appellants Kerchner and Nelsen attempt to distinguish
themselves from the public at large, pointing out that they took
oaths to defend and support the Constitution as part of their past
service in the Armed Forces and the National Guard. We stated
in Berg that “[e]ven if . . . the placement of an ineligible
candidate on the presidential ballot harmed [the plaintiff], that
injury . . . was too general for the purposes of Article III
[because the plaintiff] shared . . . his ‘interest in proper
application of the Constitution and laws’ . . . with all voters. . .
.’” 586 F.3d at 240 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573). That
reasoning also controls our disposition here.
In their Reply Brief, Appellants assert that their case
differs from Berg in several ways, including, among others, that
the plaintiff in that case filed his claim against then-candidate
Obama before the election and before the “Electoral College and
Congress had . . . acted on Obama’s qualifications. . . .”
Appellants’ Reply Br. at 25. On the contrary, the Berg court
addressed standing based on those same assumed facts. Berg,
586 F.3d at 238-39. Just like the plaintiff in Berg, Appellants’
alleged injuries are too generalized to be cognizable in Article III
courts. As the District Court found, the requirement that an
injury be “concrete and particularized” precludes claims based
on “harms that are suffered by many or all of the American
people.” Kerchner, 669 F. Supp. 2d at 481 (quotation marks
5
omitted) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573-74). The District Court
further stated that:
The Supreme Court has held that “even when the plaintiff
has alleged redressable injury sufficient to meet the
requirements of Art. III, the Court has refrained from
adjudicating ‘abstract questions of wide public
significance’ which amount to ‘generalized grievances,’
pervasively shared and most appropriately addressed in
the representative branches.” Valley Forge Christian
College v. Americans United for Separation of Church
and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 474-75 (1982). Plaintiffs’
claims fall squarely into the category of generalized
grievances that are most appropriately handled by the
legislative branch. The Court acknowledges Plaintiffs’
frustration with what they perceive as Congress’ inaction
in this area, but their remedy may be found through their
vote.
Id. at 483 n.5. We agree.
Turning to the argument of Kerchner and Nelsen that
their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution “increase[ ]
their adversarial posture,” Appellants’ Br. at 56, no court has
found that a plaintiff established “injury in fact” simply because
s/he had once taken such an oath. Carving out an exception on
that basis would still leave an impermissibly large class with
unique ability to sue in federal court. See, e.g., 10 U.S.C. §
502(a) (requiring all military personnel to take an oath
“swear[ing] . . . [to] support and defend the Constitution of the
United States.”). Kerchner’s assertion of standing on the ground
that he, who has been retired from the Naval Reserves since
1995, may be required to serve the Commander in Chief as a
combatant in the case of an “extreme national emergency,”
Kerchner, 669 F.Supp.2d at 483 (quotation and citation omitted),
is to no avail because it is conjectural. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at
560.
Appellants’ equal protection claim is likewise non-
justiciable for failure to establish “injury in fact.” Their claims
6
under the First Amendment are without merit because the
individual right to petition does not “require government
policymakers to listen or respond to individuals’
communications on public issues.” Minn. State Bd. for Cmty.
Colls. v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271, 285 (1984).3 We therefore agree
with the District Court that Appellants lack standing.4
III.
Because we have decided that this appeal is frivolous, we
will order counsel for Appellants to show cause why just
damages and costs should not be imposed. Federal Rule of
Appellate Procedure 38 provides that “[i]f a court of appeals
determines that an appeal is frivolous, it may, after a separately
filed motion or notice from the court and reasonable opportunity
to respond, award just damages and single or double costs to the
appellee.” “The purpose of an award of attorneys’ fees under
Rule 38 is to compensate appellees who are forced to defend
judgments awarded them in the trial court from appeals that are
wholly without merit, and to preserve the appellate court
calendar for cases worthy of consideration.” Huck v. Dawson,
106 F.3d 45, 52 (3d Cir. 1997) (internal quotation and citation
omitted). “Damages [under Rule 38] are awarded by the court in
its discretion . . . as a matter of justice to the appellee.” Beam v.
Bauer, 383 F.3d 106, 108 (3d Cir. 2004) (internal quotation and
3
The District Court, as an alternate holding, found that
Appellants’ claims are “barred under the ‘political question
doctrine’ as . . . question[s] demonstrably committed to a
coordinate political department.” Kerchner, 669 F. Supp. 2d at 483
n.5. In light of our decision that Appellants lack standing, we need
not discuss that issue.
4
We need not discuss Appellants’ contention that “the
original common law definition of an Article II ‘natural born
Citizen’ . . . is a child born in the country to a United States citizen
mother and father.” Appellants’ Br. at 18. That assertion goes to
the merits of whether President Obama is in fact eligible to hold
office, which we cannot address unless Appellants first establish
Article III standing.
7
citation omitted). An “important purpose [of a damages award]
is to discourage litigants from unnecessarily wasting their
opponents’ time and resources.” Nagle v. Alspach, 8 F.3d 141,
145 (3d Cir. 1993).
“This court employs an objective standard to determine
whether or not an appeal is frivolous” which “focuses on the
merits of the appeal regardless of good or bad faith.” Hilmon
Co. v. Hyatt Int’l, 899 F.2d 250, 253 (3d Cir. 1990) (internal
quotation omitted). We have stated that “an appeal from a
frivolous claim is likewise frivolous.” Beam, 383 F.3d at 108.
Appellants had ample notice that this appeal had no merit. They
should have been aware that we rejected almost identical claims
in Berg, as have courts in other jurisdictions. See, e.g., Barnett
v. Obama, No. 09-0082, F. Supp. 2d , 2009 WL
3861788, at *4-*6 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 29, 2009) (holding that active
and former military personnel lack Article III standing
requirements to challenge President Obama’s eligibility for
office); Cohen v. Obama, No. 08-2150, 2008 WL 5191864, at *1
(D.D.C. Dec. 11, 2008) (holding that a federal prisoner who
alleged that then-Senator Obama was “an illegal alien
impersonating a United States citizen” lacked standing under
Article III), aff’d, Cohen v. Obama, 332 F. App’x 640 (D.C. Cir.
2009).
Examination of this precedent would have made it
“obvious to a reasonable attorney that an appeal from the District
Court’s order was frivolous, [as no] law or facts . . . support a
conclusion that the District Court judge had erred.” Beam, 383
F.3d at 109. Moreover, other courts have imposed sanctions for
similar reasons. See Hollister v. Soetero, 258 F.R.D. 1, 2-5
(D.D.C. 2009) (reprimanding an attorney under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 11(b)(2) for signing and filing a complaint
alleging that President Obama was ineligible to serve as
president because he is not a “natural born Citizen”), aff’d,
Hollister v. Soetoro, Nos. 09-5080, 09-5161, 2010 WL 1169793
(D.C. Cir. March 22, 2010); see also Rhodes v. MacDonald, 670
F. Supp. 2d 1363, 1373 (M.D.Ga. 2009) (imposing monetary
sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c)(3) against
counsel who filed similar claims on behalf of members of the
8
military), aff’d, Rhodes v. MacDonald, No. 09-15418, 2010 WL
892848 (11th Cir. March 15, 2010).
In the past, “we cautioned counsel that a finding by a
District Court that a lawsuit is frivolous should serve as notice to
the parties and their attorney to exercise caution, pause, and
devote additional examination to the legal validity and factual
merit of his contentions.” Beam, 383 F.3d at 109 (quotation
omitted). Although the District Court did not explicitly state that
Appellants’ claims were frivolous, the finding of other district
courts that plaintiffs who filed complaints based on similar legal
theories violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 should have
served as meaningful notice that the appeal here would be
frivolous.5 We therefore will order Appellants’ counsel to show
cause why he should not pay just damages and costs for having
filed a frivolous appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 38.
IV.
For the reasons set forth, we will affirm the District
Court’s order of dismissal.
5
We also note with concern that Appellants failed to cite
Berg in their opening brief. See, e.g., N.J. Rule of Professional
Conduct 3.3(a)(3) (“A lawyer shall not knowingly . . . fail to
disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction
known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the
client . . . .”). Although Berg was filed only some two months
before Appellants’ brief, it is unlikely it had not come to their
attention given the identity of the issues.
9