Salahudin Shaheed v. United States

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
SALAHUDIN SHAHEED,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2025-2157
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:24-cv-01868-EHM, Judge Edward H. Meyers.
______________________
Decided: July 13, 2026
______________________
SALAHUDIN SHAHEED, Pollock, LA, pro se.
EVAN W ISSER, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di-
vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by S TEVEN
J OHN G ILLINGHAM , P ATRICIA M. MC CARTHY , BRETT
SHUMATE.
______________________
Before P ROST , CHEN, and STOLL , Circuit Judges.
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SHAHEED v. US 2
P ER CURIAM .
Mr. Salahudin Shaheed appeals the United States
Court of Federal Claims’ decision granting the Govern-
ment’s motion to dismiss his breach of contract claim. Spe-
cifically, the trial court determined that Mr. Shaheed failed
to allege that he entered a bailment contract with the
United States. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Shaheed is incarcerated in federal prison. He was
initially incarcerated at Federal Corrections Institute
(FCI) Berlin in New Hampshire. While in custody,
Mr. Shaheed requested that his defense attorney send him
his entire case file, consisting of forty computer discs. FCI
Berlin received all forty discs.
FCI Berlin’s policies allow inmates to view their legal
materials on a computer if both the inmate and a witness
sign a document titled “Rules Governing the Use of Elec-
tronic Storage Media to View Legal Materials” (“Rules Doc-
ument”). The Rules Document provides the following: “I,
inmate, . . . agree to abide by the following rules of use. I
understand that any violation of these rules will result in
my suspension from the program and disciplinary action.”
Appx 4.1 Mr. Shaheed signed the Rules Document and a
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officer signed as a witness. Id.
In February 2023, BOP transferred Mr. Shaheed to
FCI McKean in Pennsylvania. FCI McKean received, in-
ventoried, and catalogued Mr. Shaheed’s forty computer
discs.
1 “Appx” refers to the Appendix filed by Mr. Sha-
heed, ECF No. 15. Pinpoint Appendix citations use the
page numbering applied by Mr. Shaheed in the Appendix’s
Table of Contents. See id.
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SHAHEED v. US 3
Then, in November 2023, BOP transferred Mr. Sha-
heed to FCI Pollock in Louisiana. Mr. Shaheed requested
access to the forty discs, but ten of the forty discs were
missing. FCI Pollock’s records indicated that it only re-
ceived thirty discs from FCI McKean. Neither FCI Berlin
nor FCI McKean possessed the ten missing discs.
After learning that ten discs were missing, Mr. Sha-
heed initiated an administrative remedy process at FCI
Pollock, but his request for relief was denied. See Appx 10–
24. Mr. Shaheed then filed the instant case against the
United States in the Court of Federal Claims, initially
seeking damages based on (1) a Bivens action, (2) conver-
sion, and (3) a breach of a bailment contract. The Govern-
ment moved to dismiss all claims under Court of Federal
Claims Rule 12. While responding to the motion to dis-
miss, Mr. Shaheed clarified that he is only pursuing a
breach of bailment contract claim. The trial court granted
the Government’s motion to dismiss.
Mr. Shaheed appeals. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
D ISCUSSION
To avoid dismissal for failure to state a claim under
Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must allege facts ‘plausibly sug-
gesting (not merely consistent with)’ a showing of entitle-
ment to relief.” Acceptance Ins. Cos. v. United States,
583 F.3d 849, 853 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp.
v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 557 (2007)). “We review the
Court of Federal Claims’ decision as to . . . failure to state
a claim de novo.” B.H. Aircraft Co. v. United States,
89 F.4th 1360, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2024).
The only issue on appeal is whether Mr. Shaheed plau-
sibly alleged a breach of a bailment contract with the Gov-
ernment. Mr. Shaheed argues that the trial court erred in
dismissing his complaint because (1) it incorrectly deter-
mined that the forty discs were not voluntarily delivered to
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SHAHEED v. US 4
BOP, (2) Mr. Shaheed adequately pled all requirements to
form a bailment contract with the United States, and (3) a
bailment contract does not require consideration.
An express or “implied-in-fact contract with the
[G]overnment requires proof of (1) mutuality of intent,
(2) consideration, (3) an unambiguous offer and ac-
ceptance, and (4) ‘actual authority’ on the part of the
[G]overnment’s representative to bind the [G]overnment in
contract.” Hanlin v. United States, 316 F.3d 1325, 1328
(Fed. Cir. 2003); see also City of Cincinnati v. United
States, 153 F.3d 1375, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 1998). “A bailment
relationship is said to arise where an owner, while retain-
ing title, delivers personalty to another for some particular
purpose upon an express or implied contract. The relation-
ship includes a return of the goods to the owner or a subse-
quent disposition in accordance with his instructions.”
Kam-Almaz v. United States, 682 F.3d 1364, 1368
(Fed. Cir. 2012) (quoting Lionberger v. United States,
178 Ct. Cl. 151, 167 (1967)). “The purely unilateral act of
seizing a person’s personal property does not evidence in-
tent to enter into a bailment contract.” Id. at 1369 (cleaned
up).
We agree with the Government that the trial court did
not err in dismissing Mr. Shaheed’s complaint. Mr. Sha-
heed does not plausibly allege that he “deliver[ed] person-
alty” to BOP because BOP seized Mr. Shaheed’s files upon
delivery to FCI Berlin. Id. at 1368. Mr. Shaheed alleges
that his files were “converted by the U.S.,” SAppx 16,2 but
he never alleges that he voluntarily delivered the files to
BOP. See also SAppx 17 (“Mr. SHAHEED ‘never’ author-
ized the U.S., via the F.B.O.P. to take dominion over ‘TEN’
2 “SAppx” refers to the Supplemental Appendix filed
with the Government’s Response Brief, ECF No. 17.
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SHAHEED v. US 5
of his legal disc . . . .”); SAppx 18 (referring to the “con-
verted disc(s)”). As the trial court correctly observed here:
[T]here was nothing voluntary about the delivery
of the computer discs to BOP in this case—in fact,
there was no delivery to BOP in this case. BOP in-
tercepted the delivery to Mr. Shaheed and dictated
to him the terms under which he could access the
computer discs. That was not voluntary.
SAppx 5. Accordingly, Mr. Shaheed has not plausibly al-
leged that a bailment occurred.
Moreover, we agree with the Government that the trial
court did not err in holding Mr. Shaheed failed to plausibly
allege an express or implied contract between Mr. Shaheed
and the United States because Mr. Shaheed failed to plau-
sibly allege that consideration was exchanged. Like in
Kam-Almaz, “because [Mr. Shaheed] did not voluntarily
deliver his property to the [G]overnment, his complaint
fails to allege any valid consideration.” 682 F.3d at 1369
(citing Llamera v. United States, 15 Cl. Ct. 593, 598
(1988)).
We reject Mr. Shaheed’s argument that the Rules Doc-
ument evidences a contract between him and the United
States because it merely reflects “Mr. Shaheed’s unilateral
agreement to abide by” FCI Berlin’s rules. SAppx 6; see
Appx 4. Similar to the signed document at issue in Shelton
v. United States, the Rules Document “does not reflect con-
sideration of any sort offered by the [G]overnment in re-
turn for [the inmate’s] participation.” 539 F. App’x 1011,
1013 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (nonprecedential). Finally, we reject
Mr. Shaheed’s argument that the trial court erred by re-
quiring consideration. See Kam-Almaz, 682 F.3d at 1368;
Hanlin, 316 F.3d at 1328; City of Cincinnati, 153 F.3d
at 1377. Because Mr. Shaheed does not plausibly allege
consideration, the trial court did not err in dismissing his
claim.
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SHAHEED v. US 6
CONCLUSION
We have considered Mr. Shaheed’s remaining argu-
ments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea-
sons, we affirm.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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