Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05270/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05270-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 3, 2006 Decided May 5, 2006

No. 05-5270

GIANPAOLO SPINELLI,

APPELLEE

v.

PORTER J. GOSS, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 00cv00408)

Jonathan H. Levy, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were

Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney.

Roy W. Krieger argued the cause for appellee. With him on

the brief was Mark S. Zaid.

Before: RANDOLPH and TATEL, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

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*

 A declaration by the Deputy Director for Federal Employees

Compensation provided the details concerning the Department of

Labor’s treatment of Spinelli’s claim and the Secretary’s inclusion of

his PTSD claim under FECA. This declaration was properly before

the court on a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

See Jerome Stevens Pharms., Inc. v. FDA, 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C.

Cir. 2005).

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: This is an interlocutory appeal

from a district court order denying a motion to dismiss portions

of a complaint. The complaint alleged as follows. While on an

overseas assignment for the Central Intelligence Agency in

1993, Gianpaolo Spinelli suffered multiple gunshot wounds. He

received treatment at an Army hospital abroad and further

treatment upon his return to the United States. He then began

working for the CIA at a different foreign location. Three years

later Spinelli returned to the United States. A psychologist

diagnosed him as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

or “PTSD.” After a year of psychotherapy with a CIA-approved

private psychologist, Spinelli switched to a psychologist of his

own choosing, at whose urging he retired from the CIA in 1998.

Spinelli had filed a timely claim for his initial injuries with

the Department of Labor under the Federal Employees’

Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 8101-8193, as a result

of which the federal government paid for his medical expenses

and awarded him $343,192.22 as compensation for his injuries.*

After he was diagnosed with PTSD, the government expanded

his FECA claim to include his treatment for this condition.

Spinelli filed an administrative claim under the Federal Tort

Claims Act, see 28 U.S.C. § 2672, seeking additional

compensation. The CIA denied the claim in December 1999.

Spinelli sued the CIA and its Director. He sought damages

for the psychological injury stemming from the shooting and for

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the CIA’s allegedly negligent treatment of him, which he

claimed aggravated his emotional disorder. The complaint

rested on several statutes, only two of which are the subject of

this appeal: the Tort Claims Act and the Rehabilitation Act, 29

U.S.C. §§ 701-796l. The government moved to dismiss both of

these claims, the Tort Claims Act claim on the ground that

FECA provides the exclusive remedy for work-related injuries,

and the Rehabilitation Act claim on the ground that Spinelli

failed to exhaust his administrative remedy. After denying the

motion, the district court granted the government’s motion for

certification of an interlocutory appeal without identifying “in

writing” – as the statute requires – the “controlling question[s]

of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of

opinion” and without stating why “an immediate appeal from

the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the

litigation,” 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). A motions panel of this court

nevertheless accepted the unopposed appeal because it could

“discern the district court’s intentions.” Spinelli v. Goss, No.

05-8004 (D.C. Cir. May 6, 2005) (order approving interlocutory

appeal) (citing Sargent v. Paine Webber Jackson & Curtis, Inc.,

882 F.2d 529, 531 (D.C. Cir. 1989)).

The district court should have dismissed both of Spinelli’s

claims. As to the Tort Claims Act claim, the Supreme Court

held in Southwest Marine, Inc. v. Gizoni, 502 U.S. 81 (1991),

that “FECA contains an ‘unambiguous and comprehensive’

provision barring any judicial review of the Secretary of Labor’s

determination of FECA coverage. Consequently, the courts

have no jurisdiction over [Tort Claims Act] claims where the

Secretary determines that FECA applies.” Id. at 90 (quoting

Lindahl v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 470 U.S. 768, 780 & n.13

(1985)). Here, the Secretary determined that Spinelli’s PTSD

claim was covered by FECA. It is of no moment whether, as

Spinelli argues, “the state of the law concerning FECA coverage

for emotional and psychological injuries sustained by Federal

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employees remains unsettled.” Br. for Appellee 5. The

Secretary’s decision in this case settles the matter. That decision

is “final and conclusive for all purposes with respect to all

questions of law and fact” and “not subject to review . . . by a

court.” 5 U.S.C. § 8128(b)(1), (2). It is also irrelevant that, as

Spinelli alleges, he has received no compensation for his PTSD.

He has received reimbursement for the medical expenses

relating to his PTSD because the Secretary determined that

FECA covered his condition. That determination is the

conclusive consideration.

Relying on Wright v. United States, 717 F.2d 254 (6th Cir.

1983), Spinelli tries to distinguish the injury underlying his Tort

Claims Act claim from the job-related injury for which the

Secretary awarded FECA benefits on the basis of the “dual

capacity doctrine.” Id. at 259. In Wright, the Sixth Circuit

suggested that if the employer provides negligent treatment for

a work-related injury, a worker’s compensation program will not

bar the employee from recovering for the aggravated injury in

a tort action against the employer. Id.; see also Richard A.

Epstein, The Historical Origins and Economic Structure of

Workers’ Compensation Law, 16 GA. L. REV. 775, 809-13

(1982) (criticizing the doctrine’s expansion). The theory rests

on the idea that the employee receives treatment as a patient, not

as an employee, and that the employer, in providing treatment,

acts in a different capacity than as an employer. Wright, 717

F.2d at 259-60. Other circuits have rejected Wright’s dualcapacity theory. See Elman v. United States, 173 F.3d 486, 490-

92 (3d Cir. 1999); Lance v. United States, 70 F.3d 1093, 1095

(9th Cir. 1995) (per curiam); Votteler v. United States, 904 F.2d

128, 130-31 (2d Cir. 1990); Wilder v. United States, 873 F.2d

285, 289 (11th Cir. 1989) (per curiam); Vilanova v. United

States, 851 F.2d 1, 7 & n.24 (1st Cir. 1988). The Sixth Circuit

itself now holds that FECA bars employees from suing under the

Tort Claims Act for “additional injuries caused by negligent

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treatment of the first injury.” McCall v. United States, 901 F.2d

548, 550 (6th Cir. 1990); see id. at 551. This result follows from

the language of 5 U.S.C. § 8116(c) and from traditional tort

theory. Section 8116(c) states that FECA provides the exclusive

“liability of the United States . . . because of the injury.”

Negligence or malpractice liability “arising out of an injury is

liability ‘because of the injury.’” Lance, 70 F.3d at 1095

(quoting § 8116(c)). At common law, “the initial wrong is the

cause of all that follows, even when there has intervened a

succeeding negligent act that produced the aggravation.”

Balancio v. United States, 267 F.2d 135, 137 (2d Cir. 1959) (L.

Hand, J.). FECA, Judge Hand ruled in Balancio, was “a

substitute for the whole of the claim that, but for it, would have

arisen under the Tort Claims Act.” Id. It follows that the

district court lacked jurisdiction over Spinelli’s Tort Claims Act

claim.

The district court also should have dismissed Spinelli’s

Rehabilitation Act claim for lack of jurisdiction on the ground

that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedy. The Act

limits judicial review to employees “aggrieved by the final

disposition” of their administrative “complaint,” 29 U.S.C.

§ 794a(a)(1); see Taylor v. Small, 350 F.3d 1286, 1292 (D.C.

Cir. 2003); Judd v. Billington, 863 F.2d 103, 105 (D.C. Cir.

1988), thereby mandating administrative exhaustion. Spinelli

never filed an administrative complaint. He says it would have

been futile to do so because the CIA did not provide him and his

counsel with his medical records. But a court may “not read

futility or other exceptions into statutory exhaustion

requirements where Congress has provided otherwise.” Booth

v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741 n.6 (2001) (citing McCarthy v.

Madigan, 503 U.S. 140, 144 (1992)). Such “jurisdictional

exhaustion,” as we have called it, may not be excused.

Avocados Plus Inc. v. Veneman, 370 F.3d 1243, 1247 (D.C. Cir.

2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here jurisdiction

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depended on the “final disposition of [an administrative]

complaint.” 29 U.S.C. § 794a(a)(1). Since there was no

administrative complaint and thus no final disposition of one,

the district court lacked jurisdiction.

The case is remanded so that the district court may enter an

order dismissing Spinelli’s claims under the Tort Claims Act

and the Rehabilitation Act.

So ordered.

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