Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-03187/USCOURTS-ca13-15-03187-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Intervenor
William B. Jolley
Petitioner
Merit Systems Protection Board
Respondent

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

WILLIAM B. JOLLEY,

Petitioner

v.

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,

Respondent

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN 

DEVELOPMENT,

Intervenor

______________________ 

2015-3187

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in Nos. SF-0752-13-0583-I-1, SF-0752-14-0286-I-1.

______________________ 

Decided: January 11, 2016

______________________ 

WILLIAM B. JOLLEY, Brunswick, GA, pro se.

MICHAEL ANTON CARNEY, Office of the General Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, for 

respondent. Also represented by BRYAN G. POLISUK. 

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2 JOLLEY v. MSPB

JIMMY S. MCBIRNEY, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, for intervenor. Also represented by

BENJAMIN C. MIZER, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR., STEVEN J.

GILLINGHAM. 

______________________ 

Before REYNA, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

William Jolley retired from his position as a Field 

Office Director for the Department of Housing and Urban 

Development in March 2010. In 2013 and 2014, Mr. 

Jolley filed two appeals with the Merit Systems Protection Board alleging that his retirement was involuntary

and the result of agency retaliation for his veteransrelated activities and whistleblower disclosures. The 

Board dismissed his appeals for lack of jurisdiction. We 

affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand. 

BACKGROUND

The Department of Housing and Urban Development 

employed Mr. Jolley as an Operations Specialist in Jacksonville, Florida, beginning in 2004. On February 27, 

2008, the agency reassigned Mr. Jolley to the position of 

Field Office Director in Boise, Idaho. Mr. Jolley accepted 

the reassignment, but his wife did not move to Idaho with 

him. In August 2009, Mr. Jolley and John Meyers, the 

Field Office Director in Springfield, Illinois, asked that 

they be allowed to switch positions, but the agency responded that all field-related movements were on hold at 

that time. Mr. Jolley and Mr. Meyers renewed their 

request in February 2010 and got the same response. Mr. 

Jolley retired on March 31, 2010.

On June 29, 2013, Mr. Jolley filed an appeal with the 

Board, alleging that, in retaliation for his advocacy on 

veterans’ issues, the agency transferred him to Idaho and 

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JOLLEY v. MSPB 3

refused to allow him to relocate by switching positions 

with Mr. Meyers, with the result that he was effectively 

coerced into retiring. In a separate appeal to the Board, 

Mr. Jolley alleged that the agency coerced his retirement 

in retaliation for protected whistleblowing disclosures. 

The appeals were joined for adjudicatory purposes.

The administrative judge determined that Mr. Jolley

did not meet his burden of establishing that his retirement was involuntary or, therefore, was actually a removal—one of the “adverse actions” over which the Board 

has jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. § 7512. And, although the 

administrative judge indicated that the appeal was limited to § 7512 and so depended on showing involuntariness of the retirement, the administrative judge also 

found that Mr. Jolley simply presented “no evidence 

whatsoever that his reassignment was directed in retaliation for veteran-related status or actions.” P.A. 21. On 

those grounds, the administrative judge dismissed the 

appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Mr. Jolley filed a petition for review by the Board. He 

asserted that the Board’s jurisdiction was not limited to 5 

U.S.C. § 7512, which depended on his demonstration that 

he was “remov[ed],” but separately could rest on the 

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act, 

38 U.S.C. § 4324(b), which did not require Mr. Jolley to 

show that his retirement was involuntary for the Board to 

have jurisdiction. The Board denied the petition and 

affirmed the initial decision, concluding that the administrative judge correctly determined that 5 U.S.C. § 7512 

was the only basis for jurisdiction because Mr. Jolley had 

“styled his appeal as a forced retirement” from the outset. 

Jolley v. Dep’t of Hous. & Urban Dev., Nos. SF-0752-13-

0583-I-1, SF-0752-14-0286-I-1, 2015 WL 3750717, ¶ 9 

(M.S.P.B. June 16, 2015). The Board also concluded that 

the administrative judge should not have reached the 

merits of the underlying USERRA claim of retaliation for 

veterans-related activities. Rather, the Board determined 

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4 JOLLEY v. MSPB

that the retaliation claim “could only be considered as it 

related to the issue of voluntariness.” Id. ¶ 10. Because 

Mr. Jolley did not show how his retaliation claim related 

to the involuntariness of his retirement, the Board concluded that the administrative judge’s consideration of 

the merits of Mr. Jolley’s USERRA claim was harmless.

Mr. Jolley appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).

DISCUSSION

We review the Board’s ultimate decision regarding jurisdiction without deference but are bound by the Board’s 

jurisdictional factual findings unless the findings are not 

supported by substantial evidence. Bolton v. MSPB, 154 

F.3d 1313, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 1998). 

The only basis for jurisdiction that the Board considered is Mr. Jolley’s assertion of involuntary retirement. A 

decision to resign or retire is presumed voluntary, and 

therefore outside the Board’s jurisdiction. Staats v. 

USPS, 99 F.3d 1120, 1123–24 (Fed. Cir. 1996). But if an 

employee can prove that the resignation or retirement 

was involuntary, amounting to a “removal,” 5 U.S.C. 

§ 7512, the Board has jurisdiction over the constructiveremoval action. Shoaf v. Dep’t of Agric., 260 F.3d 1336, 

1341 (Fed. Cir. 2001). Involuntariness as relevant here is 

a narrow doctrine, and it “does not apply to a case in 

which an employee decides to resign or retire because he 

does not want to accept a new assignment, a transfer, or 

other measures that the agency is authorized to adopt, 

even if those measures make continuation in the job so 

unpleasant for the employee that he feels that he has no 

realistic option but to leave.” Staats, 99 F.3d at 1124.

We see no basis for disturbing the Board’s determination that Mr. Jolley did not show that his retirement was 

involuntary. The Board determined that Mr. Jolley 

simply “failed to show how his retaliation claim related to 

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JOLLEY v. MSPB 5

the voluntariness of his decision to retire.” Jolley, 2015 

WL 3750717, ¶ 10. Mr. Jolley presents no evidence or 

argument to support a finding of coercion. He suggests 

that he was faced with choosing between retiring and 

being employed in Boise, but “the fact that an employee is 

faced with an unpleasant situation or that his choice is 

limited to two unattractive options does not make the 

employee’s decision any less voluntary.” Staats, 99 F.3d 

at 1124. And with regard to Mr. Jolley’s claim that the 

agency coerced his retirement in retaliation for protected 

whistleblower disclosures, the Board found that Mr. 

Jolley’s protected disclosures were made in 2013, almost 

three years after he retired (and still longer after he was 

reassigned). Mr. Jolley does not identify any disclosures 

that were made before his retirement. Therefore, he has 

not supported this alleged basis of involuntariness.

Although Mr. Jolley has not carried his burden in establishing that his retirement was involuntary, and 

therefore the Board does not have jurisdiction to hear this 

claim under 5 U.S.C. § 7512, the Board incorrectly concluded that Mr. Jolley presented his appeal solely as an 

involuntary-retirement claim. In his filings to the Board, 

Mr. Jolley consistently asserted that his reassignment to 

Boise was a USERRA violation. The Board did not address that claim.

This court, like the Board, “has adopted a liberal approach in determining whether jurisdiction exists under 

USERRA.” Yates v. MSPB, 145 F.3d 1480, 1484–85 (Fed. 

Cir. 1998); see also Duncan v. USPS, 73 M.S.P.R. 86, 92 

(1997), overruled on other grounds by Fox v. USPS, 88 

M.S.P.R. 381 (“The relative weakness of the specific 

factual allegations initially made by an appellant in his 

USERRA claim . . . should not serve as the basis for 

dismissing [his appeal] for lack of jurisdiction; if he fails 

to develop those allegations, his USERRA claims should 

simply be denied on the merits.”). Section 4311 protects 

“any benefit of employment,” 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a), and 

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6 JOLLEY v. MSPB

further states that “[a]n employer may not discriminate in 

employment against or take any adverse employment 

action against any person because such person . . . has 

taken an action to enforce a protection afforded any 

person under this chapter,” § 4311(b). Here, Mr. Jolley 

alleges that he was denied a benefit of employment in 

being reassigned to Boise because he “was not allowed to 

choose from other available and more geographically 

advantageous positions available.” R.A. 15. Mr. Jolley 

also alleges that he was reassigned based on his 

USERRA-related activities, specifically that he had 

previously filed several USERRA claims against Housing 

and Urban Development. Mr. Jolley’s allegations are 

sufficient to establish the Board’s jurisdiction over his 

USERRA reassignment claim. 

The administrative judge did decide that Mr. Jolley 

had failed to support his USERRA claim with evidence. 

But the Board did not review that ruling; indeed, it criticized the administrative judge for making the ruling. 

That was error. We will not here review the administrative judge’s merits determination ourselves. We remand 

the USERRA challenge to the reassignment to the Board

for it to consider the merits of the claim.

Finally, we reject Mr. Jolley’s argument that the 

Board was not entitled to enter its final decision in his 

case at all because, at the time of the decision, the Board 

was composed only of two members in violation of 5 

U.S.C. § 1201, which states that the Board “is composed of 

3 members.” Mr. Jolley acknowledges that 5 C.F.R. 

§ 1200.3 authorizes the Board to decide cases with only 

two members, and he does not dispute that the regulation 

covers the present situation. But he contends that the 

regulation violates 5 U.S.C. § 1201. We disagree. Section 

1200.3 was adopted pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 1204(h), see

Board Organization, 59 Fed. Reg. 39,937-01 (Aug. 5, 

1994), which expressly gives the Board “the authority to 

prescribe such regulations as may be necessary for the 

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JOLLEY v. MSPB 7

performance of its functions.” That statutory grant of 

authority literally covers the regulation allowing the 

continued functioning of the Board with two members 

when one seat is unfilled. We see no reason to find lack of 

legal authorization for the rule under which the Board 

acted. See Falcon Trading Grp., Ltd. v. SEC, 102 F.3d 

579, 582 (D.C. Cir. 1996); LaPeyre v. FTC, 366 F.2d 117, 

122 (5th Cir. 1966). 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the Board’s 

judgment that the Board does not have jurisdiction over 

Mr. Jolley’s involuntary-retirement claim, vacate the 

Board’s judgment that Mr. Jolley did not establish jurisdiction over his reassignment claim, and remand.

No costs awarded. 

AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND

REMANDED

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