Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
Federal Reporter or U.S.App.D.C. Reports. Users are requested to notify
the Clerk of any formal errors in order that corrections may be made
before the bound volumes go to press.
United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued January 23, 2003 Decided April 22, 2003
No. 02-5009
LLOYD SHAFFER,
APPELLANT
v.
ANN M. VENEMAN, SECRETARY,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
APPELLEE
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(cv01729)
Mona Lyons argued the cause and filed the briefs for
appellant.
Catherine Y. Hancock, Attorney, U.S. Department of Jus-
tice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief
were David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General at
the time the brief was filed, Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney
Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.
The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out
of time.
2
at the time the brief was filed, and Robert M. Loeb, Attorney,
U.S. Department of Justice.
Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and ROGERS and TATEL,
Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the court filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG.
GINSBURG, Chief Judge: Lloyd Shaffer appeals the decision
of the district court dismissing his case for want of jurisdic-
tion. The district court held that Shaffer’s claim, which was
based upon a settlement agreement he made with the United
States Department of Agriculture bringing to an end both his
individual case and his participation in a class-action lawsuit
against the USDA, was a contract claim in excess of $10,000,
and was therefore, under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C.
§ 1491(a)(1), within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of
Federal Claims. We affirm.
I. Background
Lloyd Shaffer is a Mississippi farmer who has received
assistance from the USDA during much of the past thirty
years. In 1997 he filed in the district court a race discrimina-
tion claim against the USDA regarding loan applications he
made in 1992 and 1997. Shaffer later joined as a named
plaintiff in a class action lawsuit in the same court, covering
essentially the same issues, Pigford et al. v. Glickman, Civil
Action No. 97–1978 (D.D.C.). The class alleged that the
USDA discriminated against black farmers in violation of the
Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. § 1691–
1691f, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C.
§§ 701–706. In 1998 Shaffer and others settled their individ-
ual claims with the USDA; as a condition of the resulting
Agreement Shaffer opted out of the Pigford suit. In return
the USDA agreed, among other things, to ‘‘[f]orgive/re-
lease/cancel all [his] outstanding indebtedness to the Farm
Service Agency;’’ to provide ‘‘priority financial and technical
assistance for those USDA programs for which the Shaffers
apply;’’ and to pay Shaffer a sum of money.
3
When the USDA later denied Shaffer’s Year 2000 loan
application, he moved in district court for an order enforcing
the Agreement. The court denied the motion on the ground
that it lacked jurisdiction over the matter because Shaffer
had opted out of the Pigford class action and the Agreement
did not provide for the court to exercise continuing jurisdic-
tion over his individual case.
Shaffer then filed a new complaint, alleging various breach-
es of the Agreement by the USDA. The district court ruled
that it did not have jurisdiction over the new case because the
Tucker Act grants to the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction
over claims founded upon ‘‘any express or implied contract
with the United States.’’ 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). The district
court ruled that the Agreement was a ‘‘contract’’ within the
meaning of the Tucker Act, and added,
[I]nvocation of the APA does not save the plaintiff’s
claims because the APA does not apply to requests for
money damages, and is not applicable to declaratory and
injunctive relief when another statute prohibits such
relief from being sought in a particular court, as in the
instant case. Additionally, to the extent that one would
argue that this Court does have jurisdiction, the plaintiff
has failed [to] establish standing to sue under the APA
because he has not identified an independent statutory
basis for relief, and has only based alleged authority on
the Settlement Agreement over which the Court does not
have jurisdiction.
The district court dismissed the case without prejudice.
II. Analysis
Shaffer argues that notwithstanding the Tucker Act, the
district court has subject matter jurisdiction over his case
pursuant both to the ECOA and to the APA. In the alterna-
tive he argues that the district court may exercise ancillary
jurisdiction over a dispute arising out of the Agreement.
The lower federal courts have only such jurisdiction as the
Constitution and the Congress grant them. See Kokkonen v.
4
Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994).
There appears to be no doubt that the Court of Federal
Claims could entertain this case under the Tucker Act, for the
purpose of which a settlement agreement is considered a
contract. See United States v. ITT Cont’l Baking Co., 420
U.S. 223, 238 (1975) (settlement agreement should ‘‘be con-
strued for enforcement purposes basically as a contract’’);
Kasarsky v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 296 F.3d 1331, 1336 (Fed.
Cir. 2002); Massie v. United States, 166 F.3d 1184, 1189
(Fed. Cir. 1999); Village of Kaktovik v. Watt, 689 F.2d 222,
232 n.76 (D.C. Cir. 1982). That the Court of Federal Claims
has jurisdiction does not necessarily mean, however, that its
jurisdiction is exclusive. We thus turn to Shaffer’s argu-
ments in favor of concurrent jurisdiction in the district court.
A. Subject matter jurisdiction
Shaffer first argues that the district court has subject
matter jurisdiction because the Agreement settled claims
arising under the ECOA and the APA. Here Shaffer relies
upon Board of Trustees of Hotel and Restaurant Employees
Local 25 v. Madison Hotel, 97 F.3d 1479 (D.C. Cir. 1996), for
the proposition that a district court has subject matter juris-
diction over a settlement agreement that resolves a statutory
claim within the jurisdiction of that court. We do not read
Madison Hotel so broadly. In that case we held that the
district court had subject matter jurisdiction over a settle-
ment agreement that resolved claims arising under the
ERISA statute because ‘‘enforcement of the settlement
agreement TTT will almost inevitably require construction and
application of specific ERISA provisions which define the
scope of the employer’s contribution obligations and the
Funds’ legal entitlements on default.’’ Id. at 1485. The
settlement agreement incorporated several provisions of the
ERISA statute such that:
[A]n action to redress a breach of the settlement agree-
ment directly implicates the Funds’ rights to seek en-
forcement of the Hotel’s obligation to make ‘‘contribu-
tions in accordance with the terms and conditions of [a
multiemployer] plan TTT’’ under section 515 of ERISA, 29
5
U.S.C. § 1145 (1994), and of the Hotel’s obligation to pay
the additional amounts in interest, liquidated damages,
audit and attorneys’ fees, costs or any other additional
amounts, as provided for under paragraph 3 of the
settlement agreement and under section 502(g)(2) of
ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(2) (1994). Because, further-
more, the ERISA statute provides exclusive jurisdiction
to enforce its provisions in federal courts, the district
court here had federal jurisdiction to enforce the ERISA
rights embodied in the settlement agreement.
Id. at 1485–86. Unlike the settlement agreement in Madison
Hotel, which ‘‘referred to and reserved the Funds’ right to
pursue their rights to remedies enumerated and defined in
the ERISA law itself,’’ 97 F.3d at 1485, the Agreement here
does not incorporate any part of either the ECOA or the
APA; it merely settles the ECOA and the APA claims in
return for certain specified consideration. Indeed, Shaffer is
unable to point to a single provision of either the ECOA or
the APA that a court would have to interpret in order to
resolve this case. Shaffer’s claims involve only straightfor-
ward contract issues, such as whether the Government failed
to pay him monies due and whether the denial of Shaffer’s
Year 2000 loan violated the Agreement. Therefore, even if
the district court would have subject matter jurisdiction over
the enforcement of a settlement agreement with the United
States the interpretation of which would require it to analyze
the statute upon which the plaintiff’s claim was based, Shaf-
fer’s claims would not come within that jurisdiction.
Shaffer’s argument for subject matter jurisdiction under
the APA fails for another reason. ‘‘[T]his Court and others
have interpreted the Tucker Act as providing the exclusive
remedy for contract claims against the government, at least
vis a vis the APA.’’ Transohio Sav. Bank v. Dir., Office of
Thrift Supervision, 967 F.2d 598, 609 (D.C. Cir. 1992). See
International Engineering Co., Division of A–T–O, Inc. v.
Richardson, 512 F.2d 573, 577–81 (D.C. Cir. 1975); North
Side Lumber Co. v. Block, 753 F.2d 1482, 1484–86 (9th Cir.
1985).
6
B. Ancillary Jurisdiction
Shaffer next argues that the district court may exercise
ancillary jurisdiction over his claims. The Supreme Court in
Kokkonen recognized two purposes for which a court may
assert ancillary jurisdiction: (1) ‘‘to permit disposition by a
single court of claims that are, in varying respects and
degrees, factually interdependent,’’ 511 U.S. at 379, and (2)
‘‘to enable a court to function successfully, that is, to manage
its proceedings, vindicate its authority, and effectuate its
decrees.’’ Id. at 380. The first head clearly does not apply
here. In explicating the second head the Court stated (at
381):
The situation would be quite different if the parties’
obligation to comply with the terms of the settlement
agreement had been made part of the order of dismissal–
either by separate provision (such as a provision ‘‘retain-
ing jurisdiction’’ over the settlement agreement) or by
incorporating the terms of the settlement agreement in
the order. In that event, a breach of the agreement
would be a violation of the order, and ancillary jurisdic-
tion to enforce the agreement would therefore exist.
In short, a party that wants the court to retain jurisdiction
over its settlement agreement should request that the district
court do so in its order of dismissal. Shaffer did not take this
simple precaution.
Shaffer nonetheless invokes Reed v. United States, 891
F.2d 878 (11th Cir. 1990), a pre-Kokkonen case, for the
proposition that a court may enforce a settlement agreement
without incorporating that agreement into an order. In Reed,
however, the United States announced its intent not to honor
the settlement agreement before the court dismissed the
case; the court of appeals held that the district court correct-
ly exercised its jurisdiction to enforce the terms of the
settlement agreement because the case, although settled, was
still pending. Id. at 880. Not so here. The district court
was therefore correct in concluding it could not exercise
ancillary jurisdiction over this case.
7
III. Conclusion
The district court had neither subject matter jurisdiction
nor ancillary jurisdiction over Shaffer’s claim, founded, as it
is, solely upon a contract with the United States. The
judgment of the district court dismissing the case is, accord-
ingly,
Affirmed.