Brian Musomba Maweu v. United States

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
BRIAN MUSOMBA MAWEU,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2026-1051
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:25-cv-01469-EGB, Senior Judge Eric G. Bruggink.
______________________
Decided: July 21, 2026
______________________
BRIAN MUSOMBA MAWEU, Tucson, AZ, pro se.
REBECCA T AYLOR MITCHELL , Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
tice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
sented by L ISA L EFANTE D ONAHUE, P ATRICIA M.
MCCARTHY , BRETT SHUMATE.
______________________
P ER CURIAM .
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MAWEU v. US 2
Brian M. Maweu appeals decisions of the United
States Court of Federal Claims dismissing his complaint
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and returning unfiled
his defective motion for leave to amend his complaint. Be-
cause Mr. Maweu has not shown that the trial court erred
in its dismissal or abused its discretion in returning his
motion unfiled, we affirm.
I
In 2015, Mr. Maweu was sentenced to life in prison for
his role in a child exploitation enterprise by the U.S. Dis-
trict Court for the Western District of Louisiana. A decade
later, Mr. Maweu filed a complaint in the Court of Federal
Claims, seeking: (1) a “certificate of exemption” from the
application of the criminal law under which he was con-
victed; (2) the alteration of records in his criminal case; and
(3) punitive damages against the government under the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C.
§§ 2000bb–2000bb-4. S.A. 8; see also S.A. 9–10, 19–22.1 In
relevant part, Mr. Maweu argued that his conviction was
based on conduct constituting an exercise of his religion.
The trial court dismissed on September 24, 2025.
Maweu v. United States, No. 25-cv-01469, 2025 WL
2995528, at *1–2 (Fed. Cl. Sep. 24, 2025) (Dismissal). In a
separate order issued October 1, 2025, the trial court di-
rected the clerk of court to return a motion from
Mr. Maweu seeking leave to amend the complaint because
it violated Rules 5.5(g) and 10(a) of the Rules of the United
States Court of Federal Claims (RCFC). See Maweu v.
United States, No. 25-cv-01469 (Fed. Cl. Oct. 1, 2025), ECF
No. 9 (Return Order). Mr. Maweu appeals both decisions.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
1 S.A. refers to the Supplemental Appendix submit-
ted with the government’s Informal Response Brief. ECF
No. 24.
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MAWEU v. US 3
II
We review dismissals for lack of subject matter juris-
diction by the Court of Federal Claims de novo. Brandt v.
United States, 710 F.3d 1369, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2013). We re-
view the Court of Federal Claims’ handling of a motion for
leave to amend for abuse of discretion. Renda Marine, Inc.
v. United States, 509 F.3d 1372, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2007). An
abuse of discretion takes place “when a court misunder-
stands or misapplies the relevant law or makes clearly er-
roneous findings of fact.” Id.
Pro se filings “must be read liberally.” Harris v.
Shinseki, 704 F.3d 946, 948 (Fed. Cir. 2013). Liberally con-
struing Mr. Maweu’s filings on appeal, he appears to argue
that the trial court erred in returning his motion for leave
to amend the complaint unfiled. Mr. Maweu also asserts
several theories to argue that the trial court had jurisdic-
tion over his complaint.2 We address each argument in
turn.
A
We first address Mr. Maweu’s argument regarding his
motion for leave to amend the complaint. Mr. Maweu sug-
gests that the trial court should have reviewed the
amended complaint included with his admittedly defective
2 Separately, Mr. Maweu argues that the govern-
ment’s response to his opening brief violates statutory pro-
visions on international religious freedoms. Mr. Maweu
does not, however, develop this argument or connect it to a
basis for reversing the trial court’s dismissal. Accordingly,
this argument has not been properly preserved, and we de-
cline to reach its merits. See Arunachalam v. Int’l Bus.
Machs. Corp., 989 F.3d 988, 999 (Fed. Cir. 2021).
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MAWEU v. US 4
motion for leave rather than return it unfiled. See Appel-
lant Br. 3.3 Per Mr. Maweu, his amended complaint’s de-
fectiveness was “caused by delay in mail from court, i.e.
excusable neglect.” Id.
Mr. Maweu fails to demonstrate an abuse of discretion
by the trial court. First, Mr. Maweu is mistaken that the
defects in his motion for leave to amend were related to
timeliness: the trial court rejected Mr. Maweu’s motion for
leave because the filing did not comply with RCFC 5.5(g)
and 10(a), which govern the required form of certain fil-
ings. See Return Order. Second, to the extent that
Mr. Maweu pivots on reply4 and in supplemental briefing
to argue for the first time that his defective filing should
have been exempted from the requirements of RCFC 5.5(g)
and 10(a), these new arguments have been forfeited. See
Norman v. United States, 429 F.3d 1081, 1091 n.5
(Fed. Cir. 2005).
Even if we were to consider the merits of these argu-
ments, we would find them unpersuasive. The Court of
Federal Claims, “like all trial courts, has broad discretion
to manage its docket.” Oman Fasteners, LLC v. United
States, 125 F.4th 1068, 1084 (Fed. Cir. 2025) (cleaned up).
And Mr. Maweu’s arguments do not convince us that the
trial court’s application in this instance of its own rules was
unreasonable or premised on a misapprehension of law. We
3 Mr. Maweu’s briefing on appeal, which is hand-
written, is not consistently paginated. Citations to
Mr. Maweu’s appellate filings therefore refer to page num-
bers as designated by ECF.
4 Mr. Maweu contemporaneously filed a motion for
summary judgment, ECF No. 27, with his reply brief, ECF
No. 26. This court construed both filings together as
Mr. Maweu’s reply brief. ECF No. 29 at 2. References to
Mr. Maweu’s reply therefore also implicate arguments
made in Mr. Maweu’s motion for summary judgment.
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MAWEU v. US 5
therefore decline to find that the trial court abused its dis-
cretion in returning as unfiled Mr. Maweu’s defective mo-
tion for leave to file his amended complaint.
B
We next address Mr. Maweu’s arguments that the trial
court erred in dismissing for lack of jurisdiction. The
Tucker Act grants the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction
over certain actions against the United States. See
28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). However, because the Tucker Act
does not itself create a substantive cause of action, to come
within its grant of jurisdiction plaintiffs must identify a
separate source of substantive law that creates a right to
money damages. See United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S.
206, 216 (1983). Mr. Maweu fails to do so.
Mr. Maweu suggests that 28 U.S.C. § 1495, which pro-
vides the Court of Federal Claims with jurisdiction over
certain claims by those who have been unjustly convicted
and imprisoned provided the requirements of 28 U.S.C.
§ 2513 are met, could have served as a money-mandating
source of jurisdiction at the trial court. Further, to the ex-
tent §§ 1495 and 2513 look to the nature and status of a
plaintiff’s conviction, Mr. Maweu argues that because the
criminal law under which he was convicted “prohibits or
burden[s]” his religious acts, these statutes’ ordinary oper-
ation may conflict with RFRA. See Appellant Br. 6–7. Ac-
cordingly, Mr. Maweu contends that RFRA “forestalls” and
“modifies [the] operation” of §§ 1495 and 2513 to provide
him with the relief permitted by these statutes. Id. at 7.
The result, Mr. Maweu claims, is that “RFRA provides
[T]ucker [A]ct jurisdiction to the Court of Federal Claims,
through § 2513 and § 1495, to review [his] RFRA com-
plaint.” Id.
Again, we find Mr. Maweu’s arguments unconvincing.
To the extent that Mr. Maweu alleges that § 1495 could
serve as a standalone basis for the trial court’s jurisdiction,
we first note that § 1495 was only raised in Mr. Maweu’s
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MAWEU v. US 6
undocketed amended complaint. Appellant Br. 2–3. And
we have already found that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion in returning Mr. Maweu’s amended complaint
unfiled. Therefore, “the allegations in that document were
not before the trial court when it dismissed.” Appellee
Br. 5. On this basis alone, we may decline to entertain
Mr. Maweu’s arguments regarding § 1495. See Hylete LLC
v. Hybrid Athletics, LLC, 931 F.3d 1170, 1174 (Fed. Cir.
2019). But even considering the merits of Mr. Maweu’s
§ 1495 argument, we are unpersuaded. The statute is una-
vailing because Mr. Maweu has not alleged or proven the
facts required by § 2513 to invoke jurisdiction under
§ 1495. Section 2513(b), for instance, requires Mr. Maweu
to provide a “certificate of the court or pardon” as proof that
his conviction has been reversed or set aside to sue under
§ 1495. See 28 U.S.C. § 2513(a)–(b). Mr. Maweu has not
done so.
So too do we find uncompelling Mr. Maweu’s argu-
ments under RFRA. While RFRA permits damages suits
against individual government officials, it does not man-
date compensation in suits against the United States. See
Dismissal, 2025 WL 2995528, at *2; Tanzin v. Tanvir,
592 U.S. 43, 52 (2020). On its own, RFRA therefore does
not provide jurisdiction for the Court of Federal Claims to
entertain Mr. Maweu’s complaint. And to the extent that
Mr. Maweu argues that RFRA waives the requirements of
§§ 1495 and 2513, such that he is automatically entitled to
jurisdiction at the Court of Federal Claims based on reli-
gious objections to his conviction, we find no such sweeping
guarantee either in the text of RFRA or in our case law. We
therefore see no error in the trial court’s conclusion that
RFRA provides it with no jurisdiction over Mr. Maweu’s
complaint.
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MAWEU v. US 7
III
We have considered Mr. Maweu’s remaining argu-
ments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea-
sons, we affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of
Mr. Maweu’s complaint and its decision to return unfiled
Mr. Maweu’s defective motion for leave.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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