Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05340/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05340-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 8, 1997 Decided November 7, 1997 

No. 96-5340

J.B. FLOYD, ET AL.,

PLAINTIFFS/APPELLEES

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

DEFENDANT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

DEFENDANT/APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 95cv02345)

William Kanter, Deputy Director, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the 

briefs were Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, 

Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney at the time the briefs were 

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filed, and Robert D. Kamenshine, Attorney, U.S. Department 

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

Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel, entered 

appearances.

Robert E. Deso, Jr. argued the cause and filed the brief for 

appellees.

Donald B. Ayer and James E. Gauch were on a brief for 

amici curiae D. Paul Sweeney and Douglas Buchholz.

Before: SILBERMAN, ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Retired U.S. Secret Service agents 

sued the District of Columbia and the United States, claiming 

entitlement to increased retirement benefits administered by 

the District of Columbia but funded by the federal government. The district court entered summary judgment for the 

retirees. Finding that the district court lacked jurisdiction 

over the United States, we vacate the entire judgment.

I

To combat rampant counterfeiting during the Civil War, 

the Department of the Treasury created the U.S. Secret 

Service in 1865. Not until after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 was the Secret Service officially assigned the task of protecting the President. Over the 

next seventy years, the Service's protective authority expanded as it took over various tasks from the local police. In 

1930, for example, the Secret Service began protecting the 

White House and its grounds, a function once performed by a 

small force of military and District of Columbia Metropolitan 

Police Department officers. Congress later transferred responsibility for protecting foreign diplomatic missions from 

the District police to the Secret Service. See UNITED STATES 

SECRET SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, MOMENTS IN 

HISTORY: 1865-1990, 4-15 (1990).

As its history suggests, the Secret Service has close ties to 

the D.C. police, with overlapping powers, duties, memberships, and employment benefits. See 3 U.S.C. § 202 (1994) 

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("[Secret Service] members [ ] shall possess privileges and 

powers similar to those of the members of the Metropolitan 

Police of the District of Columbia."); 3 U.S.C. § 203(b) (1994) 

(Secret Service Uniformed Division members may be appointed from District police ranks); 3 U.S.C. §§ 204, 206 (1994) 

(Secret Service members to receive the same salary, benefits, 

and privileges as District police officers at the same grade). 

Because of these historical ties, two very different pension 

plans cover Secret Service employees. Some agents participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System. 5 U.S.C. 

§ 8401 et seq. (1994). Agents who actively perform nonclerical duties directly related to the protection of the President 

for more than ten years may opt into the plan governed by 

the District of Columbia Police and Firefighters Retirement 

and Disability Act ("DCRA"), 49 Stat. 358 (1935) (codified as 

amended at D.C. CODE ANN. § 4-601 et seq. (1994)). See D.C.

CODE ANN. § 4-609. Under the DCRA, agents pay pension 

contributions directly into the D.C. treasury, and every month 

the United States reimburses the District for any shortfall 

between total agent contributions and total pension costs. 

D.C. CODE ANN. § 4-632.

The DCRA offers higher benefits than the federal system. 

For example, the DCRA pays benefits based on retirees' 

highest annual salary for any single year, while the federal 

program pays based on retirees' highest average salary over 

three consecutive years. Compare Letter from United States 

Secret Service to Thomas Farrell (Apr. 26, 1996), with 5 

U.S.C. §§ 8401(3), 8415(a). The DCRA also contains an 

"equalization clause"the subject of this litigationthat automatically increases retired agents' pensions each time active 

agents receive salary increases. D.C. CODE ANN. 

§ 4-605(a). Not only does the equalization clause assure 

DCRA participants the equivalent of a cost of living adjustment, but courts have interpreted the clause to trigger pension increases based on locality pay increases and collectively 

bargained bonuses. See Lanier v. District of Columbia, 871 

F. Supp. 20, 22 (D.D.C. 1994); District of Columbia v. 

Tarlosky, 675 A.2d 77, 80-81 (D.C. 1996). The federal retireUSCA Case #96-5340 Document #307857 Filed: 11/07/1997 Page 3 of 9
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ment program contains a specific COLA provision, see 5 

U.S.C. § 8462, but no equalization clause.

Responding to the fact that criminal investigators throughout the federal government were routinely receiving overtime 

pay because they routinely worked more than eight hours 

each day, Congress passed the Law Enforcement Availability 

Pay Act of 1994 ("LEAP"), Pub. L. No. 103-329, 108 Stat. 

2425 (1994) (codified at 5 U.S.C. § 5545a (1994 & Supp. 

1996)). LEAP increased the work day of federal criminal 

investigators by two hours and awarded all investigators 

"availability pay" at the rate of 25 percent of their basic pay, 

thereby eliminating so-called "administratively uncontrollable 

overtime." See 5 U.S.C. §§ 5545a(c), (d). In effect, LEAP 

requires criminal investigators to be available for two more 

hours each day, in return for which they automatically receive 

an additional 25 percent of basic pay instead of the overtime 

pay they used to get.

Appellees are Secret Service criminal investigators who 

retired before the passage of LEAP. They contend that 

LEAP amounts to a 25 percent salary increase which triggers 

the DCRA equalization clause, entitling them to a 25 percent 

increase in pension benefits. When the D.C. Office of Personnel did not increase their pension benefits, the retirees 

sued both the District and the United States in the U.S. 

District Court for the District of Columbia.

Agreeing that LEAP constitutes a salary increase under 

the DCRA equalization clause, the district court entered 

summary judgment for the retirees and ordered the District 

and the United States to increase pension benefits by 25 

percent. The United States appealed; the District of Columbia did not.

II

The United States argued before the district courtalthough inexplicably, not before usthat the retired agents 

failed to identify a cause of action or waiver of sovereign 

immunity permitting the district court to exercise its jurisdiction over the United States. Disagreeing, the district court 

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held that the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702 

(1994), waived sovereign immunity, treating as "final agency 

action" the United States' failure to grant the requested 

pension increase. Under the DCRA, however, it was the 

District of Columbia, not the United States, that did not 

increase appellees' pensions. See D.C. CODE ANN. § 4-603 

(authorizing Mayor to determine pension benefits); D.C.

CODE ANN. § 4-605(a) (notwithstanding § 4-603, when active 

members receive a salary increase, retirees are entitled to a 

commensurate pension increase "without making application 

therefor"). Because nothing in the record indicates that the 

Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management, 

or any other federal agency did or decided anything pertaining to the impact of LEAP on appellees' pensions, we asked 

counsel for the United States to furnish information about 

any and all agency actions taken in this matter. Unable to 

point to any such action, the United States nevertheless 

maintains that the district court had jurisdiction. But jurisdiction cannot be waived and we have an independent obligation to assure ourselves of jurisdiction, even where the 

parties fail to challenge it. See Insurance Corp. of Ireland, 

Ltd. v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U.S. 694, 702 

(1982) (basis for jurisdiction must "affirmatively appear in the 

record").

Our jurisdictional inquiry requires that we answer two 

questions: Did the district court have subject matter jurisdiction over the case; and does federal law authorize a cause of 

action against the United States, the only appellant in this 

appeal? Because federal removal jurisdiction would have 

been available under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) had this case 

been filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, 

we have no doubt that the district court had subject matter 

jurisdiction. See District of Columbia v. Merit Systems 

Protection Board, 762 F.2d 129, 132 (D.C. Cir. 1985) ("When 

federal parties remove an action under section 1442(a)(1), the 

federal court assumes jurisdiction over all the claims and 

parties in the case regardless of whether the federal court 

could have assumed original jurisdiction over the suit."). The 

district court also had federal question jurisdiction under 28 

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U.S.C. § 1331 because the case " 'necessarily turn[s] on some 

construction of federal law.' " Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals 

Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 808 (1986) (quoting Franchise Tax Bd. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 

U.S. 1, 9 (1983)); see Diven v. Amalgamated Transit Union 

Int'l and Local 689, 38 F.3d 598, 600 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (unlike 

the statute in Merrell Dow, where Congress simply fails to 

include a certain group under a statute it does not constitute 

an affirmative congressional decision to deny federal jurisdiction) (citing Rogers v. Platt, 814 F.2d 683, 688 (D.C. Cir. 

1987)).

Where the United States is the defendant, however, federal 

subject matter jurisdiction is not enough; there must also be 

a statutory cause of action through which Congress has 

waived sovereign immunity. See United States v. Nordic 

Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 34 (1992). Under normal circumstances, the APA, on which the district court relied, would 

indeed waive sovereign immunity for a challenge to a federal 

agency's interpretation of a federal pay statute. See 5 U.S.C. 

§ 702. But as the federal government concedes in its postargument submission, no federal agency offered any interpretation or took any reviewable action here, nor does the DCRA 

expressly require the United States to take any action prior 

to reimbursing the District. Indeed, according to the record, 

the District of Columbia has not requested reimbursement 

from the United States, nor have the retirees ever asked the 

United States whether it would reimburse the District.

Although the United States claims that final agency action 

occurred when OPM promulgated LEAP regulations that 

made no reference to the DCRA, nothing in LEAP expressly 

requires OPM to address the DCRA. See 5 U.S.C. 

§ 5545a(h)(2)(B) (LEAP to be treated as basic pay for "such 

other purposes as may be expressly provided for by law or as 

[OPM] may by regulation prescribe") (emphasis added). 

Moreover, not only have the retirees never challenged OPM's 

actions, but they take the position that the OPM regulation is 

irrelevant to the administration of the DCRA. Since the 

OPM regulation is not the object of this litigation, the fact 

that it fails to mention the DCRAa statute OPM is not 

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charged with administeringcannot be invoked at this late 

date to trigger APA review. Cf. Hazardous Waste Treatment Council v. U.S. Envtl. Protection Agency, 861 F.2d 277, 

287 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (where petitioners failed to file petition 

seeking promulgation of regulation, court lacked jurisdiction 

over petitioners' claim that existing regulation was not sufficiently comprehensive).

In a post-argument filing, the District of Columbia claims 

that the United States makes all substantive decisions about 

Secret Service pensions under the DCRA and that the District serves as a mere passive conduit for federal pension 

monies. Although we can find nothing in the DCRA or the 

record explicitly limiting the District to such a passive role, 

we need not determine which government ultimately decides; 

the United States has told us that no federal official made any 

express decision here.

Without a record of federal agency action, the retirees have 

no APA cause of action and therefore no waiver of sovereign 

immunity. Nor can we find a cause of action against the 

United States or a waiver of its sovereign immunity in either 

the DCRA or LEAP. Although courts may sometimes infer 

a cause of action, see California v. Sierra Club, 451 U.S. 287, 

292-93 (1981), waivers of sovereign immunity must be unequivocally expressed in statutory text; we cannot imply a 

waiver of sovereign immunity, see Lane v. Pena, 116 S. Ct. 

2092, 2098-99 (1996). We have found nothing in the language, structure, or legislative history of either Act indicating 

that Congress intended the DCRA or LEAP to be privately 

enforced against the federal government or that Congress 

waived its sovereign immunity under either statute.

Finally, neither the District's actions nor its special constitutional status provides a basis for piercing the veil of federal 

sovereign immunity. The District of Columbia is still not a 

federal agency. See 5 U.S.C. § 551(1)(D) (excluding the 

District of Columbia from APA definition of agency); cf. 

D.C. CODE ANN. § 47-391.1 (1997) (establishing District of 

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tance Authority). The United States does not exert sufficient 

control over the decisions and operations of the D.C. Office of 

Personnel to convert that office into a federal agency or 

instrumentality. See Cannon v. United States, 645 F.2d 1128, 

1136-37 & n.35 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (Lorton Reformatory, created 

by federal statute and used to house federal as well as other 

prisoners, nevertheless is not a federal agency under Federal 

Tort Claims Act because Congress intended District of Columbia to control its day-to-day operations). Even where, as 

here, the federal government promises to pay for stateadministered programs, such promises do not by themselves 

constitute waivers of sovereign immunity permitting participants in those programs to sue the United States. See 

United States v. Orleans, 425 U.S. 807, 813-14 (1976) (community organization that received all its funding from the 

federal government not a federal agency for purposes of 

FTCA because federal government did not supervise its dayto-day operations).

In sum, although in this case federal retirees seek federal 

money pursuant to a federal statute, the United States has 

not yet taken any action that exposes it to suit. To permit a 

decision on the merits, the District has asked to be substituted for the United States, but such a substitution is neither 

"necessary" nor appropriate since the United States has not 

lost its interest in the underlying matter, transferred its 

interest to the District, or otherwise been rendered incapable 

of appealing at some later date. See FED. R. APP. P. 43(b); 

Jones v. Board of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., 79 F.3d 

1168, 1170 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (organization could not be substituted for its director in order to cure standing defect); 

Alabama Power Co. v. ICC, 852 F.2d 1361, 1366-68 (D.C. Cir. 

1988) (non-appealing party could not be substituted for appellant where appellant was capable of proceeding with appeal).

Because parties failing to appeal are not usually entitled to 

the benefits of a reversal obtained by appealing co-parties, 

National Ass'n of Broadcasters v. FCC, 554 F.2d 1118, 1124 

(D.C. Cir. 1976), dismissing the United States would normally 

leave intact the district court's judgment against the District 

of Columbia. Under the unusual circumstances of this case, 

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however, we think it best to vacate the district court's judgment in its entirety, as the United States has requested. The 

District's interests under the DCRA inextricably intertwine 

with those of the United States. The agents probably could 

not have sued the District without naming the United States 

as a necessary party. See FED. R. CIV. P. 19. Moreover, 

removing the United States and its purse from the case 

without vacating the district court's decision, thus forcing the 

District to make pension payments for which it is not ultimately responsible, is not only illogical and contrary to the 

DCRA, but would impose a heavy financial liability on the 

already beleaguered city. Vacating the district court's decision in full will also give Congress, which apparently gave no 

consideration whatsoever to the implications of LEAP for 

pre-LEAP retirees covered by the DCRA, an opportunity to 

resolve this issue. Should Congress fail to act, the parties 

can return to court with a properly drawn cause of action 

under which a court with jurisdiction may resolve the merits 

of this dispute.

The judgment of the district court is vacated and the case 

remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss the 

complaint.

So ordered.

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