Angelly v. United States

Case: 25-1333 Document: 46 Page: 1 Filed: 09/28/2026

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

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GARY ANGELLY, WEAKS FARMS, LLC, PAUL BAUMER, MARY BAUMER, BRENDA CHERRY, ANTHONY DUNKER, WILLIAM N. OWNERS TRUST, JOSEPH GRAHAM TRUSTEE, JULIAN HARRIS, LBL FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, MARY KING, FRONT FARM HUNTING CLUB, LLC, HUNTER'S PARADISE, LLC, RICK ROBERTS, SRH, LLC, WILLIAM SCHROEDER, ERIC VAN CLEVE, ANTHONEY WILLIAMS, J.T. WORKMAN, ASHLEY

WORKMAN, ZACHARY WORKMAN,

Plaintiffs-Appellants v. UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee ______________________ 2025-1333 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in No. 1:21-cv-01641-ZNS, Judge Zachary N. Somers.

______________________ Decided: September 28, 2026 ______________________

JAMIE ROBINSON, The Bruno Firm, LLC, Chicago, IL, argued for plaintiffs-appellants. Also represented by 2 ANGELLY v. US JENNIFER H. GELMAN.

JACOB DAVID ECKER, Environment and Natural Re- sources Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also rep- resented by ADAM R.F. GUSTAFSON.

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Before TARANTO, HUGHES, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit

Judges.

HUGHES, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs brought this action in the United States Court of Federal Claims, alleging that the United States Army Corps of Engineers caused intermittent and atypical flooding on their property that amounted to a taking. The trial court dismissed Plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of sub- ject matter jurisdiction, reasoning in relevant part that Plaintiffs had not sufficiently shown that a new flooding pattern had emerged within the statutory limitations pe- riod. Because Plaintiffs have not established clear error in the trial court’s jurisdictional fact findings, we affirm.

I A

Plaintiffs are individuals and entities that own or op- erate on land in Illinois and Kentucky within the reach of the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers. Historically, Plaintiffs’ properties experienced consistent, seasonal flooding in the winter and spring, which did not interfere with their ability to cultivate their land. In recent years, however, Plaintiffs allege that their land has experienced atypical flooding— flooding to a greater extent, at a higher frequency, and for a greater duration of the year, including floods that extend into the month of July.

Plaintiffs’ theory of liability hinges on the actions of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps). The Corps man- ages the navigation of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers through dredging operations and the construction of per- manent river training structures such as dikes and weirs. Plaintiffs allege that, through its management of the riv- ers, including the construction of the Olmstead Locks and Dam on the Ohio River, the Corps increased flooding on their properties by altering the rivers’ historical hydro- graphs. Plaintiffs characterize this alleged change in flood patterns on their land as a “taking of property and flowage easements without just compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment.” J.A. 1891 ¶ 14.

B

Plaintiffs filed an initial complaint in the Court of Fed- eral Claims on July 30, 2021. This complaint referred to “unseasonal” and “atypical” flooding on Plaintiffs’ property, but it did not define these terms. See, e.g., J.A. 36–39. In December 2021, the government moved to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims (RCFC) on the basis that Plaintiffs’ claims were untimely and, alternatively, that Plaintiffs failed to allege a compensable taking. The trial court denied the government’s motion to dismiss, reasoning that the government failed to controvert Plaintiffs’ jurisdic- tional allegations as to whether a new flooding pattern was established within the statute of limitations. While deny- ing the motion to dismiss, however, the trial court also or- dered Plaintiffs to file an amended complaint “specify[ing] with more temporal particularity (e.g., which months of the year) the precise meaning of the term ‘atypical flooding’ as used in the complaint.” J.A. 1888.

Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in June 2023, clarifying that “atypical” flooding refers to flooding extend- ing into the month of July, including flooding in July 2013, 2015, and 2019. Again, the government moved to dismiss, 4 ANGELLY v. US but this time, its principal arguments were limited to sub- ject matter jurisdiction under RCFC 12(b)(1). The govern- ment also submitted hydrographs with its motion, depicting the amount of flooding on each Plaintiff’s land over several decades, to show that flooding extending into the month of July was not novel.

The trial court granted the government’s motion to dis- miss. Angelly v. United States, 173 Fed. Cl. 768, 770 (2024) (Decision). The trial court reasoned that the government’s introduction of hydrograph evidence controverted Plain- tiffs’ jurisdictional facts such that Plaintiffs needed to do more than merely allege a taking within the statute of lim- itations. And it found Plaintiffs failed to do so for two rea- sons. First, the trial court determined that descriptions in the amended complaint of new flooding—i.e., floods extend- ing into the month of July or into the peak farming sea- son—were not specific enough to put the government on notice of the alleged flooding pattern against which it needed to defend. The trial court concluded that it could dismiss Plaintiffs’ case on this basis alone.

Second, the trial court determined that no new pattern of flooding was discernable from the hydrograph data. The trial court made this determination both for Plaintiffs who had specifically alleged atypical flooding extending into the month of July and for Plaintiffs who alleged generally that new flooding inundated their properties throughout the 2010s. For all Plaintiffs, the trial court credited evidence Plaintiffs themselves had submitted from a hydrologist, Dr. Robert Holmes, who had been separately hired by the government to compile and analyze data for this case. This evidence submitted by Plaintiffs, consisting of testimony given by Dr. Holmes in a different action, suggested that natural climatic variations make it difficult to discern any new flooding patterns given the “very wet cycle” that the climate had been in for the past 10–15 years. See id. at 781, 783–84, 786–87.

The trial court therefore concluded that “Plaintiffs simply have not shown that it is more likely than not that there is a new flooding pattern on their properties; conse- quently, no such pattern could have stabilized within this Court’s statute of limitations.” Id. at 788. Accordingly, it dismissed Plaintiffs’ amended complaint for lack of juris- diction.

Plaintiffs timely appealed. We have jurisdiction pursu- ant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

II

We review the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Res. Invs., Inc. v. United States, 785 F.3d 660, 664 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Any findings regarding jurisdictional facts, however, are re- viewed only for clear error. Mildenberger v. United States, 643 F.3d 938, 944 (Fed. Cir. 2011). “Under the clear error standard, we defer to the trial court’s findings of fact, un- less there is a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.” Ideker Farms, Inc. v. United States, 71 F.4th 964, 975 (Fed. Cir. 2023) (cleaned up). Plaintiffs bear the burden of establishing jurisdiction by a prepon- derance of the evidence. Roman v. United States, 61 F.4th 1366, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2023).

On appeal, Plaintiffs argue the trial court erred in hold- ing that they failed to sufficiently amend their complaint and that the trial court further erred by holding that Plain- tiffs failed to demonstrate their claims stabilized within the statutory limitations period. Because we find that Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate clear error in the trial court’s jurisdictional fact findings, we need not and do not reach Plaintiffs’ arguments relating to the sufficiency of their amended complaint. Cf. Mosaic Brands, Inc. v. Ridge Wallet LLC, 55 F.4th 1354, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2022). We therefore turn directly to Plaintiffs’ challenge to the trial court’s conclusion on subject matter jurisdiction. 6 ANGELLY v. US

Plaintiffs’ primary argument on appeal is that the hy- drograph data relied on by the trial court supports their allegations of a new flood pattern developing within the statutory limitations period. For instance, regarding Plain- tiff Gary Angelly, Plaintiffs argue that a new clear pattern of flooding emerged within the statute of limitations be- cause: (1) while there was no flooding on Angelly’s property in July during the years between 1967 and 2013, there was July flooding on the property in 2013, 2015, and 2019; and (2) the aggregate amount of flooding on Angelly’s property between 2011 and 2020 was 638 days, higher than the amount of flooding during any other ten-year period in the data.

We find Plaintiffs’ arguments unpersuasive. As to Mr. Angelly, the trial court reviewed the hydrograph data for his property and made different findings that are not clearly erroneous. First, it found that flooding in July was not atypical in 2013 or 2015 because these years had corre- spondingly little flooding in May or June, the other sum- mer growing months. See Decision, 173 Fed. Cl. at 783. Second, it found that although 2011, 2019, and 2020 appear to have been particularly wet years, that does not neces- sarily illustrate a new pattern of flooding caused by the Corps’ actions, especially because of the wet climactic cycle and because the flood numbers on Angelly’s property “re- gressed to the mean” over the last three years for which the government had data. Id. Faced with this thorough analy- sis of the underlying hydrological data, Plaintiffs do not point out any flawed assumptions or deficient evidence supporting the trial court’s findings. Instead, they merely reargue how this data should be interpreted. But our caselaw is clear that “[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Amgen Inc. v. Amneal Pharms. LLC, 945 F.3d 1368, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (quot- ing Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574 (1985)). Plaintiffs’ arguments regarding the data for other Plaintiffs’ properties fare no better. We therefore conclude that the trial court’s findings of jurisdictional fact based on the government’s hydrological data were not clearly erro- neous, and that Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate by a pre- ponderance of the evidence that any relevant new flooding pattern emerged during the limitations period. We thus af- firm the trial court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ amended com- plaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 1

III

We have considered the parties’ remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

AFFIRMED

1 We note that because the trial court’s dismissal was for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to RCFC 12(b)(1), it operates as a dismissal without preju- dice. See Wheeler v. United States, 11 F.3d 156, 160 (Fed. Cir. 1993). If Plaintiffs come upon additional facts or data in the future suggesting a new flooding pattern has stabilized within a relevant limitations period, they are free to refile at the trial court. But our decision today is limited to the balance of jurisdictional facts before us.