NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

GEORGE E. MAYERS, JR.,

Petitioner

v.

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,

Respondent

______________________ 

2017-1519

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. DE-0330-16-0050-I-1.

______________________ 

Decided: June 6, 2017

______________________ 

GEORGE E. MAYERS, JR., Fort Carson, CO, pro se.

SARA B. REARDEN, Office of General Counsel, Merit 

Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by BRYAN G. POLISUK, KATHERINE 

M. SMITH. 

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, O’MALLEY and WALLACH,

Circuit Judges.
2 MAYERS v. MERIT SYS. PROT. BD. 

PER CURIAM. 

Petitioner George E. Mayers, Jr. appeals a final order 

of the Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”) dismissing his appeal for untimeliness. See Mayers v. Dep’t of the 

Army, No. DE-0330-16-0050-I-1 (M.S.P.B. Dec. 13, 2016) 

(Resp’t’s Suppl. App. 1−8). We affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Mr. Mayers worked as a cook at Fort Ord, California 

for the U.S. Department of the Army until his termination 

in 1994 as part of a reduction in force upon Fort Ord’s 

closure. Id. at 2, 36, 38. He was given priority placement 

registration and shortly thereafter re-hired at Fort Carson, Colorado. Id at 2, 39. Mr. Mayers retired from the 

federal service in 2004 and filed the instant appeal with 

the MSPB in 2015, alleging that his priority placement in 

1994 entitled him to a vacant position at a higher grade 

and that his hiring as a cook at Fort Carson constituted a 

demotion “without cause.” Id. at 34; see id. at 2–3. 

An administrative judge (“AJ”) initially handled the 

appeal and ordered Mr. Mayers to show that his appeal 

was timely filed or that there was good cause for his 

delay. Id. at 19−23. Mr. Mayers responded with a partially revised appeal form asserting the effective date of 

the contested agency action was in 2011 rather than in 

1994 and provided various documents detailing, inter 

alia, his hip replacement surgery, bankruptcy filing, and 

litigation in district court. Id. at 3, 6−7, 40. The AJ then 

issued his initial decision dismissing Mr. Mayers’s appeal 

as untimely filed without a showing of good cause. Id. at 

1−8. The AJ found that Mr. Mayers “did not . . . address 

why he did not file an appeal until more than [twenty] 

years after the originally proffered date or more than four 

years after the newer, more recent date for the action at 

issue.” Id. at 3. 
MAYERS v. MERIT SYS. PROT. BD. 3

The Initial Decision became final following expiration 

of the time to appeal the decision to the full MSPB. See 

id. at 8. Mr. Mayers appealed to this court. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9) (2012). 

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review and Legal Standard

We must affirm a final decision of the MSPB unless, 

inter alia, it constitutes “an abuse of discretion.” 5 U.S.C. 

§ 7703(c)(1) (2012). The MSPB abuses its discretion when 

“its decision (1) is clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, or 

fanciful; (2) is based on an erroneous conclusion of law; 

(3) rests on clearly erroneous fact findings; or (4) follows 

from a record that contains no evidence on which the 

[MSPB] could rationally base its decision.” Sterling Fed. 

Sys., Inc. v. Goldin, 16 F.3d 1177, 1182 (Fed. Cir. 1994) 

(internal quotation marks, alteration, and citation omitted). 

“[A]n appeal [to the MSPB] must be filed no later than 

[thirty] days after the effective date . . . of the action being 

appealed, or [thirty] days after the date of the appellant’s 

receipt of the agency’s decision, whichever is later.” 5 

C.F.R. § 1201.22(b)(1) (2015). An appeal will be dismissed 

as untimely if it is not submitted within this timeframe 

“unless a good reason for the delay is shown.” Id.

§ 1201.22(c). The MPSB has identified several factors 

that it considers in determining whether good cause 

warrants waiving a refiling deadline:

the length of the delay; whether appellant was notified of the time limit or was otherwise aware of 

it; the existence of circumstances beyond the control of the appellant which affected his ability to 

comply with the time limits; the degree to which 

negligence by the appellant has been shown to be 

present or absent; circumstances which show that 

any neglect involved is excusable neglect; a show-
4 MAYERS v. MERIT SYS. PROT. BD. 

ing of unavoidable casualty or misfortune; and the 

extent and nature of the prejudice to the agency 

which would result from waiver of the time limit.

Walls v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 29 F.3d 1578, 1582 (Fed. 

Cir. 1994) (citation omitted); see Zamot v. Merit Sys. Prot. 

Bd., 332 F.3d 1374, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (similar). The 

waiver of a filing deadline based on a showing of good 

cause “is a matter committed to the [MSPB]’s discretion[,] 

and this court will not substitute its own judgment for 

that of the [MSPB].” Mendoza v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 966 

F.2d 650, 653 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (en banc) (citations omitted).

II. The MSPB Did Not Abuse Its Discretion When It 

Declined to Waive Its Filing Deadline

Mr. Mayers argues that the MSPB made several errors in its decision to dismiss his appeal as untimely. See 

Pet’r’s Br. 1. While this court generally interprets the 

pleading of a pro se party liberally, see, e.g., Durr v. 

Nicholson, 400 F.3d 1375, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2005), a party’s 

pro se status “does not excuse [the pleading’s] failures,” 

Henke v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 799 (Fed. Cir. 1995). 

Here, Mr. Mayers offers no arguments directly responding 

to the question of timeliness for us to construe. His 

petition states that the errors of the MSPB include failure 

to take into account documents showing the “priority list,” 

“retention of pay,” “demotion . . . without cause,” and 

“fail[ure] to place [Mr. Mayers] into [a higher work] slot 

that was available.” Pet’r’s Br. 1. He also states that he 

was “compared to another George E. Mayers” inappropriately. Id. None of Mr. Mayers’s arguments, however, 

offer reasons for finding good cause to waive the untimeliness of his petition. See Walls, 29 F.3d at 1582 (listing 

factors relevant to the inquiry here).

The AJ did not abuse his discretion in dismissing Mr. 

Mayers’s appeal as untimely filed. The AJ analyzed all 

relevant documents provided by Mr. Mayers, including 
MAYERS v. MERIT SYS. PROT. BD. 5

evidence of hip surgery before the timeliness order issued 

in 2015, Resp’t’s Suppl. App. 6–7; his bankruptcy filing in 

2003, id. at 7; and Mr. Mayers’s litigation in district court 

on unrelated issues in 2006, id. The AJ offered reasoned 

explanations why those documents did not support a 

finding of good cause related to the twenty-year delay in 

filing or, accepting the 2011 revised effective date for the 

contested agency action, the four-year delay. Id. at 6−8. 

Finally, the AJ took all factors that weighed against a 

finding of waiver and balanced them against Mr. Mayers’s

pro se status. Id. at 6. The AJ offered a well-reasoned, 

thorough opinion for his denial of waiver for untimeliness, 

and Mr. Mayers has not offered evidence that the MSPB 

abused its discretion here. 

CONCLUSION

We have considered Mr. Mayers’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. Accordingly, the 

Final Order of the Merit Systems Protection Board is

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.