The appellant requested a jurisdictional hearing and filed evidence in an attempt to show that the agency had undergone a reorganization between 1992 and 1994, causing the abolition of his supervisory position and leading to the 1998 reclassification. Id. , Tab 6. Id. , Tab 7 at 9. The administrative judge determined that no actions requiring RIF procedures had taken place, and dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction without holding a hearing or addressing the timeliness of the appeal. The agency has asserted both below and in response to the appellant s petition for review that the appeal should be dismissed as untimely, regardless of any jurisdictional determination.
Jurisdiction is the threshold issue in adjudicating an appeal.
If the record is sufficiently developed to dismiss the case on other grounds such as timeliness, however, the administrative judge may dismiss the case on those grounds without making a determination as to jurisdiction. In the instant case, neither jurisdiction nor timeliness are clear from the existing record. Therefore, the Board must make a jurisdictional determination before deciding the timeliness issue. The appellant made a nonfrivolous allegation of jurisdiction entitling him to a hearing. An appellant who makes a nonfrivolous allegation of Board jurisdiction is entitled to a jurisdictional hearing.