Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05361/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05361-0/pdf.json

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 November 3, 2006 Decided December 15, 2006 

No. 05-5361 

JOHN A. PRICE,

APPELLANT

V. 

BEN S. BERNANKE, CHAIRMAN, 

BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 04cv00973) 

Nicholas W. Woodfield argued the cause for appellant. 

With him on the briefs was R. Scott Oswald. 

 John L. Kuray, Senior Counsel, Board of Governors of 

Federal Reserve System, argued the cause for appellee. With 

him on the brief were Richard M. Ashton, Deputy General 

Counsel, and Katherine H. Wheatley, Associate General 

Counsel. 

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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: Appellant John A. 

Price is currently a mainframe systems manager for the 

Federal Reserve Board, where he has been employed since 

1980. In 2004 Price filed suit in district court claiming 

discrimination on grounds of race, sex and age in violation of 

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Age 

Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) (specifically 

29 U.S.C. § 633a, the portion of the ADEA applicable to the 

federal government); he also alleged retaliation against him 

for his complaints under both statutes. The district court 

granted the Board’s Motion to Dismiss or for Summary 

Judgment, Price v. Greenspan, 374 F. Supp. 2d 177 (2005), 

finding Price’s discrimination claims substantively 

insufficient and his retaliation claims time-barred. In an 

unpublished order we affirmed as to all issues other than 

retaliation under the ADEA. Like the district court, we here 

find the ADEA retaliation claim time-barred. 

* * * 

In 2001 and 2002 Price filed a series of administrative 

complaints with the Board alleging discrimination and 

retaliation. The Board rejected the retaliation complaint first, 

and Price appealed its determination to the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). The latter issued a final 

decision upholding the Board’s decision on August 6, 2003. 

The EEOC’s decision notified Price that he had 90 days in 

which to file a civil action. 

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On June 14, 2004, more than ten months after the 

EEOC’s retaliation decision, Price filed a civil action pursuing 

the Title VII and ADEA discrimination and retaliation claims 

made in his administrative complaints. Under the ADEA, 

federal employees may file a civil action if they are 

dissatisfied with the outcome of an administrative process; 

alternatively, they are free to bring suit in federal court in the 

first instance. See 29 U.S.C. § 633a(b), (c) & (d). 

The district court found the two retaliation claims timebarred because Price had filed suit more than 90 days after the 

EEOC’s final decision; the court treated both claims as 

governed by the statutory 90-day filing deadline in Title VII, 

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c). Price, 374 F. Supp. 2d at 184-86. It 

noted that, while the ADEA provision protecting federal 

employees doesn’t itself mention a limitations period, “[m]ost 

circuits hold that when a federal employee pursues an age 

discrimination claim through the administrative process, that 

employee faces the 90 day statute of limitations set forth in 

Title VII, because Title VII offers the most analogous 

statutory regime and limitations period.” Id. at 186. 

* * * 

The question before us is straightforward: What is the 

appropriate statute of limitations for federal employees 

advancing claims of discrimination under the ADEA in a civil 

action if the EEOC has already addressed those claims? The 

ADEA lacks an express statutory provision on the issue. The 

Board believes that 90 days is the appropriate time period, 

both because of the ADEA’s similarity to Title VII and 

because such a limit represents the considered opinion of the 

EEOC, the agency charged by Congress with administering 

the ADEA. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.407(c). Price advances at 

least three alternatives: first, that his suit is governed by the 

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four-year statute of limitations in 28 U.S.C. § 1658; second, 

that he has six years under 28 U.S.C. § 2401; and third, that 

we should borrow the two-year limitations period of the Fair 

Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 255. 

Price’s first proposal, 28 U.S.C. § 1658, states that “a 

civil action arising under an Act of Congress enacted after 

[December 1, 1990] may not be commenced later than 4 years 

after the cause of action accrues.” In Jones v. R.R. Donnelly 

& Sons Co., 541 U.S. 369 (2004), the Supreme Court held that 

§ 1658 applies only “if the plaintiff's claim against the 

defendant was made possible by a post-1990 enactment.” Id. 

at 382. There is no question that Price’s claim against the 

Board depends exclusively on provisions adopted before 

1990: 29 U.S.C. § 633a(c) has been unchanged since its 

enactment in 1974, and the Board was covered from the 

outset. 

Price responds by noting that the ADEA has been 

amended post-1990. Twice, in fact: once to create a cause of 

action for employees of the Government Printing Office 

(“GPO”) and Government Accountability Office (“GAO”), 

1995 Pub. L. 104-1, Title II, Sec. 201(c)(2), 109 Stat. 8, and 

again to create a cause of action for employees of the 

Smithsonian, 1998 Pub L. 105-220, Title III, Sec. 341(b), 112 

Stat. 1092. But Price is not an employee of any of the three, 

so his cause of action against the Board was certainly not 

“made possible” by those post-1990 amendments. 

Price points, however, to Jones’s endorsement of the 

benefits of uniformity of limitations. See 541 U.S. at 380-81 

n.14 (“a uniform nationwide limitations period for a federal 

cause of action is always more appropriate” than a rule that 

applies to some but not to others) (internal citation omitted). 

Accordingly, he argues, we should extend to him—and 

presumably every other federal employee bringing an action 

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under the ADEA—the same time period presumably enjoyed 

by employees of the GPO, GAO, and Smithsonian. To hold 

otherwise would, he says, “Balkanize[]” the statutes of 

limitations applicable to federal employees.

In fact the Court’s concern in Jones involved the much 

greater heterogeneity spawned when want of a federal 

limitations period forces courts to hare off in search of a state 

law analogue. See id. More important, Jones made clear that 

§ 1658 must be read so as to properly reflect the trade-offs 

between two important values—uniformity and preservation 

of settled expectations. Concern for settled expectations had 

persuaded the reversed court of appeals to give § 1658 a very 

narrow reading, applying it only “when an act of Congress 

creates a wholly new cause of action, one that does not 

depend on the continued existence of a statutory cause of 

action previously enacted and kept in force by the 

amendment.” Id. at 374 (internal quotations omitted). The 

Supreme Court acknowledged expectations’ importance, and 

said that they 

. . . provide a valid reason to reject an interpretation of 

§ 1658 under which any new amendment to federal law 

would suffice to trigger the 4-year statute of limitations, 

regardless of whether the plaintiff's claim would have 

been available—and subject to a state statute of 

limitations—prior to December 1, 1990.

Id. at 381-82. In other words, the Court considered exactly 

the proposal that Price makes here, and found that it gave 

inadequate weight to legitimate expectations. We of course 

follow suit. 

Having rejected the application of § 1658’s general fouryear time period, we must borrow an appropriate statute of 

limitations from an analogous statute. See DelCostello v. Int’l 

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Bhd. of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 158 (1983). In his brief, 

Price suggested that we apply 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a)’s six year 

catch-all statute of limitations for non-tort civil claims against 

the United States, as the Ninth Circuit did in Lubniewski v. 

Lehman, 891 F.2d 216, 221 (9th Cir. 1989). But Lubniewski

is not only an outlying decision but also an otherwise weak 

reed, because its reasoning is based almost entirely on dictum 

in a Second Circuit opinion, Bornholdt v. Brady, 869 F.2d 57 

(2d Cir. 1989), a dictum now disavowed by that court. See 

Long v. Frank, 22 F.3d 54, 56 (2d Cir. 1994). Both 

Lubniewski and Bornholdt relied on the legislative history of 

the ADEA and drew their conclusion almost entirely from a 

shift between a draft of § 633a submitted to committee and the 

final version. The draft had spelled out a limitations period 

identical to that which then prevailed for similar claims under 

Title VII; the final version was almost unchanged but for 

deletion of that provision. But “[n]ot every silence is 

pregnant.” State of Illinois Dept. of Public Aid v. Schweiker, 

707 F.2d 273, 277 (7th Cir. 1983). We don’t believe much 

can reasonably be inferred from this deletion—unexplained in 

the legislative history yet explicable on a wide range of 

grounds. 

Lubniewski aside, applying § 2401(a)’s six-year limit 

raises independent concerns. Though § 2401(a) sets an 

outside time limit on suits against the United States, there is 

nothing to suggest that Congress intended it to govern any 

time a court finds a cause of action without a specific 

limitations period. Moreover, doing so here would lead to the 

anomalous result that a 90-day statute of limitations would 

apply for claims brought against a private employer under the 

ADEA, see 29 U.S.C. § 626(e), but a period of six years 

would apply for claims against the federal government. Given 

that statutes of limitations against the government involve a 

waiver of sovereign immunity, it seems unlikely Congress 

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intended such an anomaly. Accord Jones v. Runyon, 32 F.3d 

1454, 1455 (10th Cir. 1994). Perhaps not surprisingly, at oral 

argument counsel conceded that he didn’t think the 

Lubniewski court was correct in its application of a six-year 

limit. Recording of Oral Argument at 13:45 (“Frankly, I don’t 

think the Lubniewski court in the Ninth Circuit is correct on 

the six-year statute.”). We agree.

In his initial brief, Price pointed us to the FLSA’s twoyear statute of limitations. In particular, he noted that when 

the ADEA was enacted in 1967, its prohibition on 

discrimination in private employment on the basis of age 

incorporated the enforcement scheme of the FLSA. Moreover 

the Supreme Court once held that “violations of the ADEA 

generally are to be treated as violations of the FLSA.” 

Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 578 (1978). Unfortunately 

for Price, the analogy made in Lorillard “has no application in 

th[e] context” of federal-sector ADEA cases “because 

Congress did not incorporate the FLSA enforcement scheme” 

into § 633a, the ADEA section applicable to the federal 

government. Lehman v. Nakshian, 453 U.S. 156, 163 (1981). 

The analogy also now happens to be outdated, as in 1991 

Congress removed the FLSA’s incorporated statute of 

limitations from the private-sector portions of the ADEA and 

inserted a limitations scheme akin to that governing Title VII 

actions—i.e., 90 days. See Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. 

No. 102-166, § 115, 105 Stat. 1071, 1079 (codified as 

amended at 29 U.S.C. § 626(e)). Again, not surprisingly, 

Price retreated from reliance on the FLSA’s two-year limit in 

both his reply brief and at oral argument. We agree as to its 

implausibility. 

Having rejected Price’s suggestions, we must consider the 

Board’s claim that Title VII provides the most appropriate 

source for borrowing a statute of limitations. This is the 

position taken in published opinions by at least four other 

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circuits, see Burzynski v. Cohen, 264 F.3d 611, 619 (6th Cir. 

2001); Jones, 32 F.3d at 1458; Long, 22 F.3d at 58; Lavery v. 

Marsh, 918 F.2d 1022, 1027 (1st Cir. 1990). This is not 

surprising, as the Supreme Court has noted that § 633a is 

“patterned directly after” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16, the provision 

that provides Title VII protections to federal employees, and 

that the bill’s author intended the age provision to be 

“substantially similar to” the rights in place for federal 

workers under Title VII. Nakshian, 453 U.S. at 163-64 & 

n.15. Moreover, “the ADEA and Title VII share a common 

purpose, the elimination of discrimination in the workplace 

. . . .” Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 756 (1979) 

(quoted in Burzynski, 264 F.3d at 619, and Lavery, 918 F.2d at 

1025). 

While these factors provide an independent justification 

for borrowing the Title VII limitations period, it is also 

relevant that the EEOC—the agency responsible for enforcing 

the ADEA—has endorsed the 90-day period. See 29 C.F.R. 

§ 1614.407(c). In support of its interpretation of the ADEA, 

the EEOC noted that by having identical limitations periods it 

is more likely that administrative complaints alleging 

violations of both statutes will be filed, processed, and 

resolved at one time, avoiding the anomaly “that one lawsuit 

resulting from one incident or event . . . would be governed by 

different limitations periods.” 57 Fed. Reg. 12,634, 12,640 

(April 10, 1992). The point is consonant with our statutory 

analysis, which rests largely on the similarity between the 

Title VII and ADEA causes of action. Accordingly, we hold 

that when federal employees bring a civil action after pursuing 

administrative remedies under the ADEA, the action must be 

brought within 90 days of final agency action, the time period 

allowed for similar suits under Title VII. The ruling of the 

district court is therefore 

Affirmed. 

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