# Hamell-El v. United States of America

> District Court, E.D. Missouri · December 20, 2021

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10236211

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, E.D. Missouri
- **Decided:** December 20, 2021
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10236211

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that on motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) a court may consider materials that are part of the public record as well as materials that are necessarily embraced by the pleadings
- discussing issue preclusion and explaining federal courts look to state law to determine whether it applies
- discussing the motion to dismiss standard
- explaining that issue preclusion under Missouri law prohibits an issue of ultimate fact, which was necessarily determined by a valid judgment, from being litigated between the same parties again

## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION

GARY HAMELL-EL, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
vs. ) Case No. 4:20-cv-01471-MTS
)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )
et al., )
)
Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on the Motion to Dismiss filed by Defendants, the United
States of America and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Motion seeks to dismiss Plaintiff’s
pro se Complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Fed. R. Civ.
P. 12(b)(6). The parties have fully briefed the Motion, and it is ready for adjudication. Because
Plaintiff’s Complaint fails even when taking all his factual allegations as true and granting him
all reasonable inferences, the Court will grant the Motion and dismiss this case. See Lustgraaf v.
Behrens, 619 F.3d 867, 873 (8th Cir. 2010) (discussing the motion to dismiss standard).
Plaintiff, Gary Hamell-El, alleges that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (the “Bureau”)
incorrectly calculated his sentence of imprisonment, which caused him to serve one year and
four months longer than the time to which he was sentenced. The Bureau should have released
him, he alleges, in 2018 but instead did not release him until January 8, 2020. Doc. [1] ¶¶ 5–6.
He previously made this same allegation to the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Arkansas in an action where he sought a petition for writ of habeas corpus and in
which he also asked the court to order the Bureau to amend or correct its records under the
Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a. See Hamell-El v. Rivera, No. 2:17-cv-00019-JTR, 2018 WL
4326844 (E.D. Ark. June 6, 2018) (Recommended Disposition). The court dismissed his petition
for writ of habeas corpus with prejudice and “dismissed without prejudice” his “request to amend
or correct” the Bureau’s records under the Privacy Act. Hammell-El v. Rivera, No. 2:17-cv-
00019-BSM, 2018 WL 4326805, at *1 (E.D. Ark. Sept. 10, 2018) (adopting the Recommended

Disposition “in its entirety”); see also Doc. [1] ¶¶ 9–10.
On October 14, 2020, Plaintiff filed the instant action with this Court asserting one claim,
a violation of the Privacy Act, codified in relevant part at § 552a; he seeks “actual and punitive
damages” under “the provisions of . . . § 552a(g)(1)(C) and (D)” for his sixteen month “false[]
imprison[ment].” Doc. [1] at 5. Section 552a “contains a comprehensive and detailed set of
requirements for the management of confidential records held by Executive Branch agencies.”
F.A.A. v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 284, 287 (2012). One of these requirements is that an agency must
maintain records that it uses in making any determination about any individual “with such
accuracy, relevance, timeliness, and completeness as is reasonably necessary to assure fairness to
the individual in the determination.” § 552a(e)(5). If an agency fails to comply with the Act’s

requirements “‘in such a way as to have an adverse effect on an individual,’ the Act authorizes
the individual to bring a civil action against the agency.” Cooper, 566 U.S. at 287 (quoting
§ 552a(g)(1)(D)). The United States is liable for actual damages if violations are found to be
“intentional or willful.” § 552a(g)(4)(A).
Here, Plaintiff alleges he was harmed by the Bureau’s inaccurate records regarding the
computation of his sentence and release date, but Plaintiff’s claim under the Act fails for at least
three reasons—any one of which would be enough to foreclose his claim. First, the Bureau’s
records that Plaintiff alleges caused him to be wrongfully held past his sentence are “exempt”
from § 552a(g). 28 C.F.R. § 16.97(a); see also Brown v. Bureau of Prisons, 498 F. Supp. 2d
298, 302 (D.D.C. 2007) (“Plaintiff effectively is barred from obtaining any remedy [under the
Privacy Act], including damages, for [the Bureau’s] alleged failure to maintain records
pertaining to him with the requisite level of accuracy.”); Hamell-El v. Rivera, No. 2:17-cv-
00019-JTR, 2018 WL 4326844, at *7 (E.D. Ark. June 6, 2018) (noting that even if Plaintiff

properly brought a claim under the Privacy Act, like he has done here, it “would be futile
because the [Bureau’s] central file is exempt from the provisions of the Privacy Act”).
Second, any claim he would have had under § 552a(g), had the Bureau’s records not been
exempt, would be outside the statute of limitation. Section 552a(g)(5) provides that an action
under the section may be brought “within two years from the date on which the cause of action
arises.” A cause of action arises under the Privacy Act when the individual knows or has reason
to know of the alleged error in the individual’s record and the individual is harmed by the alleged
error. Green v. Westphal, 94 F. App’x 902, 904 (3d Cir. 2004) (Lay, Senior J., 8th Cir., sitting
by designation); Doe v. Nat’l Sec. Agency, 165 F.3d 17 (4th Cir. 1998) (per curiam); Englerius v.
Veterans Admin., 837 F.2d 895, 898 (9th Cir. 1988); Tijerina v. Walters, 821 F.2d 789, 798

(D.C. Cir. 1987). Here, well over two years have passed since Plaintiff knew of, and would have
been harmed by, the alleged error in his record. In fact, over two years passed between when the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed Plaintiff’s first
Privacy Act claim without prejudice and when he filed this case. See Porous Media Corp. v.
Pall Corp., 186 F.3d 1077, 1079 (8th Cir. 1999) (noting that on motion to dismiss under Rule
12(b)(6) a court may consider materials that are part of the public record as well as materials that
are necessarily embraced by the pleadings); see also Doc. [1] ¶¶ 9–10. Since Plaintiff plainly
knew about and was allegedly harmed by the supposed record inaccuracies more than two years
before he filed this action, the statute of limitation has passed.
Third, and finally, issue preclusion blocks Plaintiff from relitigating whether the Bureau
correctly calculated his sentence of imprisonment—that is, whether the calculations reflected in
the Bureau’s records were accurate. See Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. FAG Bearings Corp., 335 F.3d
752, 758 (8th Cir. 2003) (discussing issue preclusion and explaining federal courts look to state

law to determine whether it applies); King Gen. Contractors, Inc. v. Reorganized Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 821 S.W.2d 495, 500–01 (Mo. banc 1991) (explaining that
issue preclusion under Missouri law prohibits an issue of ultimate fact, which was necessarily
determined by a valid judgment, from being litigated between the same parties again). A
magistrate judge concluded, in a thorough Recommended Disposition filed in Plaintiff’s § 2241
petition for writ of habeas corpus, that the Bureau “properly calculated” Plaintiff’s sentence—
thereby necessarily determining the Bureau’s records reflecting that sentence calculation were
accurate. Hamell-El v. Rivera, No. 2:17-cv-00019-JTR, 2018 WL 4326844 at *7 (E.D. Ark.
June 6, 2018). A district judge completed a de novo review of that conclusion, and of the record,
adopted the Recommended Disposition in its entirety, and dismissed Plaintiff’s petition with

prejudice. Hammell-El v. Rivera, No. 2:17-cv-00019-BSM, 2018 WL 4326805, *1 (E.D. Ark.
Sept. 10, 2018).1 Since an identical issue of ultimate fact—whether the Bureau’s calculation of
Plaintiff’s sentence of imprisonment was accurate—already has been determined by a valid
judgment on the merits in a case where Plaintiff was a party against a Bureau official, that
court’s determination that the Bureau’s records accurately reflected a correct calculation of
Plaintiff’s sentence of imprisonment is conclusive here. See Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 335 F.3d at
758.
For all these reasons, Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

1 The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit subsequently completed a de novo review and affirmed the
judgment denying Plaintiff’s challenge to the Bureau’s sentence computation. See Hamell v. Rivera, 775
F. App’x 831 (8th Cir. 2019) (per curiam).
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, Doc. [10], is
GRANTED.
An appropriate Judgement accompanies this Memorandum and Order.
Dated this 20th day of December, 2021. /
lu. T. SCHELP
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10236211. Public record. Not legal advice.