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Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 9, 2007 Decided April 6, 2007 

No. 06-5030 

FRANCES L. GREENHILL,

APPELLANT

V. 

MARGARET SPELLINGS, 

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 05cv01100) 

Daniel Moar, Student Counsel, argued the cause for 

amicus curiae in support of appellant. With him on the briefs 

were Stephen H. Goldblatt, Director, and Michael Huang, 

Student Counsel. 

Frances L. Greenhill, pro se, was on the briefs for 

appellant. 

Megan L. Rose, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause 

for appellee. With her on the brief were Jeffrey A. Taylor, 

U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. 

USCA Case #06-5030 Document #1033332 Filed: 04/06/2007 Page 1 of 13
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Attorney. Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered 

an appearance. 

Before: GARLAND and BROWN, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: In 2002 Frances 

Greenhill received a letter from the Department of Justice 

rescinding an offer of employment. This rescission was the 

result of a negative reference, which Greenhill claims came 

from her former supervisor at the Department of Education in 

contravention of a settlement agreement. Plaintiff brought 

suit in district court, seeking $210,000 in damages and some 

equitable remedies. The district court concluded that the 

cause of action was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the 

Court of Federal Claims. We agree. We remand the case to 

the district court with instructions to transfer the case to that 

court. 

* * * 

Greenhill, an employee of the Department of Education 

(“DOE”), executed a settlement agreement with the 

Department in 1999 to resolve complaints of age and race 

discrimination that she had filed with the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). According to the 

agreement, DOE was to remove certain documents from 

Greenhill’s record and to direct to a specified person all 

requests for employment references on Greenhill. In February 

2002, Greenhill received an offer of employment from the 

Department of Justice (“DOJ”), pending a background 

investigation. But on June 21, 2002 DOJ wrote to Greenhill 

rescinding the offer, citing a negative reference from DOE. 

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Because Greenhill believed that DOE had breached the 

1999 settlement, she consulted with Equal Employment 

Specialist Cathy Hawkins during the summer of 2002. The 

1999 agreement required that any complaint alleging breach 

must be filed “in writing within thirty (30) calendar days of 

the date [Greenhill] knew or should have known of the alleged 

noncompliance.” Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 41. Plaintiff in fact 

didn’t submit a written complaint until July 30, 2003, more 

than a year after she learned of the bad reference. The Equal 

Employment Opportunity office at DOE initially accepted 

Greenhill’s complaint for formal processing but on August 17, 

2004 dismissed it for lack of timeliness. The EEOC affirmed 

the dismissal and sent Greenhill a right-to-sue letter. Plaintiff 

then filed a timely pro se complaint in district court seeking 

$210,000 in damages and various forms of equitable relief, 

including reinstatement to her position at DOE, restoration of 

leave, and reinstatement into retirement and savings plans. 

Noting that the Court of Federal Claims has exclusive 

jurisdiction over all contract claims against the federal 

government in excess of $10,000, the court dismissed the 

cause of action without prejudice for want of jurisdiction. 

* * * 

The Tucker Act provides that “[t]he United States Court 

of Federal Claims shall have jurisdiction to render judgment 

upon any claim against the United States founded . . . upon 

any express or implied contract with the United States, or for 

liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in 

tort.” 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). Although the Little Tucker Act 

gives district courts jurisdiction over certain similar claims 

against the federal government, the jurisdiction of the Court of 

Federal Claims is exclusive when a plaintiff seeks more than 

$10,000 in damages. See 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a); Sharp v. 

Weinberger, 798 F.2d 1521, 1523 (D.C. Cir. 1986). 

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As we said, Greenhill’s complaint requested $210,000 as 

well as equitable relief. Although the complaint did not 

explicitly denominate the $210,000 claim as one for contract 

damages (as opposed, for example, to back pay under Title 

VII, see Rochon v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 1211, 1216 (D.C. Cir. 

2006)), neither Greenhill nor amicus argues that the amount 

sought is anything other than contract damages. Thus the 

complaint on its face appears to be one over which the Court 

of Federal Claims has exclusive jurisdiction. 

On appeal, Greenhill has benefited from the able 

advocacy of amicus, who offers several theories to avoid the 

jurisdictional limitation. Close inspection, though, reveals 

none of them to be availing. First, amicus argues that the 

district court failed to recognize a Title VII retaliation claim in 

Greenhill’s complaint or, alternatively, in her motion for the 

court to reconsider its dismissal of the complaint. The district 

court would have had jurisdiction over a retaliation claim and, 

according to amicus’s theory, could then have exercised 

supplemental jurisdiction over the contract claim. See 

Rochon, 438 F.3d at 1215. 

The Supreme Court has stated that pro se complaints, 

“however inartfully pleaded,” are to be held “to less stringent 

standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Haines 

v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). We have also permitted 

courts to consider supplemental material filed by a pro se 

litigant in order to clarify the precise claims being urged. See 

Anyanwutaku v. Moore, 151 F.3d 1053, 1054 (D.C. Cir. 

1998). But even under these liberal pleading standards 

Greenhill has not shown that a Title VII retaliation claim was 

before the district court. 

Essentially, Greenhill argues that the negative evaluation 

supplied to DOJ by her former supervisor, Mary Brayboy, is 

indicative of animus toward Greenhill and thus “supports an 

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inference of retaliation.” Amicus’s Br. at 28. Although 

providing a negative employment reference may be consistent 

with retaliatory behavior, the district court here could not 

reasonably be expected to discern a separate retaliation claim. 

The complaint makes no reference to retaliation, and the 

negative statements by Greenhill’s former supervisor, without 

more, are not self-evidently retaliatory. 

Amicus also points to two statements in the record that 

supposedly should have placed the district court on notice that 

Greenhill sought to pursue a retaliation claim. In an August 

24, 2004 letter to the EEOC, Greenhill wrote that “Ms. 

Brayboy retaliated as well as discriminated as stated in the 

first complaint claimed.” J.A. 77. Also, in a declaration 

before the EEOC, Greenhill asserted, “I am a victim of race 

and disability discrimination.” J.A. 11. These are, at best, 

two isolated statements in over 100 pages of documents—a 

potpourri of letters, declarations, e-mail exchanges, and the 

like—that plaintiff attached to the complaint. Although 

accompanying documents might clarify an otherwise 

ambiguous complaint, see Stewart v. National Education 

Association, 471 F.3d 169, 173 (D.C. Cir. 2006), nothing in 

our case law requires a district court to go on a fishing 

expedition for new claims. 

Alternatively, amicus asserts that Greenhill’s motion for 

reconsideration of the district court’s dismissal of her 

complaint effectively amended the original complaint. In that 

motion, amidst numerous charges of malice, recklessness, and 

evil intent on the part of Ms. Brayboy, Greenhill asserted that 

she was the victim of “intentional discrimination.” J.A. 212–

14. Although Greenhill included numerous allegations and 

declarations in her pro se motion, the essence of the motion 

was: “Ms. Mary Brayboy in fact did breach our 1999 . . . 

settlement . . . .” J.A. 212. The other statements did nothing 

to clarify or amend the original complaint; rather, by all 

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appearances, they simply sought to bolster the argument that 

there was a breach. 

Consequently, we reject amicus’s suggestion that 

Greenhill brought a Title VII claim within the district court’s 

jurisdiction. We thus have no occasion to consider the 

possible application of Rochon, i.e., whether, or under what 

circumstances, a district court might exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction over contract claims that otherwise fall within the 

exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims. 

Amicus’s second theory for avoiding the exclusive 

jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims relies on the fact 

that the settlement agreement explicitly precludes Greenhill 

from recovering damages. Because of this bar, amicus says, 

Greenhill can in fact obtain only equitable relief; and because 

the Court of Federal Claims can award only money damages 

(a much oversimplified proposition, as we note below), that 

court lacks jurisdiction to award Greenhill any relief. Amicus 

anticipates that if the present case were brought in the Court 

of Federal Claims, the government would argue that the court 

lacks jurisdiction on precisely these grounds. To be sure, it 

would be unseemly for a party to engage in a “paper charade,” 

arguing to a district court that the Court of Federal Claims has 

exclusive jurisdiction over a case, only to make a 

contradictory jurisdictional argument once the case is 

transferred. See Stovall v. United States, 71 Fed. Cl. 696, 

697–98 (2006). But there is no reason to believe that the 

government has behaved or will behave with such duplicity 

here. More to the point, the possibility of shenanigans by a 

party doesn’t permit a court to ignore jurisdictional defects. 

Jurisdiction is determined by looking to the complaint. 

See Tootle v. Secretary of the Navy, 446 F.3d 167, 174 (D.C. 

Cir. 2006). If Greenhill explicitly or in essence seeks money 

damages in excess of $10,000, jurisdiction rests exclusively 

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with the Court of Federal Claims. See Kidwell v. Department 

of the Army, Board for Correction of Military Records, 56 

F.3d 279, 284 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Amicus’s proposed approach 

would invert the usual order of operations—it would basically 

resolve the merits question of whether Greenhill is entitled to 

money damages and then use that result to answer the 

jurisdictional question. Jurisdiction, however, is an 

independent, preliminary issue. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a 

Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998). Here, 

Greenhill explicitly requested $210,000 in damages. This is 

enough for the Court of Federal Claims to exercise exclusive 

jurisdiction over the case. The disposition on the merits is a 

separate question and one that only the Court of Federal 

Claims can resolve. 

Amicus’s third theory is a more sophisticated variation of 

the second. Here amicus argues that in defending against the 

contract damages claim the government will point to the 

settlement’s provision against damages; whereupon the 

plaintiff will respond that any such ban is invalid under Title 

VII. Pointing to cases of the Court of Federal Claims 

suggesting that it has jurisdiction only over straightforward 

contract issues, but not over claims requiring an interpretation 

of federal statutes such as Title VII, amicus says that in reality 

there is no claim within the jurisdiction of the Court of 

Federal Claims. While the question before us is the district 

court’s jurisdiction, it is counterintuitive that the jurisdictional 

statutes would be so ill-coordinated as to leave perfectly 

sound claims orphaned. Accordingly, as we have in prior 

decisions, we consider the alleged deficit in the jurisdiction of 

the Court of Federal Claims. 

It is quite true that the Court of Federal Claims has no 

jurisdiction over Title VII claims. According to its 

predecessor, the U.S. Claims Court, “Title VII . . . is the 

comprehensive, exclusive, and preemptive remedy for federal 

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employees alleging discrimination.” Fausto v. United States, 

16 Cl. Ct. 750, 752–53 (1989). The point is not in dispute—

regarding actual Title VII claims. See, e.g., Kizas v. Webster, 

707 F.2d 524, 541 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (“Title VII constitutes the 

exclusive remedy for claims of employment discrimination by 

federal employees subject to its protection . . . .” (internal 

quotation marks omitted)). 

And there have been decisions of the Court of Federal 

Claims and its predecessor treating a claim based on a 

settlement agreement that extinguished a Title VII complaint 

as itself an action under Title VII rather than a contract 

dispute covered by the Tucker Act. See Griswold v. United 

States, 61 Fed. Cl. 458, 464–65 (2004); Mitchell v. United 

States, 44 Fed. Cl. 437, 439 (1999); Lee v. United States, 33 

Fed. Cl. 374, 378–80 (1995); Fausto, 16 Cl. Ct. at 753. Last 

year, however, the Court of Federal Claims repudiated the 

logic of these opinions and drew a critical distinction between 

actual discrimination claims for which Title VII provides the 

exclusive remedy and breach-of-settlement claims that “fall[] 

outside the comprehensive scheme” of Title VII. Westover v. 

United States, 71 Fed. Cl. 635, 639 (2006). There the court 

relied on the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit precedents 

discussed below to conclude that settlement agreements are 

indeed straightforward contract claims within the purview of 

the Tucker Act and the jurisdiction of the Court of Federal 

Claims. 

In Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, 

511 U.S. 375 (1994), the Supreme Court drew a sharp line 

between an action on a settlement agreement and one under a 

law whose alleged violation gave rise to the settlement. “The 

[instant] suit involves a claim for breach of a contract, part of 

the consideration for which was dismissal of an earlier federal 

suit. No federal statute makes that connection . . . the basis 

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for federal-court jurisdiction over the contract dispute.” Id. at 

381. 

Recent Federal Circuit cases have applied the distinction, 

making clear that a contract dispute with the government, 

arising out of a matrix of statutes, does not become a suit to 

enforce the statutes themselves merely because its resolution 

may require their construction. In Del-Rio Drilling Programs, 

Inc. v. United States, 146 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 1998), the 

Court of Federal Claims had dismissed for want of jurisdiction 

a claim against the government for breach of a lease from the 

Bureau of Land Management to plaintiff. The government 

claimed the case was one for enforcement of several statutes, 

pointing to various issues the court would have to resolve to 

dispose of the lease claim. Given the confusion over this 

issue, the Federal Circuit’s rejection of this idea deserves 

extensive quotation: 

[T]he fact that the court may have to interpret the Tribal 

Consent Act or make other determinations regarding 

principles of state and federal law in order to resolve the 

contract claim does not deprive the court of jurisdiction to 

decide that claim. It is often necessary to interpret or 

apply statutory or common law principles in order to 

resolve contract claims, but the fact that the resolution of 

a contract claim may turn on the interpretation of a statute 

does not deprive the Court of Federal Claims of 

jurisdiction over that claim. 

 The Tucker Act gives the Court of Federal Claims 

“jurisdiction to render judgment upon any claim against 

the United States founded . . . upon any express or 

implied contract with the United States.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(a)(1). That broad jurisdictional grant does not 

exempt contract claims that turn on the construction of 

statutes. 

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 . . . . 

 . . . It is true, of course, that the respective rights of 

the parties conferred by the leases must be analyzed in 

light of the statutes and regulations governing the subject 

matter of mining on trust lands. Nonetheless, the leases 

are contractual undertakings by the government upon 

which citizens are entitled to sue in the Court of Federal 

Claims. 

Id. at 1367. See also Massie v. United States, 166 F.3d 1184, 

1189 (Fed. Cir. 1999), in which the court found that a claim to 

enforce a contract resolving a dispute between the plaintiff 

and an agency fell within the Court of Federal Claims’ 

jurisdiction even though the agency decision, out of which the 

contract arose, was not subject to any kind of judicial review. 

Del Rio’s holding that the anticipation of statutory issues 

cannot strip a contract case of its character of course fits the 

standard approach to jurisdiction over claims founded on a 

specified legal basis, such as that stated in 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(a)(1). Under the “well-pleaded complaint” rule, for 

example, jurisdiction of “actions arising under” federal law, 

28 U.S.C. § 1331, is resolved by looking to the legal basis of 

plaintiff’s claim and emphatically not to anticipations of 

issues that might arise by way of defense. Louisville & 

Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 152–53 

(1908). Amicus’s theory of course goes further, trying to 

defeat jurisdiction not on the basis of a hypothesized defense 

but on a hypothesized response to a hypothesized defense. 

Our own recent cases have been equally clear on the 

distinction between contract claims and their statutory 

context. We have held that even though Title VII might have 

been the basis of a settlement agreement, a breach claim is a 

straightforward contract dispute. Hansson v. Norton, 411 

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F.3d 231, 232 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“This court generally treats 

settlement agreements as contracts subject to the exclusive 

jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims . . . .”); Brown v. 

United States, 389 F.3d 1296, 1297 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (holding 

that a breach of settlement claim should have been brought in 

the Court of Federal Claims pursuant to the Tucker Act). 

Consequently, we find that Greenhill’s claim is a 

straightforward contract dispute under the Tucker Act and that 

jurisdiction in the Court of Federal Claims is proper. 

Finally, amicus argues that we should remand the case to 

the district court to give Greenhill an opportunity to amend 

her complaint and seek damages below the Little Tucker Act’s 

$10,000 ceiling; see 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2). But in support of 

the proposal amicus cites only a case where the plaintiff had, 

in district court, made an effort (albeit a defective one) to 

waive the excess over $10,000, Goble v. Marsh, 684 F.2d 12, 

17 (D.C. Cir. 1982), and another case in which we found that 

plaintiff’s trial-court waiver was adequate, Stone v. United 

States, 683 F.2d 449, 454 (D.C. Cir. 1982). Greenhill made 

no trial-court effort to waive. We note in this connection that 

when asked at oral argument whether Greenhill was ready to 

drop her damages claim, amicus answered unequivocally no. 

Oral Arg. at 2:21 (“Q: Does this mean that Ms. Greenhill is 

withdrawing her claim for money damages? A: No, Your 

Honor, it does not mean that she is withdrawing her claim for 

money damages . . . .”). 

Insofar as Greenhill believes that jurisdiction in district 

court would open up to her a broader array of non-monetary 

remedies than would be available in the Court of Federal 

Claims, we observe only that the validity of that belief is not 

so clear. The Tucker Act explicitly provides for equitable 

relief: 

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To provide an entire remedy and to complete the relief 

afforded by the judgment, the court may, as an incident of 

and collateral to any such judgment, issue orders 

directing restoration to office or position, placement in 

appropriate duty or retirement status, and correction of 

applicable records, and such orders may be issued to any 

appropriate official of the United States. 

28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(2). 

This has, to be sure, been somewhat narrowly construed. 

See, e.g., Miller v. United States, 67 Fed. Cl. 195, 201 (2005) 

(noting the court’s power to grant “incidental” reinstatement 

to service); French v. United States, 42 Fed. Cl. 49, 52 (1998) 

(noting the court’s power to correct official records if plaintiff 

would be entitled to damages “if the record is corrected”). 

Similarly, our own cases have found very sharp constraints on 

district court jurisdiction to grant equitable relief on contract 

claims against the government. See Transohio Savings Bank 

v. Director, Office of Thrift Supervision, 967 F.2d 598, 607–

13 (D.C. Cir. 1992); Sharp v. Weinberger, 798 F.2d 1521, 

1523 (D.C. Cir. 1986). But compare Land v. Dollar, 330 U.S. 

731 (1947) (finding, where plaintiffs sued agents of the 

United States, who had allegedly acted in excess of their 

public authority, to recover property that was allegedly due 

them under their contract with the United States, the claim 

sounded in tort and was within the jurisdiction of the district 

court). We take no position on which system is in practice 

less forthcoming. 

* * * 

Because we conclude that Greenhill has sought over 

$10,000 in damages and that the cause of action constitutes a 

“claim against the United States founded . . . upon an[] 

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express or implied contract with the United States,” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(a)(1), the Court of Federal Claims has exclusive 

jurisdiction. We remand the case to the district court with 

instructions to transfer the case to the Court of Federal Claims 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1631. 

So ordered. 

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