LOUIS J. ZUGER, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,
v.
THE UNITED STATES, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE

Fed. Cir. | 1987-12-07
No. 87-1357
Before DAVIS, NEWMAN and ARCHER, Circuit Judges.
834 F.2d 1009 United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (1987) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that the appeal was frivolous and imposed a sanction on the appellant.


Facts & Procedural History

Plaintiff sued the Claims Court alleging he was paid in 'real money' and owed no taxes. The Claims Court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction a…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
DAVIS, Circuit Judge.

DAVIS, Circuit Judge.

Zuger appeals from a decision of the Claims Court (Yock, J.) dismissing this suit, both for lack of jurisdiction and also on the merits. The complaint states the bizarre claim that, after the shift away from the gold standard, plaintiff was paid in Federal Reserve notes which are not “real money,” and therefore he never received any payment for his labor and accordingly owed nothing in taxes and should now receive his wages in “real money.” He seeks $295,-139.15.

In a sua sponte order, the Claims Court held that there was no jurisdiction over the case because (a) there was no express contract between Zuger and the United States that he would be paid in “real money” (i.e., gold-backed currency); (b) the Claims Court has no jurisdiction over contracts implied-in-law; (c) if this is a claim for refund of income taxes, plaintiff filed no claim for administrative refund; and (d) in any event, there is no merit to the claim which has uniformly been rejected.

The Claims Court’s rulings were obviously correct, both as to jurisdiction and as to the merits. On the latter question, Zuger’s position has been regularly rejected by a host of cases.1

This is a manifestly frivolous appeal which never should have been taken.2 There was no arguable way of confronting Judge Yock’s indisputable holdings that his court had no jurisdiction, and, as we have noted, Zuger’s substantive position has been universally rejected by many courts. Zuger himself appears to be a veteran “tax protester.” He was convicted in the District of Connecticut of willfully failing to file income tax returns, and the Second Circuit characterized his appeal from that conviction “as completely frivolous.” He has thus had fair warning that he cannot attack the federal tax and monetary system by abusing the courts.

Accordingly, we impose, under Rule 38, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, a sanction of $500 against Zuger. We also warn that we shall likewise impose sanctions in any future “tax protester” case in which the appeal is frivolous and an unwarranted burden on the court and the Government.

AFFIRMED AND SANCTION IMPOSED.

. E.g., Jones v. Commissioner, 688 F. 2d 17, 18 (6th Cir.1982); United States v. Rickman, 638 F. 2d 182, 184 (10th Cir.1980); Birkenstock v. Commissioner, 646 F. 2d 1185, 1186-87 (7th Cir. 1981); United States v. Moon, 616 F. 2d 1043, 1047-48 (8th Cir.1980); Mathes v. Commissioner, 576 F. 2d 70 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 911, 99 S.Ct. 1223, 59 L.Ed.2d 459 (1979); United States v. Whitesel, 543 F. 2d 1176 (6th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 967, 97 S.Ct. 2924, 53 L.Ed.2d 1062 (1977); United States v. Schmitz, 542 F. 2d 782 (9th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1105, 97 S.Ct. 1134, 51 L.Ed.2d 556 (1977).

. In a plainly frivolous claim of this type, Judge Yock was warranted in dismissing the complaint at once rather than waiting for a motion to dismiss from the Government.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Authorities Cited (13 total)

View all 13 cited authorities →

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw