MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
RANDOLPH D. MOSS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Plaintiff
Vitaly Pilkin is a citizen of the Russian Federation who,
appearing pro se, brings this suit seeking $340
million in damages “based on the doctrine of unjust
enrichment.” Dkt. 12 at 2 (Amend. Compl. ¶ 4). On
November 13, 2017, Pilkin filed a 152-page single-spaced
complaint asserting claims against Sony Interactive
Entertainment LLC, Sony Corporation, Hogan Lovells U.S. LLP
(“Hogan Lovells”), the United States Department
of Justice, and then-Attorney General Jefferson Sessions in
his official capacity. See Dkt. 1 at 2, 3. The Court
dismissed the claims against the Department of Justice and
Attorney General Sessions on grounds of sovereign immunity,
Dkt. 8 at 3, and, with respect to the remaining defendants,
ordered Pilkin to show cause why the complaint should not be
dismissed for failure to comply with Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 8 or, in the alternative, to file an amended
complaint that satisfied the requirements of Rule 8, Dkt. 9
at 2. Pilkin filed an amended complaint on May 1, 2018,
against Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Corporation, and
Hogan Lovells. Dkt. 12. On January 16, 2019, the Court
dismissed Pilkin's claim against Sony Interactive
Entertainment for lack of personal jurisdiction. Dkt. 45 at
2. As a result, the only remaining defendants are Hogan
Lovells and Sony Corporation. Sony Corporation has not yet
been served. See Minute Order (Feb. 13, 2019).
Currently
before the Court is Hogan Lovells's motion to dismiss for
lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for failure to state
a claim upon which relief can be granted, Dkt. 26, and
Pilkin's motion for leave to file a second amended
complaint, Dkt. 31. As explained below, the Court agrees that
Pilkin has failed to allege facts sufficient to establish
federal question jurisdiction. In the current procedural
posture, however, the Court cannot determine whether Pilkin
can establish diversity jurisdiction. The Court, moreover,
cannot decide whether the amended complaint states a claim
upon which relief can be granted without first determining
whether it has subject-matter jurisdiction. As a result, the
Court will deny Hogan Lovells's motion to dismiss without
prejudice. Finally, because Hogan Lovells opposes
Pilkin's motion for leave to amend solely on the ground
that the proposed second amended complaint does not cure any
of the deficiencies identified in Hogan Lovells's motion
to dismiss; because resolution of those defenses is premature
at this time; and because Pilkin's proposed changes to
the complaint are, in any event, minimal, the Court will
grant Pilkin's motion for leave to amend as a matter of
administrative convenience and without expressing any view on
Hogan Lovells's defenses.
I.
ANALYSIS
“Federal
courts are courts of limited jurisdiction” and
“possess only that power authorized by the Constitution
and statute.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of
Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). Moreover, given
“the nature and limits of the judicial power of the
United States, ” the Court must assess its jurisdiction
“as a threshold matter” and may not decide
whether the complaint states a claim on the merits without
first addressing the issue of jurisdiction. Steel
Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83,
94-95 (1998) (quoting Mansfield, C. & L.M.R. Co. v.
Swain, 111 U.S. 379, 382 (1884)). Pilkin relies on two
statutory fonts of federal jurisdiction: federal question
jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. See Dkt. 12
at 2 (Amended Compl. ¶ 3). As explained below, the first
cannot support Pilkin's state-law claim for relief, and
the second will not exist if Sony Corporation is served and
remains a party to this action.
A.
Federal Question Jurisdiction
Pilkin
first argues that this Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1331, which vests district courts with “original
jurisdiction [over] all civil actions arising under the
Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”
The “vast majority of cases brought under the general
federal-question jurisdiction of the federal courts are those
in which federal law creates the cause of action.”
Merrell Dow Pharms. Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804,
808 (1986). This, however, is not such a case; the parties
agree that Pilkin has not alleged a federal cause of action.
Pilkin alleges only one claim, and that claim is for unjust
enrichment. Dkt. 12 at 26 (Amend. Compl. ¶ 93). In
support of this common law claim, Pilkin alleges that he was
deprived of his Russian patent rights and that Sony
Corporation and Sony Interactive Entertainment were unjustly
enriched at his expense due to an array of alleged wrongful
acts, “including the commission of federal
offenses.” Id. at 27 (Amend. Compl. ¶
94). He alleges, for example, that Hogan Lovells, Sony
Electronics, and others made “false
representation[s]” in the patent proceedings in Russia,
engaged in “fraudulent concealment, ”
“bribed top executives” of the Russian Patent and
Trademark Office, and committed “multiple acts of
racketeering activity.” Id. at 27-28 (Amend.
Compl. ¶¶ 94-95). But he does not allege that he is
entitled to relief pursuant to any federal statute
or law.
The
requirement that a plaintiff allege a federal cause of action
in order to invoke federal question jurisdiction, however,
admits of a narrow exception, which the Supreme Court
explicated in Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v.
Darue Engineering & Manufacturing, 545 U.S. 308, 312
(2005). Under Grable, a state law claim will suffice
if, and only if, it “necessarily raise[s] a stated
federal issue, ” that is “actually disputed and
substantial, ” and that “a federal forum may
entertain without disturbing any congressionally approved
balance of federal and state judicial
responsibilities.” Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S.
251, 258 (2013) (alteration in original) (quoting
Grable, 545 U.S. at 314). “Where all” of
these “requirements are met, ” a district court
may exercise federal question jurisdiction “because
there is a ‘serious federal interest in claiming the
advantages thought to be inherent in a federal forum,'
which can be vindicated without disrupting Congress's
intended division of labor between state and federal
courts.” Id. (quoting Grable, 545
U.S. at 313-14). For several reasons, Pilkin's unjust
enrichment claim does not satisfy this demanding test.
As an
initial matter, Pilkin cannot show that a federal question is
“necessarily raised” by his unjust enrichment
claim. Gunn, 568 U.S. at 258. To be sure, he points
to a host of federal statutes that he alleges Defendants
violated. But he is clear that those purported acts of
wrongdoing are not exclusive and that his claim of unjust
enrichment is premised, at least in the alternative, on
various “fraudulent representations” and acts of
“fraudulent concealment and nondisclosure.” Dkt.
12 at 27 (Amend. Compl. ¶27). The fact that he also
alleges violations of numerous federal statutes-again,
exclusively in service of his unjust enrichment claim-may add
gravity to his claim, but his cause of action does not turn
on whether any federal statute was violated. For a federal
issue to be “necessarily raised, ”
“vindication of [the] right [asserted] under state law
[must] necessarily turn[] on some construction of federal
law.” Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Constr. Laborers
Vacation Trust for S. Cal., 463 U.S. 1, 9 (1983). That
is not the case here.
Pilkin's
effort to invoke § 1331 also founders on the
substantiality requirement. See Grable, 545 U.S. at
313. Under that prong of the test, “it is not enough
that the federal issue be significant to the particular
parties in the immediate suit.” Gunn, 568 U.S.
at 260 (quoting Grable, 545 U.S. at 314). “The
substantiality inquiry under Grable looks instead to
the importance of the issue to the federal system as a
whole.” Id. Accordingly, “[w]here
state-law claims implicate federal statutes or regulations,
but do not involve disputes as to their meaning, courts have
uniformly found federal jurisdiction under Grable
lacking.” Wash. Consulting Grp., Inc. v. Raytheon
Tech. Servs. Co., LLC, 760 F.Supp.2d 94, 106 (D.D.C.
2011); see also Pritika v. Moore, 91 F.Supp.3d 553,
558 (S.D.N.Y. 2015) (“[C]ourts have typically found a
substantial federal issue only in those exceptional cases
that go beyond the application of some federal legal standard
to private litigants' state law claims, and instead
implicate broad consequences to the federal system or the
nation as a whole.”).
As the
Supreme Court observed in Gunn, two examples
illustrate the kind of unique circumstances that justify
extending federal question jurisdiction to state law claims.
The first example comes from Grable itself. In that
case, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) seized
a parcel of property belonging to the plaintiff, Grable &
Sons Metal Products, to satisfy a tax delinquency. 545 U.S.
at 310. Years later, after the IRS had sold the property to a
third party, Grable & Sons brought a quiet title action
asserting a superior interest in the property on the theory
that the IRS had failed to provide the notice required under
federal law, thus invalidating the seizure and subsequent
sale. Id. at 311. As the Supreme Court explained,
the allegation that Grable & Sons was not provided the
notice required by federal law formed an essential element of
the claim; the case posed only a legal-and not a
factual-dispute; and “[t]he meaning of the federal tax
provision [was] an important issue of federal law that
sensibly belong[ed] in a federal court, ” particularly
given the federal government's “strong interest in
the ‘prompt and certain collection of delinquent
taxes.'” Id. at 315 (internal citation
omitted). In deciding that the case raised a
“significant” federal issue, the Supreme Court
“focused not on the interests of the litigants
themselves, but rather on the broader significance of the
notice question for the Federal Government.”
Gunn, 568 U.S. at 260.
The
second example comes from a case discussed in
Grable: Smith v. Kansas City Title & Trust
Co., 255 U.S. 180 (1921). Grable described
Smith as “[t]he classic example” of a
state-law claim that raises a significant federal issue. 545
U.S. at 312. In Smith, the plaintiff brought suit
“claiming that the defendant corporation could not
lawfully buy certain bonds of the National Government because
their issuance was unconstitutional.” Id. As
the Court explained in Grable, even though state law
“provided the cause of action, ” the district
court had federal question jurisdiction “because the
principal issue in the case was the federal constitutionality
of the bond issue.” Id. Again, the Supreme
Court premised its holding on the existence of “a
serious federal interest” in the “principal
issue” raised by the litigation. Id. at
312-13.
Like
other cases that the Supreme Court has characterized as
“poles apart from Grable” and
Smith, Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. v.
McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 700 (2006); see also
Gunn, 568 U.S. at 262, Pilkin's unjust enrichment
claim does not turn on an important question of federal law.
The central issue in the case is not a “pure issue of
law” that might affect a federal interest; rather, the
case raises a “fact-bound and situation-specific”
question about whether Defendants deprived Pilkin of his
interest in a Russian patent by means of wrongful conduct,
such as bribery or fraudulent misrepresentations. Empire
Healthchoice Assurance, Inc., 547 U.S. at 700-01
(internal citations omitted). There is no reason to believe
that Pilkin's claim that Defendants were unjustly
enriched through their wrongful conduct rises or falls based
on whether the alleged misconduct-bribery and fraudulent
misrepresentations-violated federal, as opposed to state or
foreign, law.
There
is no “‘single, precise, all-embracing' test
for jurisdiction over federal issues embedded in state-law
claims between nondiverse parties.” Grable,
545 U.S. at 314 (quoting Christianson v. Colt Indus.
Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 821 (1988) (Stevens, J.,
concurring)). As the plaintiff in this action, however,
Pilkin bears the burden of alleging facts or offering
evidence sufficient to establish federal jurisdiction, and he
has failed to offer any basis for this Court to conclude that
this is one of those “extremely rare” ...