NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

RONALD KEITH WATKINS,

Petitioner

v.

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,

Respondent

______________________ 

2018-1420

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. DC-0831-18-0148-I-1.

______________________ 

Decided: June 8, 2018

______________________ 

 RONALD KEITH WATKINS, Silver Spring, MD, pro se.

 TARA JEAN KILFOYLE, Office of the General Counsel, 

Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, for 

respondent. Also represented by KATHERINE M. SMITH. 

______________________ 

Before NEWMAN, DYK, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

In October 2017, Ronald Keith Watkins received a decision from the United States Office of Personnel Man-
2 WATKINS v. MSPB

agement (OPM) denying his request for an immediate (as 

opposed to deferred) Civil Service Retirement System 

retirement annuity. He appealed to the Merit Systems 

Protection Board. The assigned administrative judge of 

the Board dismissed Mr. Watkins’s appeal on two 

grounds—that the Board lacked jurisdiction, and that this 

appeal was duplicative of an earlier still-pending appeal 

on the same claim. The administrative judge explained 

that OPM had withdrawn the October 2017 decision and 

also that the same retirement-annuity claim had been 

decided by OPM earlier and Mr. Watkins’s separate 

appeal from that earlier decision was currently pending 

before the full Board. Watkins v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 

2018 WL 400554 (2018). We affirm.

I 

Mr. Watkins began working for the government of the 

District of Columbia in 1981. Before his employment was 

terminated in February 2003, he made protected whistleblowing disclosures to the District of Columbia Inspector 

General’s Office and to the United States Attorney’s 

Office for the District of Columbia. As a result, Mr. 

Watkins successfully brought a suit under the District of 

Columbia Whistleblower Protection Act and was awarded 

damages and back pay.

In August 2015, Mr. Watkins submitted an Application for Immediate Retirement, Standard Form 2801, to

OPM. On December 19, 2015, OPM issued an initial 

decision to Mr. Watkins denying his claim, and it affirmed 

that denial in a final decision issued on February 8, 2016. 

Mr. Watkins appealed the February 2016 decision to the 

Board, and an administrative judge issued an initial 

decision affirming the denial. Watkins v. Office of Pers. 

Mgt., 2016 WL 3988775 (2016). In July 2016, Mr. Watkins filed a petition for review seeking the full Board’s 

review of that decision. When Mr. Watkins sought relief 

from this court, citing inaction by the Board because it 
WATKINS v. MSPB 3

lacked a quorum, this court denied the request. Watkins 

v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., No. 17-1516, Order (March 23, 

2017). 

On October 18, 2017, while Mr. Watkins’s petition for 

review was still pending (as it still is), OPM issued Mr. 

Watkins a second initial decision. That initial decision

denied the same claim for immediate retirement and told 

Mr. Watkins that he could request reconsideration. It 

also stated that he was eligible for a deferred retirement 

commencing August 18, 2016, for which OPM would begin 

payments upon receiving a properly completed SF1496A 

form.

Mr. Watkins appealed the October 2017 initial decision to the Board in November 2017. The assigned administrative judge, concerned about lack of finality, 

ordered both Mr. Watkins and OPM to address the reviewability of the October 2017 decision. In response, 

OPM stated that the decision was indeed not a final 

decision, that it was duplicative of the earlier February

2016 decision, and that, because of the duplicativeness, 

OPM “rescinds the initial decision dated October 18,

2017” as “issued in error.” Supp. App. 41.

The administrative judge dismissed Mr. Watkins’s 

appeal in January 2018. The administrative judge reasoned that it was undisputed that the October 2017

decision was not a final decision; contrary to Mr. Watkins’s contention, OPM had not refused to adjudicate his 

claim; and in any event, any jurisdiction the Board had 

ended when OPM rescinded the October 2017 decision. 

Further, and in the alternative, the administrative judge 

ruled that dismissal was proper even if Mr. Watkins was 

correct that OPM was now refusing to issue a final decision on his claim. The administrative judge cited Board 

authorities establishing that the appeal should be dismissed in the interest of adjudicatory efficiency because of 

the 2016 appeal on the same claim, which was already 
4 WATKINS v. MSPB

rejected by an administrative judge and still pending 

before the full Board.

On February 16, 2018, the administrative judge’s 

January 2018 initial decision became the final decision of 

the Board as to the November 2017 appeal. On that day, 

Mr. Watkins’s already-filed petition for review to this 

court became timely. See 5 U.S.C. §7703(b)(1)(A); Jones v. 

Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 834 F.3d 1361, 1365 

(Fed. Cir. 2016) (“when a petitioner files a petition for 

review with this court before an AJ’s initial decision 

becomes final, the petitioner’s appeal ripens once that 

initial decision becomes the final decision of the MSPB”). 

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9). 

II

Under 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c), we review the decision before us to determine if it is “arbitrary, capricious, an 

abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with 

law; obtained without procedures required by law; or 

unsupported by substantial evidence.” Ward v. U.S. 

Postal Serv., 634 F.3d 1274, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). We have 

been shown no such error justifying disturbance of the 

administrative judge’s decision in this matter. With 

respect to both the Board-jurisdiction and efficiency 

grounds, the administrative judge did not err in relying 

on the existence of the still-pending earlier appeal from 

OPM’s earlier final decision on the same claim for an 

immediate retirement annuity.

When reviewing determinations regarding an individual’s rights or interests under the Civil Service Retirement System, the Board has jurisdiction only after 

OPM issues a final decision, and an initial decision is not 

final when it is still subject to reconsideration—as the 

October 2017 initial decision expressly was. See 5 C.F.R. 

§§ 831.109(f)(1), 831.110. Although in some circumstances “an initial decision subject to reconsideration or the 
WATKINS v. MSPB 5

absence of any decision at all may [] constitute a final 

administrative action or decision,” Okello v. Office of Pers. 

Mgmt., 120 M.S.P.R. 498, 502–04 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted); see McNeese v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 

61 M.S.P.R. 70, 74, aff’d, 40 F.3d 1250 (Fed. Cir. 1994) 

(Table), the Board has concluded that such an exception 

does not apply when OPM has already issued a separate 

final decision on the same issues, Muyco v. Office of Pers. 

Mgmt., 104 M.S.P.R. 557, 562 (2007). We see no error in 

applying those principles here, where OPM actually 

rescinded the October 2017 initial decision at issue; the 

administrative judge reasonably treated the earlier, 2016 

OPM decision on the same issues as foreclosing an argument that OPM refused to decide the issues. And even 

aside from Board jurisdiction, we have determined in a 

past non-precedential opinion that when an appellant 

files an appeal with the Board that presents the same 

claims as an earlier appeal and the earlier appeal remains 

pending before the full Board, an administrative judge 

does not violate the law in dismissing the later appeal in 

the interest of adjudicatory efficiency. Boyd v. Dep’t of 

Labor, 561 Fed. Appx. 978, 982 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing 

Zgonc v. Dep’t of Defense, 103 M.S.P.R. 666, 669 (2006)). 

We have no reason to draw a different conclusion here.

Because the Board had proper reasons to dismiss the 

appeal, we need not address the merits of Mr. Watkins’s 

contentions. He presumably has had or will have an 

opportunity to present those contentions in his first 

appeal, still pending before the Board.

III

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of 

the Board in Mr. Watkins’s November 2017 appeal. 

No costs. 

AFFIRMED