Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-03234/USCOURTS-ca13-15-03234-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Department of State
Intervenor
Merit Systems Protection Board
Respondent
Timothy Allen Rainey
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

TIMOTHY ALLEN RAINEY,

Petitioner

v.

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,

Respondent

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Intervenor

______________________ 

2015-3234

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. DC-1221-14-0898-W-1.

______________________ 

Decided: June 7, 2016

______________________ 

LARRY STEVEN GIBSON, Shapiro Sher Guinot & 

Sandler, Baltimore, MD, argued for petitioner. Also 

represented by ANASTASIA L. MCCUSKER, ANNA ZAPPULLA 

SKELTON. 

JEFFREY GAUGER, Office of the General Counsel, Merit 

Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, argued for 

respondent. Also represented by BRYAN G. POLISUK. 

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2 RAINEY v. MSPB

EMMA BOND, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, 

DC, argued for intervenor. Also represented by BENJAMIN 

C. MIZER, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR., ELIZABETH M.

HOSFORD; NIELS ALEXANDER VON DEUTEN, Office of the 

Legal Adviser, Office of Employment Law, United States 

Department of State, Washington, DC. 

______________________ 

Before O’MALLEY, CLEVENGER, and BRYSON, Circuit 

Judges.

BRYSON, Circuit Judge.

I 

Petitioner Timothy Allen Rainey is a Supervisory Foreign Affairs Officer in the Bureau of African Affairs, 

Office of Regional Security Affairs, at the U.S. Department of State. In 2013, he was serving as a contracting 

officer representative for the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. On October 13, 

2013, Dr. Rainey’s supervisor, the Director of the Office of 

Regional and Security Affairs, relieved him of his duties 

as contracting officer representative. 

Following that action, Dr. Rainey filed a complaint 

with the Office of Special Counsel alleging that his duties

as contracting officer representative had been taken away 

because he had refused his supervisor’s order to tell a 

contractor to rehire a terminated subcontractor. Dr.

Rainey argued that his refusal was based on his view that 

carrying out the order would have required him to violate 

Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) section 1.602-2(d), 

48 C.F.R. § 1.602-2(d), by improperly interfering with 

personnel decisions of a prime contractor and requiring 

the prime contractor to operate in conflict with the terms 

of the contract.

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The Office of Special Counsel closed its investigation 

without granting relief. Dr. Rainey then filed an Individual Right of Action appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board. He alleged that by removing him from his 

duties as contracting officer representative after he “refuse[d] to obey an order that would require me to violate 

the law,” the agency had committed a prohibited personnel practice under the “right-to-disobey” provision of the 

Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, 5 U.S.C. 

§ 2302(b)(9)(D).

The administrative judge initially ruled that the 

Board had jurisdiction to consider Dr. Rainey’s appeal

and began a hearing on the merits. Then, before the 

second day of the hearing, the Supreme Court issued a 

decision in Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 

135 S. Ct. 913 (2015). In MacLean, the Court held that 

the word “law” in the “right-to-disclose” provision of the 

Whistleblower Protection Act, 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8)(A), 

refers only to a statute, and not to a rule or regulation. 

Based on that decision, the administrative judge ruled 

that the term “a law” in section 2302(b)(9)(D) should also 

be interpreted to refer only to a statute, and not to a rule 

or regulation. Because Dr. Rainey’s claim was that he 

had refused his supervisor’s order because it would have 

required him to violate a regulation, the administrative 

judge held that section 2302(b)(9)(D) did not apply to his 

claim. Based on that ruling, the administrative judge 

held that the Board lacked jurisdiction over the appeal. 

Dr. Rainey petitioned the full Board for review, but 

the Board denied the petition. The Board agreed with the 

administrative judge that, in light of MacLean, “the rightto-disobey provision at section 2302(b)(9)(D) extends only 

to orders that would require the individual to take an 

action barred by statute.” Dr. Rainey now appeals to this 

court, raising the same legal issue regarding the scope of 

section 2302(b)(9)(D).

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II

The right-to-disobey provision of the Whistleblower 

Protection Act, 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(9)(D), protects covered 

employees from retaliation “for refusing to obey an order 

that would require the individual to violate a law.” Dr.

Rainey argues that Congress could not have intended to 

limit section 2302(b)(9)(D) to situations in which the 

employee refuses to obey an order that would violate a 

statute. According to Dr. Rainey, Congress also intended 

to extend protection to an employee who refuses to violate 

a regulation, such as the FAR. He acknowledges that in 

the MacLean case, the Supreme Court construed the term 

“law” in section 2302(b)(8), the right-to-disclose provision 

of the Act, to exclude rules and regulations. But he 

argues that the Supreme Court’s restrictive reading of the 

term “law” in section 2302(b)(8) is not inconsistent with 

his broad reading of the term “a law” in section 2302(b)(9) 

to include rules and regulations.

Section 2302(b)(8)(A) of the Whistleblower Protection 

Act, which was at issue in MacLean, provides that a 

federal employee may disclose information that the employee reasonably believes evidences a violation of any 

law, rule, or regulation or gross mismanagement, a gross 

waste of funds, an abuse of authority or a substantial and 

specific danger to public health or safety “if such disclosure is not specifically prohibited by law, and if such 

information is not specifically required by Executive order 

to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or the 

conduct of foreign affairs.” 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8)(A). The 

question before the Court in MacLean was whether a

disclosure prohibited by an agency regulation was “prohibited by law.”

The Court answered that question in the negative in 

MacLean, holding that a disclosure in violation of an 

agency regulation does not qualify as a disclosure that is 

“specifically prohibited by law.” The Court noted that the 

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RAINEY v. MSPB 5

statute elsewhere refers to violations of “any law, rule, or 

regulation.” Based on those references, the Court inferred 

that Congress did not intend for the term “law” by itself to 

encompass rules and regulations.

In so holding, the Court relied on its prior decision in 

Department of the Treasury, IRS v. FLRA, 494 U.S. 922 

(1990), in which the Court had rejected an argument that 

the term “laws” in one section of a statute meant the same 

thing as the phrase “law, rule, or regulation” in another 

section of the same statute. The Court noted that in that 

case it had held that “a statute that referred to ‘laws’ in 

one section and ‘law, rule, or regulation’ in another ‘cannot, unless we abandon all pretense at precise communication, be deemed to mean the same thing in both places.’” 

MacLean, 135 S. Ct. at 920 (quoting Dep’t of the Treasury, 

IRS, 494 U.S. at 132). 

The MacLean Court further noted that a broad interpretation of the term “law” in section 2302(b)(8)(A) could 

defeat the purpose of the whistleblower statute. If “law” 

were construed to include agency rules and regulations, 

“then an agency could insulate itself from the scope of 

Section 2302(b)(8)(A) merely by promulgating a regulation that ‘specifically prohibited’ whistleblowing.” MacLean, 135 S. Ct. at 920. 

It is difficult to reconcile the Supreme Court’s analysis 

in the MacLean case with Dr. Rainey’s position in this 

one. In construing the term “law,” standing alone, the 

Court in MacLean placed great weight on the fact that 

section 2302(b)(8)(A) referred at one point to “any law, 

rule, or regulation,” but in the provision before the Court 

referred only to a disclosure “prohibited by law.” The 

Court regarded the difference between the two formulations as strong evidence that Congress did not intend for 

the term “law” to be as broad as the phrase “law, rule, or 

regulation.”

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The same analysis applies here. Paragraph (b)(9) is, 

after all, the very next paragraph of section 2308 after 

paragraph (b)(8), the provision that was at issue in MacLean. Like paragraph (b)(8), paragraph (b)(9) uses the 

words “law, rule, or regulation” (in subparagraph 

(b)(9)(A)), but then uses only the term “a law” in subparagraph (b)(9)(D), the provision at issue in this case. As in 

the MacLean case, the use of those two different formulations in paragraph (b)(9) strongly suggests that Congress 

did not intend for the term “a law” to cover the same 

subject matter as the term “law, rule, or regulation.” 

Instead, as the Supreme Court held in MacLean, the 

difference indicates that the term “law,” standing alone,

was meant to refer to statutes only, and not to rules, 

regulations, or statutes. See MacLean, 135 S. Ct. at 919 

(“Congress generally acts intentionally when it uses 

particular language in one section of a statute but omits it 

in another.”).

Dr. Rainey seeks to distinguish MacLean on two 

grounds, neither of which is persuasive. First, he argues 

that the Supreme Court in MacLean relied on the fact 

that the phrase “law, rule, or regulation” appeared in the 

same subparagraph of section 2302(b)(8) as the phrase 

“prohibited by law,” and that the Court regarded the use 

of the two different phrases in close association as evidence that Congress meant to assign them different 

meanings. In section 2302(b)(9), the respective terms 

“law, rule, or regulation” and “a law” appear in the same 

paragraph, but not in the same subparagraph.

That argument has little force. The phrase “law, rule, 

or regulation” appears just eight lines above the term “a 

law” in section 2302(b)(9), while that phrase appears four 

lines above the phrase “prohibited by law” in section 

2302(b)(8). In both instances, the use of different formulations in the same paragraph of the statute gives rise to 

the natural inference that Congress meant for the two 

formulations to have different meanings. Indeed, in other 

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RAINEY v. MSPB 7

cases, the Supreme Court has drawn the same inference 

of different intended meaning when Congress uses particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in 

another section of the same statute. See Barnhart v. 

Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U.S. 438, 439-40 (1983) (“[I]t is a 

general principle of statutory construction that when one 

statutory section includes particular language that is 

omitted in another section of the same Act, it is presumed 

that Congress acted intentionally and purposely.”); Dep’t 

of the Treasury, IRS, 494 U.S. at 132. That principle 

applies a fortiori in a case such as this one, where the two 

different formulations appear not only in the same statute, but in the same section, subsection, and paragraph of 

the statute.

A corollary of that principle is that normally “identical 

words used in different parts of the same act are intended 

to have the same meaning.” Dep’t of Revenue of Or. v. 

ACF Indus., Inc., 510 U.S. 332, 342 (1994); Comm’r v. 

Keystone Consol. Indus., Inc., 508 U.S. 152, 159 (1993); 

Nat’l Org. of Veterans Advocates, Inc. v. Secretary of 

Veterans Affairs, 260 F.3d 1365, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2001). 

That principle applies with special force when “the identical words are used in the same statutory section,” CUNA 

Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 169 F.3d 737, 741 

(Fed. Cir. 1999), and is “at its most vigorous when a term 

is repeated within a given sentence,” Mohamad v. Palestinian Auth., 132 S. Ct. 1702, 1708 (2012); Brown v. 

Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 118 (1994). In this case, the term 

“law,” which has been conclusively construed to mean 

“statute” in paragraph (8)(A) of section 2302(b) appears 

within the same statutory sentence in paragraph (9)(D) of 

that same subsection. The use of the same term in such 

close proximity gives rise to a strong inference that the 

term was intended to have the same meaning in both 

places.

Second, Dr. Rainey argues that the Supreme Court in 

MacLean relied on the policy consideration that a broad 

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8 RAINEY v. MSPB

interpretation of the term “law” in section 2302(b)(8) 

would have permitted agencies to insulate themselves 

from disclosures simply by promulgating regulations 

specifically prohibiting whistleblowing. The Court’s 

reference to that policy consideration, however, was 

clearly subsidiary to its textual analysis, which is sufficiently broad to govern this case.

Dr. Rainey makes the creative argument that, at least 

in this context, the term “a law” is actually broader than 

the phrase “law, rule, or regulation.” He contends that 

the latter phrase would have excluded matters such as 

agency policies and court orders, but that such matters 

could be encompassed by the words “a law.” Thus, Dr.

Rainey explains that Congress may have elected not to 

use the formulation “law, rule, or regulation” in section 

2308(b)(9)(D) because it wanted to give an employee 

protection for refusing to commit acts that would be 

contrary to, for example, a court order or an informal 

agency policy falling short of a rule or regulation.

The problem with that argument is that if Congress 

had intended to protect employees who violated proscriptions other than laws, rules, and regulations, it could 

readily have done so simply by using a term such as 

“unlawfully” in section 2302(b)(9)(D), so that the statute 

would protect an employee from retaliation “for refusing 

to obey an order that would require the individual to act 

unlawfully.” In fact, Congress used the term “lawfully” in 

section 2302(b)(9)(B), another sub-paragraph of section

2302(b)(9), which suggests that Congress had something 

else in mind when it chose not to use the formulation 

“unlawfully” in section 2309(b)(9(D), but instead chose the 

term “a law.”

A textual point that provides further support for the 

Board’s construction of the statute is that section 

2302(b)(9)(D) uses the formulation “a law,” not simply the 

term “law.” While the term “law” might be deemed, in 

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some circumstances, to refer to any source of legal authority, including rules, regulations, or court orders, the term 

“a law” is less readily construed in that manner. Thus, 

for example, while it is conceivable that a court order 

could be understood to be encompassed within the scope 

of providing protection for an individual who refused to 

obey an order that would require him “to violate the law,” 

it is much less likely that a court order would be understood to be “a law,” and thus within the scope of the 

language of section 2302(b)(9)(D).

Dr. Rainey makes a strong plea that the distinction 

between statutory proscriptions and other legal rules 

would not make sense in this context, as section 

2302(b)(9)(D) would extend or deny protection depending 

on whether the legal rule at issue had been codified as a 

statute or simply adopted by an agency, pursuant to its 

statutory authority to promulgate regulations. The 

result, according to Dr. Rainey, would be that some important regulations, such as the FAR, would be left out of 

the coverage of section 2302(b)(9)(D), even though there is 

no clear indication in the legislative history that Congress 

intended to draw such a line.

While it is true that the legislative history does not 

explicitly address the issue before the court in this case, 

the background of the provision in section 2302(b)(9)(D) is 

nonetheless enlightening. Prior to the enactment of that 

statute, federal employees were not entitled to refuse to 

comply with orders of their agency superiors, even if they 

believed the orders were unlawful. Section 2302(b)(9)(D) 

was controversial, as it conflicted with the longstanding 

principle of “comply, then grieve,” i.e., the principle that 

employees should not take it upon themselves to decide 

which agency orders to follow, but should follow the

orders and then challenge the lawfulness of the orders 

afterwards.

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10 RAINEY v. MSPB

At a House hearing on the bill that became the Whistleblower Protection Act, statements by the Senior Executives Association and the Federal Managers Association

cautioned against the adoption of a broad general rule 

permitting employees to disobey orders they believed to 

be unlawful. See Hearing on H.R. 25 Before the H. Subcomm. on Civil Serv. of the H. Comm. on Post Office and 

Civil Serv., 100th Cong. 197, 202 (1987) (statement of 

Carol Bonosaro, President, Senior Executives Association) 

(“We continue to believe . . . that, with the exception of 

life-threatening situations, an employee should obey the 

direction of his or her superior when given an order and 

challenge the order later.”); id. at 204, 206 (statement of 

David W. Sanasack, Executive Director, Federal Managers Association) (“[T]he general rule in this area of labor 

law is, quote, act now, grieve later. Employees must 

follow the orders of their supervisors. If they have a 

problem with that order, they have avenues to address 

their concerns, either through a collective bargaining 

agreement or an agency grievance procedure. To suggest 

that there is some right inherent in failing to follow 

orders will upset the balance we talked about earlier.”).

The Joint Explanatory Statement that was provided 

to the House of Representatives to explain the compromises agreed upon with the Senate also noted that the 

provision protecting employees “in their right to refuse to 

obey an order that would require them to violate a law” 

was meant “to achieve a balance between the right of 

American citizens to a law-abiding government and the 

desire of management to prevent insubordination.” 

134 Cong. Rec. 27855 (Oct. 3, 1988). In light of that 

legislative background, it is not surprising that Congress 

would have legislated cautiously in this area. Contrary to 

Dr. Rainey’s position, it is therefore not “absurd” to conclude that Congress may have decided to limit the protection for persons disobeying agency orders to those orders 

that were contrary to a statute.

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RAINEY v. MSPB 11

Dr. Rainey makes a final argument that the FAR is a 

particularly important regulation that has the full force 

and effect of law and therefore should be regarded as “a 

law” within the meaning of section 2302(b)(9)(D) even if 

other regulations do not qualify as “laws” for purposes of 

that statute. The first problem with that argument is 

that substantive agency regulations that are promulgated 

pursuant to statutory authority typically have the “force

and effect of law,” see Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Ass’n, 

135 S. Ct. 1199, 1204 (2015); Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 

441 U.S. 281, 295 (1979), so that feature does not distinguish the FAR from other more quotidian legislative 

rules. The second problem with the argument is that, as 

noted, there is nothing in the section 2302(b)(9) that even 

hints at a distinction between important regulations and 

less important regulations; to the contrary, the statute 

distinguishes between “a law” and “law, rule, or regulation,” and the FAR clearly falls on the “regulation” side of 

that divide.

Dr. Rainey’s arguments are heavy on policy reasons 

why Congress likely would not have wanted to confine the 

scope of section 2302(b)(9)(D) to statutes. Those policy 

considerations are not without force, and it may be that 

the statute should be extended to cover rules, regulations, 

and other sources of legal authority. If so, Congress is 

free to alter the scope of the statute. But we are not so 

free. Between the restrictive language chosen by Congress and the closely analogous decision of the Supreme 

Court in MacLean, we are constrained to hold that the 

protection granted by section 2302(b)(9)(D) is limited to 

orders that are contrary to a statute, and does not encompass orders that are contrary to a regulation. We therefore uphold the Board’s interpretation of the statute, 

which led it to conclude that it lacks jurisdiction over this 

case.

AFFIRMED

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