Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Anthony Carl Eccarius filed a labor grievance with the National Labor Relations Board in May 2021, framing it around the Tenth Amendment and asserting that sovereignty belongs “to the People.” The NLRB denied the grievance promptly. Eccarius then took the same grievance to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the state Medical Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and from there to a habeas petition in the Northern District, the Ninth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court — all unsuccessful.
In June 2025, Eccarius filed this action against the United States in the Northern District, alleging due process, Tenth Amendment, and equal protection violations. Judge Charles Breyer dismissed that complaint for lack of jurisdiction (no waiver of sovereign immunity) and failure to state a claim (no private right of action under the Tenth Amendment, and Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the federal government), with leave to amend.
Eccarius then filed an amended complaint that dropped the United States as a defendant, added unnamed NLRB officers and Mendocino County officials, added a Fifth Amendment due process claim grounded in the federal defendants’ alleged refusal to address his Tenth Amendment claims, and asserted both official-capacity claims under the Administrative Procedure Act and individual-capacity claims under Bivens. The federal defendants moved to dismiss; Mendocino County moved to quash service or dismiss. Eccarius did not respond to either motion in any substantive way.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Breyer granted both motions and dismissed the case with prejudice on every theory.
On official-capacity claims against the federal defendants, the court reaffirmed that sovereign immunity bars suits against the United States and its officers in their official capacity unless an unequivocal waiver applies. APA § 702 only waives immunity for non-monetary relief tied to judicial review of a final agency action, and even then a final agency action must be plausibly alleged. Eccarius’s amended complaint identified only the NLRB’s 2021 grievance denial without describing the grievance, the NLRB’s reasoning, or whether the denial was a reviewable final action. That gap deprived the court of jurisdiction over the official-capacity due process and equal protection claims.
On the Tenth Amendment claims, the court reaffirmed its earlier ruling that there is no general private right of action under the Tenth Amendment. Eccarius’s contrary insistence in his statement of non-opposition did not change the controlling authority.
On the individual-capacity Bivens claims against unnamed NLRB officers, the court applied Egbert v. Boule and the Supreme Court’s contemporary, almost-categorical reluctance to extend Bivens to new contexts. Federal employee labor-management oversight by the NLRB is a “new context” for Bivens purposes, and Congress has provided alternative remedial structures. The court declined to imply a damages action.
On Mendocino County and its officers, the court found service of process defective and the complaint void of facts that would tie any county actor to a constitutional violation. The complaint did not plausibly allege any policy, practice, or specific conduct of the county defendants tied to a federally protected right.
The court dismissed all claims with prejudice, citing Eccarius’s failure to cure deficiencies after a first round of leave to amend and his prior unsuccessful attempts to litigate the same NLRB grievance through multiple federal and state forums.
Key Takeaways
- APA § 702 supplies a waiver of sovereign immunity only for non-monetary review of a “final agency action.” Plaintiffs must plausibly allege both finality and reviewability; a single sentence about an NLRB grievance denial four years earlier is not enough.
- The Tenth Amendment does not create a private right of action. Repeated insistence to the contrary is not a basis for amendment.
- After Egbert v. Boule, lower courts will not extend Bivens to new federal-employee or labor-management contexts, especially where Congress has built alternative remedial schemes.
- When a pro se plaintiff has already failed once with leave to amend, declines to oppose a second motion, and has unsuccessfully litigated the same grievance through multiple forums, dismissal with prejudice is appropriate.
- Service of process defects against county defendants — combined with a near-empty factual narrative — will support quashing service and dismissal.
Why It Matters
The opinion is a useful Bay Area illustration of the modern post-Egbert landscape for plaintiffs trying to use constitutional claims to challenge federal agency conduct. The combined effect of the strict APA § 702 waiver, the absence of a Tenth Amendment private right of action, and Bivens’s near-extinction in new contexts means that disappointed federal-agency petitioners almost never get into federal court on a freestanding constitutional theory. The proper vehicle is APA review of a clearly identified final agency action, with all of the standing and ripeness requirements that path carries.
The case also signals to district courts in the Ninth Circuit that they need not give pro se plaintiffs unlimited rounds of leave to amend, especially when the plaintiff has already taken the same grievance through multiple state and federal forums to no effect, and when the second amended pleading does not respond to the deficiencies the court previously identified.