Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-08-05181/USCOURTS-caDC-08-05181-0/pdf.json

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

---

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 19, 2009 Decided April 3, 2009 

No. 08-5181 

CAMILLE GROSDIDIER, PERSONALLY AND AS CLASS 

REPRESENTATIVE, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

CHAIRMAN, BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:07-cv-01551-ESH) 

Leslie D. Alderman III argued the cause and filed the 

briefs for appellants. 

Jane M. Lyons, 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. 

Attorney. 

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, and GINSBURG and 

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges. 

USCA Case #08-5181 Document #1174047 Filed: 04/03/2009 Page 1 of 6
2 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge 

KAVANAUGH. 

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: When the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors denied promotions to three employees, 

they sued the Board under the Administrative Procedure Act. 

But except where Congress specifies otherwise, the Civil 

Service Reform Act is the proper statutory vehicle for covered 

federal employees to challenge personnel actions by their 

employers. The District Court therefore dismissed this case. 

We affirm. 

I 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is a federal agency 

responsible for the U.S. Government’s international 

broadcasting. It manages a network of individual 

broadcasting services, including the Voice of America, which 

is known as the VOA. The VOA transmits news, educational, 

and cultural programming around the world in more than 40 

different languages to an estimated global audience of more 

than 100 million people. 

Plaintiffs Camille Grosdidier, Jorge Bustamante, and 

Carlos Martinez have worked for the VOA as international 

broadcasters. They are American citizens. In recent years, 

they have all applied for open positions within the VOA. In 

each case, however, the VOA instead chose to hire noncitizens for the posts. In doing so, the VOA relied upon 22 

U.S.C. § 1474(1), which authorizes the Federal Government 

to “employ, without regard to the civil service and 

classification laws, aliens within the United States and abroad 

for service in the United States relating to the . . . preparation 

and production of foreign language programs when suitably 

USCA Case #08-5181 Document #1174047 Filed: 04/03/2009 Page 2 of 6
3 

qualified United States citizens are not available when job 

vacancies occur.”1

Plaintiffs sued the Board under the Administrative 

Procedure Act. They argued that they were “suitably 

qualified” under § 1474 and that the Board thus acted 

arbitrarily and capriciously in hiring non-citizens in their 

places. They brought their lawsuit on behalf of themselves 

and a purported class of similarly situated citizens who were 

passed over in favor of non-citizen applicants. 

The District Court dismissed plaintiffs’ case. It held that 

the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-454, 92 

Stat. 1111 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 5 

U.S.C.), not the APA, was the statute under which plaintiffs 

must challenge these personnel actions. On appeal, our 

review of this legal question is de novo. 

 1

 In full, 22 U.S.C. § 1474(1) provides as follows: “In carrying 

out the provisions of this chapter [relating to U.S. information and 

educational exchange programs], the Secretary, or any Government 

agency authorized to administer such provisions, may – (1) employ, 

without regard to the civil service and classification laws, aliens 

within the United States and abroad for service in the United States 

relating to the translation or narration of colloquial speech in 

foreign languages or the preparation and production of foreign 

language programs when suitably qualified United States citizens 

are not available when job vacancies occur, and aliens so employed 

abroad may be admitted to the United States, if otherwise qualified, 

as nonimmigrants under section 1101(a)(15) of title 8 for such time 

and under such conditions and procedures as may be established by 

the Director of the United States Information Agency and the 

Attorney General.” 

USCA Case #08-5181 Document #1174047 Filed: 04/03/2009 Page 3 of 6
4 

II 

 Plaintiffs argue that the Civil Service Reform Act is not 

the exclusive avenue for covered federal employees to bring 

suits challenging personnel actions and that they may pursue 

their claim under the Administrative Procedure Act. We 

disagree. 

A 

In 1978, Congress passed and President Carter signed the 

CSRA. The Act brought about “the most systematic 

governmental review and revision of the federal civil service 

system since the enactment of the Pendleton Act in 1883.” 

William V. Luneburg, The Federal Personnel Complaint, 

Appeal, and Grievance Systems: A Structural Overview and 

Proposed Revisions, 78 KY. L.J. 1, 4 (1989). The CSRA 

replaced “the haphazard arrangements for administrative and 

judicial review of personnel action.” United States v. Fausto, 

484 U.S. 439, 444 (1988). To reform the “outdated 

patchwork of statutes and rules built up over almost a 

century,” Congress created “an integrated scheme of 

administrative and judicial review, designed to balance the 

legitimate interests of the various categories of federal 

employees with the needs of sound and efficient 

administration.” Id. at 444, 445 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

The CSRA protects covered federal employees against a 

broad range of personnel practices, and it supplies a variety of 

causes of action and remedies to employees when their rights 

under the statute are violated. As our Court has emphasized, 

the CSRA is comprehensive and exclusive. Federal 

employees may not circumvent the Act’s requirements and 

limitations by resorting to the catchall APA to challenge 

USCA Case #08-5181 Document #1174047 Filed: 04/03/2009 Page 4 of 6
5 

agency employment actions. Filebark v. Dep’t of Transp., 

555 F.3d 1009, 1010 (D.C. Cir. 2009); Fornaro v. James, 416 

F.3d 63, 66-67 (D.C. Cir. 2005); Graham v. Ashcroft, 358 

F.3d 931, 933-36 (D.C. Cir. 2004); Carducci v. Regan, 714 

F.2d 171, 172 (D.C. Cir. 1983). We have emphasized, 

moreover, that the CSRA is the exclusive avenue for suit even 

if the plaintiff cannot prevail in a claim under the CSRA. As 

we have explained, Congress designed the CSRA’s remedial 

scheme with care, “intentionally providing – and intentionally 

not providing – particular forums and procedures for 

particular kinds of claims.” Filebark, 555 F.3d at 1010. 

Allowing employees to end-run the CSRA would undermine 

Congress’s efforts to foster a “unitary and consistent 

Executive Branch position on matters involving personnel 

action.” Fausto, 484 U.S. at 449; see also Graham, 358 F.3d 

at 934. Therefore, we have told federal employees, “what you 

get under the CSRA is what you get.” Fornaro, 416 F.3d at 

67.2

B 

In the face of our extensive body of CSRA precedents 

casting doubt on their submission, plaintiffs cite the Federal 

Circuit’s decision in Worthington v. United States, 168 F.3d 

24 (Fed. Cir. 1999). There, the Federal Circuit allowed an 

employee to bring claims pursuant to the Tucker Act 

concerning a personnel action (in that case, the government’s 

alleged failure to provide an employee with back pay after 

inappropriately placing him on a compressed work schedule). 

 2

 Of course, Congress is always free to make explicit 

exceptions to the exclusivity of the CSRA. For example, the 

CSRA’s express terms make clear that the Act does not extinguish 

any right or remedy available to federal employees under federal 

anti-discrimination laws. 5 U.S.C. § 2302(d); see also 42 U.S.C. § 

2000e-16(c). 

USCA Case #08-5181 Document #1174047 Filed: 04/03/2009 Page 5 of 6
6 

Id. at 26, 27. Worthington does not apply here because this 

case involves the APA, not the Tucker Act. And in any event, 

we have some doubts about Worthington, which appears to be 

in significant tension with this Court’s precedents in Filebark, 

Fornaro, Graham, and Carducci. 

Plaintiffs also point to the text of 22 U.S.C. § 1474(1) – 

in particular the provision allowing the VOA to employ noncitizens “without regard to the civil service and classification 

laws.” Appellants’ Br. 23-24. But § 1474 has nothing to do 

with the question before us. Section 1474 contemplates the 

hiring of non-citizens notwithstanding the usual prohibitions 

on such hiring, and without regard to any limitations the civil 

service laws might place on that hiring. The statute does 

nothing to affect the exclusivity of the CSRA for suits 

targeting personnel decisions. 

* * * 

In affirming the District Court’s dismissal of this case, 

we need not decide whether the violation of § 1474 alleged by 

plaintiffs is, in fact, prohibited under the CSRA. Regardless 

of the answer to the question, plaintiffs cannot bring this suit 

under the APA. We affirm the District Court’s judgment 

dismissing this case. 

So ordered. 

USCA Case #08-5181 Document #1174047 Filed: 04/03/2009 Page 6 of 6