NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit 

__________________________ 

RENATA P. MAGLIETTI, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD, 

Respondent. 

__________________________ 

2010-3144 

__________________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in Case No. PH0752100073-I-1. 

___________________________ 

Decided: January 13, 2010 

___________________________ 

RENATA P. MAGLIETTI, Canton, Connecticut, pro se. 

DAVID BROOKS, Attorney, Office of the General Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, of Washington, DC, 

for respondent. With him on the brief were JAMES M.

EISENMANN, General Counsel, and KEISHA DAWN BELL, 

Deputy General Counsel. 

__________________________ 
MAGLIETTI v. MSPB 2

Before BRYSON, LINN, and DYK, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM. 

DECISION

Renata P. Maglietti petitions for review of a decision 

of the Merit Systems Protection Board dismissing her 

appeal for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Ms. Maglietti was employed as a Medical Technologist 

with the Department of Veterans Affairs (“DVA”) until 

she retired in October of 2009. In June 2004, the DVA 

reassigned Ms. Maglietti from its Newington, Connecticut, campus to its West Haven campus. That reassignment followed an altercation between Ms. Maglietti and 

one of her co-workers. Ms. Maglietti’s grade and pay 

remained the same after the transfer, although she asserts that her job duties at the West Haven campus 

represented a demotion from her position at Newington. 

In addition, her commute to West Haven was approximately 80 miles longer than her commute to Newington. 

In her brief before this court, Ms. Maglietti details the 

stress that the lengthy commute placed on herself and her 

family. She also states that in September of 2005 the 

DVA again reassigned her to a position with less responsibility and a reduced opportunity for advancement, 

although her duty post, salary, and grade were not 

changed. 

Ms. Maglietti filed a federal district court action 

charging the DVA with sex discrimination in connection 

with her 2004 reassignment to West Haven. A jury found 

for Ms. Maglietti, and the district court entered judgment 

of $275,000 in her favor in December of 2008. The DVA 
3 MAGLIETTI v. MSPB

subsequently moved for judgment as a matter of law 

(“JMOL”). In June of 2009, Ms. Maglietti and the DVA 

settled their dispute. In exchange for monetary compensation from the DVA, Ms. Maglietti released the DVA 

from liability and agreed to retire from the agency effective October 30, 2009. The DVA filed the settlement 

agreement with the district court, which subsequently 

issued an order denying the DVA’s JMOL motion as moot. 

Shortly thereafter, Ms. Maglietti filed an appeal with 

the Merit Systems Protection Board. She claimed that 

her retirement from the DVA was involuntary because it 

was coerced and that she had been improperly reassigned. 

The administrative judge who was assigned to her case 

issued an order directing her to show why the Board had 

jurisdiction over her appeal. After Ms. Maglietti responded, the administrative judge ruled that her response 

failed to raise a nonfrivolous allegation that her retirement was involuntary. The administrative judge therefore denied her request for a hearing on the issue of 

jurisdiction. The administrative judge then held that 

because Ms. Maglietti had failed to prove that her retirement was involuntary, the Board did not have jurisdiction 

over her constructive removal claim. And because the 

September 2005 reassignment was not accompanied by a 

reduction in pay or grade, the administrative judge held 

that the Board did not have jurisdiction over her reassignment claim. The full Board denied Ms. Maglietti’s 

petition for review, and the administrative judge’s initial 

decision became final. Ms. Maglietti then appealed to this 

court. 

DISCUSSION

The Board has jurisdiction to review an agency’s decision to reassign an employee only when the reassignment 
MAGLIETTI v. MSPB 4

is accompanied with a reduction in grade or a reduction in 

pay. 5 U.S.C. § 7512; Walker v. Dep’t of the Navy, 106 

F.3d 1582, 1584 (Fed. Cir. 1997). A “reassignment from a 

position of greater to lesser responsibility within the same 

grade is not a ‘reduction in grade.’” McEnery v. Merit Sys. 

Prot. Bd., 963 F.2d 1512, 1514 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In McEnery, we considered a petitioner’s claim that his reassignment to a position of lesser responsibility but equal pay 

invokes Board jurisdiction because it might foreclose 

future opportunities for pay increases and promotions. 

We held that the Board properly dismissed that claim, as 

its jurisdiction is limited to reassignments coupled to a 

reduction in pay that is “ascertainable at the time of the 

personnel action, not at some future date.” Id. at 1514. 

Ms. Maglietti suggests that the DVA submitted evidence to the Board about the wrong reassignment. She 

does not specifically allege that the Board itself analyzed 

the wrong reassignment and she has not identified any 

reassignment accompanied by either a reduction in pay or 

a change in grade.1 The Board considered the reassignment that took effect on September of 2005, when the 

DVA changed Ms. Maglietti’s job duties but maintained 

her salary and job title as a GS-9, step 10, Medical Technologist. Ms. Maglietti alleges that she lost promotional 

and other career advancement opportunities because of 

that reassignment. Speculation regarding the loss of 

future income does not invoke Board jurisdiction; accordingly, we affirm the Board’s decision to dismiss the portion of her appeal directed to the September 2005 

reassignment. 

 1 Ms. Maglietti appealed the June 2004 reassignment to the MSPB. The Board dismissed that appeal for 

lack of jurisdiction because the reassignment was not 

accompanied by a loss of pay nor a reduction in grade. 

That decision became final and cannot be relitigated here. 
5 MAGLIETTI v. MSPB

We also affirm the Board’s decision to dismiss her involuntary retirement claim. Congress gave the Board 

limited jurisdiction. Its jurisdiction to hear appeals from 

adverse personnel actions is limited to actions that 

amount to a removal, a suspension for more than 14 days, 

a reduction in grade or pay, or a furlough of 30 days or 

less. 5 U.S.C. §§ 7512, 7701(a). An employee’s decision to 

resign or retire is presumptively voluntary and therefore 

is generally not a personnel action within the Board’s 

jurisdiction. Staats v. U.S. Postal Serv., 99 F.3d 1120, 

1123-24 (Fed. Cir. 1996). If, however, the agency induces 

an employee to retire through coercion or misinformation, 

the employee’s retirement is considered involuntary and 

amounts to a constructive removal action, which the 

Board has jurisdiction to review. Id.

Adjudication of an involuntary retirement claim generally follows a two-step process. First, in order to be 

entitled to a hearing on jurisdiction, the petitioner must 

make “a non-frivolous allegation that, if proved, would 

establish Board jurisdiction.” Id. at 1125; see generally

Garcia v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 437 F.3d 1322, 1330 

(Fed. Cir. 2006) (en banc). In order to prove constructive 

removal, the petitioner has the burden to prove by preponderant evidence that (1) the agency imposed the terms 

of the employee’s retirement, (2) the employee had no 

realistic alternative but to retire, and (3) the employee’s 

retirement was the result of the agency’s improper action. 

Garcia, 437 F.3d at 1329. 

The administrative judge in this case ordered Ms. 

Maglietti to proffer evidence to show that the Board had 

jurisdiction over her involuntary retirement claim. In 

response, Ms. Maglietti pointed to the stress caused by 

her lengthy commute, she explained that she felt her 

choice was to “[r]etire or lose it all,” and she stated that 
MAGLIETTI v. MSPB 6

the DVA “did all they could do to get me to leave.” In 

Staats, we held that the doctrine of coercive involuntariness “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.” 99 F.3d at 1124. Under that standard, Ms. 

Maglietti’s complaints about her treatment by the DVA do 

not allege the kind of coercive conduct that is necessary to 

constitute constructive removal. 

Furthermore, we agree with the administrative 

judge’s conclusion that Ms. Maglietti’s decision to settle 

her sex discrimination lawsuit with the DVA was not the 

product of coercion. In the settlement agreement, she 

acknowledged that she was “freely signing this Settlement Agreement without reservation, duress, or coercion 

on the part of [the DVA] or any other party.” When she 

entered into the settlement agreement, she had a jury 

verdict in her favor, but that verdict would have been 

overturned if the court had granted the agency’s JMOL 

motion. Ms. Maglietti had a choice: She could keep her 

job but risk that the district court would grant the DVA’s 

JMOL motion. Or, at her option, she could accept payment in satisfaction of her claim and retire from her 

position with the DVA. She chose the latter. The fact 

that an employee is faced with a choice between two 

options, both of which she regards as unpleasant, does not 

make the ultimate decision inherently involuntary. 

Staats, 99 F.3d at 1125; Covington v. Dep’t of Health and 

Human Servs., 750 F.2d 937, 942 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Accordingly, we see no error in the Board’s determination 

that Ms. Maglietti failed to prove constructive removal, 
7 MAGLIETTI v. MSPB

and we affirm the Board’s order dismissing her appeal for 

lack of jurisdiction. 

No costs. 

AFFIRMED