# Irion v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee

> District Court, M.D. Tennessee · April 18, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10848214

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, M.D. Tennessee
- **Decided:** April 18, 2025
- **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/10848214

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that the plaintiff “ma[de] no attempt to demonstrate that there has been a waiver of sovereign immunity” and dismissing suit against this court as barred by sovereign immunity

## Opinion text

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION

VAN IRION, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) Case No. 3:25-cv-00001
) Judge Aleta A. Trauger
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT )
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF )
TENNESSEE, and TENNESSEE BOARD )
OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY, )
)
Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM
Before the court is plaintiff Van Irion’s Emergency Motion for an Expedited Declaration
Regarding Free Speech (“Emergency Motion”). (Doc. No. 29.) Defendant United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee (“District Court”) opposes the motion on the basis that
it is entitled to absolute sovereign immunity to suit against it in this court. (Doc. No. 34.)
For the reasons set forth herein, the court will dismiss all claims against the District Court
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, based on the District Court’s sovereign immunity. The
plaintiff’s Emergency Motion, which targets only the District Court, will be denied as moot.
I. BACKGROUND
Van Irion is a licensed Tennessee attorney residing in Knox County, Tennessee. (1st Am.
Compl. (“FAC”), Doc. No. 22 ¶ 1.) In the FAC, Irion names as defendants both the District Court
and the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility (“TBPR”).1 His claims against the District

1 The TBPR has filed its own Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure (Doc. No. 28), which the court will address separately.
Court are premised upon a show cause order issued by Chief Judge Travis McDonough of that
court, initiating a disciplinary action in that court against Irion. “Irion believes that said
disciplinary matter was filed by Judge McDonough in retaliation against Irion.” (Id. ¶ 14.) In the
case before this court, however, Irion does not challenge Judge McDonough’s motives. Instead,

he “challenges the constitutionality of the [District Court’s] Local Rules, as applied during said
ongoing disciplinary proceeding.” (Id. ¶ 15.) Irion seeks judicial declarations from this court that
several Local Rules of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee are
unconstitutional as applied (Counts 1, 2, 4) or unconstitutionally vague on their face (Counts 3, 5),
that the District Court’s changes to the docket in the disciplinary matter pending in that court
against plaintiff Van Irion were unlawful or unconstitutional (Count 6), and that the District Court
(through Chief Judge McDonough) violated the plaintiff’s rights under the First Amendment by
not unsealing the record in his disciplinary case (Count 8).2
The FAC asserts that this court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and that the
District Court waived sovereign immunity through 5 U.S.C. § 702. (Doc. No. 22 ¶¶ 8, 9.) Irion

seeks relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2201, the federal Declaratory Judgment Act. (Id. ¶ 12.)
After filing the FAC, the plaintiff attempted to serve the District Court by leaving a copy
of the pleading and summons with a docket clerk for the District Court. (See Doc. No. 27.) On
April 2, 2025, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, without waiving
service of process, filed a notice of Special Appearance, stating that the District Court had been
made aware of the Complaint but had not been properly served in accordance with Rule 4(i) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (Doc. No. 31.)

2 Count 7 seeks a declaration that the TBPR’s application of Tenn. S. Ct. R. 9 § 25 “in any
disciplinary matter” that might be instituted by the TBPR against Irion “would violate attorney
Irion’s right to due process.” (Doc. No. 22 ¶ 210.)
Also on April 2, 2025, the plaintiff filed his Emergency Motion and supporting
Memorandum.3 (Doc. Nos. 29, 29-1.) The basis for the motion is the plaintiff’s apparent belief
that this court’s Order (Doc. No. 7) granting his motion to unseal this case (to which were attached
numerous documents from the disciplinary proceeding against Irion), pursuant to which he intends

to file in this case other documents from that proceeding, may conflict with the District Court’s
“continued seal” of the disciplinary proceeding against Irion in that court. (See Doc. No. 29-1 at
1, 3.) Invoking Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Declaratory Judgment Act,
Irion’s Emergency Motion seeks an order “declaring the continued seal on plaintiff’s Eastern
District disciplinary matter to be an unconstitutional limitation on free speech with no underlying
justification.” (Doc. No. 29 at 1.)
The District Court asserts that the plaintiff’s Emergency Motion should be denied, first,
because the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this action against a sister District Court.
(Doc. No. 34 at 3.) It raises other alternative arguments, but, because this court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction over the claims against the District Court, it does not reach the parties’ other arguments

or the merits of the Emergency Motion. Instead, all claims against the District Court will be
dismissed.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Federal courts are courts of limited subject matter jurisdiction. Mason v. Lockwood,
Andrews & Newnam, P.C., 842 F.3d 383, 391 (6th Cir. 2016). In this case, the District Court

3 This court already denied a similar Motion for an Expedited Hearing (Doc. No. 18), filed
by the plaintiff prior to service upon or entry of an appearance by the District Court (see Doc. No.
20). The motion was denied in part because the plaintiff’s motion was “more in the nature of an
application for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction that in no way complie[d]
with Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or this court’s Local Rule 65.01.” (Doc. No.
20 at 1.) The same could be said of the present Emergency Motion.
invokes sovereign immunity, and the Sixth Circuit “treat[s] sovereign immunity as a ‘jurisdictional
bar’ that, ‘once raised as a jurisdictional defect, must be decided before the merits.’” Does v.
Whitmer, 69 F.4th 300, 305 (6th Cir. 2023) (quoting Russell v. Lundergan-Grimes, 784 F.3d 1037,
1046 (6th Cir. 2015)); see also F.D.I.C. v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 475 (1994) (“Sovereign immunity

is jurisdictional in nature.”); Taylor v. Owens, 990 F.3d 493, 496 (6th Cir. 2021) (“A court that
lacks subject-matter jurisdiction has no power but to dismiss the case; it may not address the
merits.”). “‘It is axiomatic that absent a waiver, sovereign immunity shields the Federal
Government and its agencies from suit.’” Gaetano v. United States, 994 F.3d 501, 506 (6th Cir.
2021) (quoting Meyer, 510 U.S. at 475).
Any waiver of sovereign immunity by the United States “must be express, clear and
unequivocal.” Reed v. Reno, 146 F.3d 392, 398 (6th Cir. 1998) (citing Coleman v. Espy, 986 F.2d
1184, 1189 (8th Cir. 1993)). “Further, the language of any waiver of sovereign immunity is strictly
construed in favor of the United States.” Id. (citing Markey v. United States, 27 Fed. Cl. 615, 622
(Fed. Cl. 1993)).

III. ANALYSIS
Senior Circuit Judge Julia Gibbons, sitting by designation, has recently considered the
jurisdictional basis for a lawsuit against this court and held that sovereign immunity entirely bars
suit against a federal district court. Horwitz v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the Middle Dist. of Tenn., No.
3:24-CV-1180, 2025 WL 90108, at *3 (M.D. Tenn. Jan. 14, 2025). As Judge Gibbons observed in
that case, “[c]laims brought against a federal district court, as a part of the judicial branch of the
United States government, are brought against the United States.” Id. (citing Kight v. U.S. Dist.
Ct., 681 F. App’x 882, 883 (11th Cir. 2017)). And “[t]he doctrine of sovereign immunity bars
federal courts from hearing all suits against the federal government, except where sovereign
immunity has been waived.” Id. (citing Meyer, 510 U.S. at 475). Thus, Irion’s claims against the
District Court here are entirely barred by sovereign immunity unless he can show that waiver
applies. Accord id. (finding that the plaintiff “ma[de] no attempt to demonstrate that there has been
a waiver of sovereign immunity” and dismissing suit against this court as barred by sovereign
immunity); Kight, 681 F. App’x at 883 (11th Cir. 2017) (dismissing complaint against federal

district court because of sovereign immunity); Jones v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 649 F. App’x 132 (3d Cir.
2016) (same); Ward v. U.S. Dist. Ct., No. 14-2707-T-DKV, 2015 WL 137204, at *1 (W.D. Tenn.
Jan, 8, 2015) (same).
In the FAC, Irion asserts that this court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, but, “[i]n
the context of the United States’ sovereign immunity, [the Sixth Circuit has] held that § 1331 ‘is
not a general waiver of sovereign immunity; it merely establishes a subject matter that is within
the competence of federal courts to entertain.’” Spurr v. Pope, 936 F.3d 478, 484 (6th Cir. 2019)
(quoting Whittle v. United States, 7 F.3d 1259, 1262 (6th Cir. 1993)); see also Reed, 146 F.3d at
397–98 (“Section 1331’s general grant of federal question jurisdiction, however, ‘does not by its
own terms waive sovereign immunity and vest in district courts plenary jurisdiction’ over claims

for money judgments against the United States.” (citation omitted)).
Irion also asserts that the District Court waived sovereign immunity through 5 U.S.C.
§ 702. (Doc. No. 22 ¶ 9.) Section 702 of the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) indeed
waives the United States’ sovereign immunity to suit against a federal “agency” under certain
circumstances, but the APA expressly defines the term “agency” to exclude “the courts of the
United States.” 5 U.S.C. § 701(b)(1)(B). Accordingly, the APA does not waive the sovereign
immunity of the United States district courts. Accord Kight, 681 F. App’x at 884 n.4 (“Section 702
. . . provides for certain actions against federal agencies. But ‘agency’ does not include the courts
of the United States.” (citations omitted)).
To the extent Irion is claiming that Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the
Declaratory Judgment Act authorizes the court to exercise jurisdiction in this case, Rule 57 simply
“govern[s] the procedure for obtaining a declaratory judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 2201,” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 57, and the Declaratory Judgment Act “does not create an independent basis for federal

subject matter jurisdiction.” Heydon v. MediaOne of Se. Mich., Inc., 327 F.3d 466, 470 (6th Cir.
2003) (citations omitted). Rather, the Declaratory Judgment Act “merely creates a remedy
allowing district courts to ‘declare the rights and other legal relations’ of parties in suits where a
district court has jurisdiction, and does not waive immunity or convey jurisdiction where it
otherwise does not exist.” Kight, 681 F. App’x at 884 n.4 (quoting Schilling v. Rogers, 363 U.S.
666, 677 (1960), and citing 28 U.S.C. § 2201).
Finally, the fact that the plaintiff asserts violations of constitutional rights protected by the
First or Fourth Amendment is of no consequence, because the United States Constitution does not
confer jurisdiction in this court to hear the plaintiff’s claims. Further, while the Tucker Act waives
sovereign immunity for certain types of claims for money damages against the United States

“founded . . . upon . . . the Constitution,” such claims must be brought in the United States Court
of Federal Claims. 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). And even then, the Tucker Act does not authorize the
Court of Federal Claims to award equitable relief or issue declaratory judgments, except in very
limited circumstances not at issue here. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 218 (1983) (citing
United States v. King, 395 U.S. 1, 4–5 (1969)); see San Antonio Hous. Auth. v. United States, 143
Fed. Cl. 425, 448–49 (2019) (identifying the limited circumstances in which the Federal Claims
Court may issue equitable relief).
In short, the plaintiff has not identified any circumstances suggesting that the United States
has waived immunity to the claims at issue here, meaning that the District Court’s sovereign
immunity completely bars the claims against it in this case.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth herein, the United States has sovereign immunity to Irion’s claims
against it, meaning that this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, all claims against
the District Court will be dismissed without prejudice. See Thompson v. Love’s Travel Stops &
Country Stores, Inc., 748 F. App'x 6, 11 (6th Cir. 2018) (“[O]ur court has stated on several
occasions that dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction should normally be without
prejudice.” (collecting cases)); accord Brownback v. King, 592 U.S. 209, 218 (2021) (“Ordinarily,
a court cannot issue a ruling on the merits ‘when it has no jurisdiction’ because ‘to do so is, by
very definition, for a court to act ultra vires.’” (quoting Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t,
523 U.S. 83, 102 (1998)). The plaintiff's Emergency Motion, which pertains only to the District
Court and not to the TBPR, will be denied as moot.
An appropriate Order is filed herewith.

ALETA A. Hd
United States District Judge

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10848214. Public record. Not legal advice.