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Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 24, 1997 Decided April 11, 1997

No. 96-5205

FIRST VIRGINIA BANK,

APPELLEE

v.

VERA RANDOLPH,

DEFENDANT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(95cv00919)

Robert D. Kamenshine, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs 

were Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, and 

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William G. Kanter, Deputy Director. Eric H. Holder, Jr.,

U.S. Attorney, Claire M. Whitaker and R. Craig Lawrence,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys, entered appearances.

Mark L. Booz argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellee First Virginia Bank. Kathleen T. Barlow entered an 

appearance.

Before: WILLIAMS, HENDERSON, and RANDOLPH, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: May a judgment creditor recover 

damages against the United States for its wrongful failure to 

garnish the wages of a government employee who is a judgment debtor? That issue, and a jurisdictional question, are 

presented in the government's appeal from the district court's 

award of $385.71 in "damages" to First Virginia Bank.

I

The State Department began garnishing the wages of its 

employee, Vera Randolph, in March 1994 after it was served 

with a writ of attachment. The Bank obtained the writ from 

the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The garnishment provision of the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 

1993, 5 U.S.C. § 5520a(b), subjects the pay of federal agency 

employees to legal process "in the same manner and to the 

same extent as if the agency were a private person." District 

of Columbia law requires an employer served with a writ of 

attachment to "withhold and pay" to the judgment creditor a 

percentage of the employee's gross wages until the "attachment is wholly satisfied." D.C. CODE § 16-573(a) & (a)(2).

In November 1994, nine months after the garnishment 

began, Randolph notified the State Department of her filing 

of a motion in Superior Court to quash the writ. The State 

Department then stopped garnishing her wages in light of 

D.C. CODE § 16-573(b). This local law states that whenever 

the employer receives "written notice of any court proceeding 

attacking the attachment or the judgment on which it is 

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based, the employer shall make no further payments to the 

judgment creditor or his legal representative until receipt of 

an order terminating the proceedings; except that in the case 

of child support judgments, the employer shall continue to 

withhold the payments from the judgment debtor until re

ceipt of an order of the court terminating the withholding."

Shortly after notifying the State Department of her motion, 

Randolph retired from federal service. The Superior Court 

thereafter declared her challenge to the writ of attachment 

moot because the State Department was no longer paying her 

any wages. First Virginia Bankwhose judgment against 

Randolph remained unsatisfiedfiled a motion against the 

State Department to recover the portion of Randolph's wages 

the Bank would have received if the government had continued garnishing them, as the Bank claimed it should have. 

The government responded by removing the case to the 

federal district court.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court 

ruled that the State Department had wrongfully ceased garnishing Randolph's pay. No matter that Randolph had filed a 

motion to quash the writ of attachment. As the district court 

saw it, the State Department had misinterpreted D.C. CODE

§ 16-573(b). The garnishment should have continued 

while Randolph litigated her motion. The court viewed 

§ 16-573(b) as relieving employers only of their duty to pay 

the withheld wages to the judgment creditor, not to stop 

withholding a percentage of the employee's wages. First Va. 

Bank v. Randolph, 920 F. Supp. 213, 216-17 (D.D.C. 1996). 

(The government has decided not to contest this ruling.)

In seeking a monetary award against the State Department 

for its failure to withhold part of Randolph's wages, the Bank 

relied upon D.C. CODE § 16-575: if "the employer-garnishee 

fails to pay to the judgment creditor the percentages ... of 

the wages which become payable to the judgment debtor for 

any pay period, judgment shall be entered against him for an 

amount equal to the percentages with respect to which the 

failure occurs." The government invoked sovereign immunity 

to shield it from liability under § 16-575, but the district 

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court held that the Hatch Act amendment, by subjecting the 

federal government to the same legal responsibilities as private employers, waived the government's immunity. First 

Va. Bank, 920 F. Supp. at 218. Accordingly, the court 

awarded the Bank $385.71 in "damages," an amount representing $75.71 in the outstanding principal on Randolph's 

debts and $310.00 in costs.

II

Before argument, we ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs addressing the question whether this court or the 

Federal Circuit had jurisdiction over the appeal. The socalled little Tucker Act gives district courts and the Court of 

Federal Claims concurrent jurisdiction of any "civil action or 

claim against the United States, not exceeding $10,000 in 

amount, founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of 

Congress, or any regulation of an executive department, or 

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. § 1346(a)(2). Under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1295(a)(2), the Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction 

over appeals in non-tax cases in which the district court's 

jurisdiction "was based, in whole or in part" on the little 

Tucker Act.

The presence, or absence, of our appellate jurisdiction thus 

depends on what occurred in the district court. If the district 

court's jurisdiction did not rest in whole or in part on the 

little Tucker Act, we have jurisdiction over the government's 

appeal. Both parties think the appeal is properly before us, 

but for different reasons. The government's main point is 

that little Tucker Act jurisdiction could not have existed 

because the Bank failed to satisfy one of the conditions for 

invoking itnamely, that the substantive law, here the Hatch 

Act Reform Amendments, 5 U.S.C. § 5520a(b), "can fairly be 

interpreted" to mandate compensation from the government 

for the damage the Bank incurred. United States v. Mitchell,

463 U.S. 206, 217 (1983). To rule on the government's 

contention would draw us close to the merits and so we will 

pass over it for the moment. There are other reasons for 

sustaining our appellate jurisdiction.

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Even if a substantive law mandates compensation from the 

government, a claimant will need to show that the United 

States has consented to the suit. This showing is considered 

a prerequisite to jurisdiction; if the government has not 

consented to the suit, sovereign immunity requires the court 

to dismiss the action for lack of jurisdiction. United States v. 

Mitchell, 463 U.S. at 212. Because sovereign immunity is 

thus "jurisdictional," the little Tucker Act can be viewed as 

conferring "jurisdiction" in two respects. The Act vests the 

district courts with concurrent subject matter jurisdiction 

over specified claims against the government not exceeding 

$10,000. The Act also gives the district courts (and the 

claims court) "jurisdiction" by waiving the government's sovereign immunity. Id.

Litigants seeking damages from the United States for 

statutory violations often have no choice but to base their 

lawsuits on the little Tucker Act. If the substantive statutes 

on which they rest their damage claims do not waive sovereign immunity (or do not consent to suit, which amounts to 

the same thing), plaintiffs have to use the waiver contained in 

the Tucker Act. But there are cases in the district courts

this is one of themin which the plaintiff decides not to rely 

on the little Tucker Act, cases in which the plaintiff rests on 

some other provision of federal law for the requisite governmental consent to suit. Such cases are not based, wholly or 

partly, on the little Tucker Act and appeals from the judgments of the district courts are to be heard in the regional 

courts of appeals, not the Federal Circuit. See Vietnam 

Veterans of Am. v. Secretary of the Navy, 843 F.2d 528, 533-

34 (D.C. Cir. 1988). We once described this category of 

lawsuits as comprising claims "brought under statutes that 

independently confer jurisdiction upon the district court and 

waive sovereign immunity for money claims against the United States." Van Drasek v. Lehman, 762 F.2d 1065, 1068 

(D.C. Cir. 1985).

The statement in Van Drasek does not mean that the 

waiver of sovereign immunity itself "independently confer[s] 

jurisdiction." Nor does it mean that the substantive provision the government allegedly violated must "independently 

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confer jurisdiction." There may be a separate provision 

waiving sovereign immunity (and in that sense, conferring 

"jurisdiction"), but subject matter jurisdiction still must be 

established. Here that was accomplished through 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1331, the provision vesting the district courts with jurisdiction over cases arising under federal law. The Bank's action 

qualifies as such a case because it arises under the Hatch Act 

Reform Amendments. As to the other jurisdictional prerequisitesovereign immunitythe Bank claimed, and the district court agreed, that the Hatch Act amendments waived 

the government's immunity. See First Va. Bank, 920 

F. Supp. at 217-18. Both of the conditions mentioned in the 

statement from Van Drasek were therefore present: the 

district court had subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1331, and the claimant invoked only a provision other than 

the little Tucker Act for the waiver of sovereign immunity. 

The Bank's action in the district court was therefore not 

"based" on the little Tucker Act; indeed, at no point in the 

proceedings did the Bank even mention the little Tucker Act. 

See Kidwell v. Department of the Army, 56 F.3d 279, 283 

(D.C. Cir. 1995); Western Securities Co. v. Derwinski, 937 

F.2d 1276, 1280-81 (7th Cir. 1991). As a result, appellate 

jurisdiction is in this court.

III

On the merits, there are two potential issues. The first is 

whether the Hatch Act amendments gave the Bank a cause of 

action against the government. The second is whether, if it 

did, the amendments waived the government's sovereign immunity from the sort of damage action the Bank brought 

here. As the Supreme Court discussed in United States v. 

Mitchell, these are analytically distinct questions. 463 U.S. 

at 218-19. If federal substantive law did not mandate compensation from the government for the Bank's damages, the 

question of sovereign immunity drops out of the case. See 

United States v. Morton, 467 U.S. 822 (1984).

In light of the government's failure to argue the point, we 

will assume the State Department should have continued 

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withholding a percentage of Randolph's wages despite her 

motion to quash. D.C. CODE § 16-575 renders private employers strictly liable when they wrongfully fail to pay a 

judgment creditor the percentage of an employee's wages 

subject to garnishment. See Landahl, Brown & Weed, Assocs. v. Houston, 404 A.2d 934, 935 (D.C. 1979); Household 

Fin. Corp. v. Training Research & Dev., Inc., 316 A.2d 850, 

852 (D.C. 1974). Still, it does not necessarily follow that 

federal law requires the government to compensate the Bank. 

That depends on the effect of 5 U.S.C. § 5520a(b). Does this 

language in § 5520a(b)"pay from an agency to an employee 

is subject to legal process in the same manner and to the 

same extent as if the agency were a private person"make 

the United States liable to a judgment creditor for wrongfully 

failing to garnish an employee's wages?

The first, and nearly decisive point, is that under 

§ 5520a(b) it is only the employee's "pay" that is made 

"subject to legal process." The Bank's motion in the D.C. 

Superior Court was not for Randolph's pay, or any part of it. 

Once the employee leaves government service, as Randolph 

has, there is no longer any "pay from an agency to an 

employee" that can be subject to legal process. Any amount 

the Bank recovered would come not from the annual appropriation for State Department salaries and expenses (see, e.g.,

Omnibus Consolidated Appropriation Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 

104-208, § 101(a), 110 Stat. 3009 (1996) (fiscal year 1997)), but 

from the "general appropriation of funds" set aside for the 

purpose of satisfying judgments against the United States. 

Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 

431 (1990); see 31 U.S.C. § 1304. In awarding $385.71 to the 

Bank, the district court was not ordering the government to 

remit part of Randolph's pay. It was ordering the government to give other money to the Bank as damages. Nothing 

in § 5520a(b) speaks to that sort of recovery against the 

United States. True enough, § 5520a(b) subjects the employee's pay to the same legal process as if the employing agency 

were a private entity. But this cuts against the Bank, not in 

favor of it. The statute defines "legal process" to mean "any 

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1 A regulation of the Office of Personnel Management states:

Where an agency initially determines that legal process should 

not be honored, if it subsequently determines that its initial 

determination was erroneous, it may correct its initial determination and honor the legal process. If an agency corrects an 

error or is required to do so by a court or other authority, 

under no circumstances will the agency be required to pay 

more than if it had originally honored the legal process.

5 C.F.R. § 582.305(g). This does not change our reading of 

§ 5520a(b). The regulation does not purport to set forth an interpretation of § 5520a(b) and it is, in any event, ambiguous. It could 

mean that an agency may make up for the amount that it erred in 

not withholding by deducting further sums from the employee's 

pay. If that practice is followed, nothing in our opinion would 

warrant changing it. See also infra note 3. 

2 The Bank tells us that it would have an action against the 

United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1346(b), if negligence on the part of a government officer resulted 

in the failure to garnish the employee's wages. Supplemental Brief 

for Appellee First Virginia Bank at 2-4. The government also 

acknowledges that "judgment creditors might have a remedy under 

the Federal Tort Claims Act," Brief for Appellants at 14 n.8. We 

express no view on the question. There is no indication that the 

Bank exhausted administrative remedies before seeking recovery 

from the government. See Simpkins v. District of Columbia Gov't,

No. 94-5243, slip op. at 8 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 14, 1997). 

writ, order, summons, or similar process in the nature of a 

garnishment, that ... orders the employing agency of such 

employee to withhold an amount from the pay of such employee, and make a payment of such withholding to another 

person, for a specifically described satisfaction of a legal debt 

of the employee." 5 U.S.C. § 5520a(a)(3) & (a)(3)(B). The 

Bank's action against the government was not "in the nature 

of a garnishment," and it was not an action ordering the 

government "to withhold an amount from the pay" of an 

employee.1 The Bank itself characterizes its claim as one 

sounding in tort, for wrongful conversion we suppose.2 Supplemental Brief for Appellee First Virginia Bank at 2-4. In 

short, by subjecting the pay of federal employees to the legal 

process applicable to private employers, § 5520a(b) incorporates the D.C. law requiring employers to withhold a percentage of the employees' wages, but it does not subject the 

United States to damage actions by judgment creditors.

Our interpretation of § 5520a(b) is not inconsistent with the 

holding of Loftin v. Rush, 767 F.2d 800, 808-09 (11th Cir. 

1985), on which the district court relied in awarding damages 

to the Bank. Loftin dealt with a different issue under a 

statute subjecting the pay of government employees to garUSCA Case #96-5205 Document #265059 Filed: 04/11/1997 Page 8 of 10
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nishment for unpaid child support and alimony. The commercial garnishment statute before us and the child support 

statute (42 U.S.C. § 659(a)) are similar. Loftin reached the 

court of appeals in the following posture. In February 1984, 

Pamela Loftin had a "summons of garnishment" from a 

Georgia court served on the United States Navy, her exhusband's employer. The ex-husband had failed to pay the 

child support ordered in a 1974 divorce decree and, by 1984, 

owed Loftin nearly $38,000. Loftin, 767 F.2d at 801. Under 

Georgia law, the Navy had 45 days to answer the summons. 

Id. After this period lapsed, Loftin obtainedagain pursuant to Georgia lawa default judgment against the Navy for 

the full amount due to her from her ex-husband, that is, 

$38,000. Id. In the meantime, the Navy began garnishing 

the ex-husband's pay at the rate of about $460 per month. 

Id. at 802. The Navy tendered its first check in June 1984. 

Id. The principal issue before the court of appeals was 

whether the child support statute subjected the government 

to liability to Loftin for the $38,000. Id. at 808. The court, 

following an analysis comparable to ours but framed in terms 

of sovereign immunity, held that only "moneys due a federal 

employee at the time" the government is served with legal 

process "are subject to superimposed state garnishment 

laws." Id. at 809. Therefore, "Congress determined that the 

government could act as a collection agent in certain cases, 

but"here is the critical part for our purposes"created no 

right of action against the government for moneys owed by 

its employees to third parties." Id. We give a similar inter

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3 At the end of its opinion, the Loftin court directed the 

government "to pay over to Loftin the money it should have 

withheld from February to June" 1984. 767 F.2d at 810. This 

order was unaccompanied by any legal analysis. Given the court's 

statements earlier in the opinion that only the employee's pay is 

subject to legal process, the court must have supposed that the 

government could recoup the judgment by making deductions from 

the ex-husband's future Navy paychecks, something that could not 

be done here because Randolph is no longer employed at the State 

Department. 

pretation to § 5520a(b).3

In sum, we hold that § 5520a(b) does not permit the Bank 

to recover damages from the United States for its failure to 

garnish the wages of its employees. We therefore do not 

need to consider whether the government waived its sovereign immunity from such actions.

Reversed.

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