Source: https://m.openjurist.org/415/f2d/1271
Timestamp: 2019-08-24 13:52:05
Document Index: 620887653

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 701', '§ 554', '§ 28', '§ 28', '§ 131', '§ 1346', '§ 1343', '§ 1343', '§ 1343', '§ 1982', '§ 1982', '§ 1982']

415 F. 2d 1271 - Gnotta v. United States
415 F.2d 1271
Louis J. GNOTTA, Appellant,
UNITED STATES of America; the United States Civil Service Commission; the Department of the Army, Kansas City District Corps of Engineers; Colonel W. G. Kratz; M. F. Hoy; D. H. Myers; M. M. Turner; O. E. Pettijohn; F. M. Nelson; H. B. Haworth, Appellees.
Chapter 7 of Title 5 U.S.C. concerns judicial review of agency action. Section 702 provides that a person "suffering legal wrong because of agency action * * * is entitled to judicial review thereof." Section 706(1) provides that the reviewing court shall compel agency action unlawfully withheld. But § 701 (a) (2) specifically states that the chapter does not apply where "agency action is committed to agency discretion by law."
Surely, promotion or nonpromotion of employees within a department is a matter of supervisory discretion and not ordinarily subject to judicial review. 5 U.S.C. § 554(a) (2). See McEachern v. United States, 321 F.2d 31, 33 (4 Cir. 1963). It has been said that courts cannot undertake to pass on a plaintiff's qualifications for any given post or to compare them with those of an incumbent. Powell v. Brannan, 91 U.S. App.D.C. 16, 196 F.2d 871, 873 (1952). A claim that the plaintiff's supervisor entertained a dislike for him has not sufficed for judicial review. Fass v. Ruegg, 379 F.2d 216, 218 (6 Cir. 1967). And Professor Davis asks, "Do we want courts inquiring into personnel management — salary increases, sick leave, office hours, allocation of parking spaces in the basement of the agency's building?" 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 28.16, at 82 (1958).
The integrity of these authorities and the soundness of the principles they espouse, would ordinarily incline a court to avoid interfering with administrative personnel decisions and to take a dim view of Gnotta's claims here. Indeed, his is not even a discharge case. He complains not of agency action but mainly of agency inaction.2 And he demands a specified employment status.
This would normally take us to, or leave us in, the murky area of the scope of judicial review of agency action of this type. See, for example, Charlton v. United States, 412 F.2d 390 (3 Cir. 1969) (both opinions); 4 Davis, Administrative Law Treatise ch. 28 (1958) and, in particular, § 28.16 (Supp.1965). We could proceed to attempt to resolve the question whether agency inaction of the type complained of here is reviewable by federal courts and, if the answer should be in the affirmative, to resolve the secondary question whether on this record, with its conflicting testimony, the agency decision is to remain undisturbed. Or we might assume a positive answer to the first question, without deciding it, and arrive at a positive answer to the second, on the theory that personality conflict and a non-communicating coworker do not of themselves equate with national origin discrimination, that the record at best is conflicting, and that there is substantial evidence to support the agency decision.
3. The Department of the Army is a part of the executive branch of the United States Government. 10 U.S.C. §§ 131, 133 and 3010.
The first two counts are also dismissable with respect to the seven named individual employee defendants. A suit against an officer of the United States is one against the United States itself "if the decree would operate against" the sovereign; Hawaii v. Gordon, 373 U.S. 57, 58, 83 S.Ct. 1052, 1053, 10 L.Ed.2d 191 (1963); or if "the judgment sought would expend itself on the public treasury or domain, or interfere with the public administration", Land v. Dollar, 330 U.S. 731, 738, 67 S.Ct. 1009, 91 L.Ed. 1209 (1947); or if the effect of the judgment would be "to restrain the Government from acting, or to compel it to act", Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U.S. 682, 704, 69 S.Ct. 1457, 1468, 93 L.Ed. 1628 (1949). See Dugan v. Rank, 372 U.S. 609, 620, 83 S.Ct. 999, 10 L.Ed.2d 15 (1963). These principles, we feel, operate to identify the first and second counts against the named individuals with counts against the United States, for relief under the counts would compel those individuals to promote the plaintiff, with the natural effect a promotion has upon the Treasury, and to exercise administrative discretion in an official personnel area. This obviously is not a case which concerns either of the exceptions recognized in Dugan v. Rank, supra, 372 U.S. at 621-622, 83 S.Ct. 999, namely, where the officer's act is beyond his statutory power or where, although the action is within the scope of his authority, the power, or the manner of its exercise, is constitutionally void. See Simons v. Vinson, 394 F.2d 732, 736 (5 Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 968, 89 S.Ct. 398, 21 L.Ed.2d 379.
The third or damage count remains. For the reasons set forth above, it, too, is dismissable as to all defendants named other than the United States. The plaintiff, however, bases the count specifically on the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a) (2), which gives the United States district courts original jurisdiction, concurrent with the Court of Claims, of
On the last page of his appellate brief the plaintiff seems to suggest the applicability of 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4) which grants the district court jurisdiction "of any civil action authorized by law" to recover damages or to secure equitable relief under any act of Congress for the protection of civil rights. No reference to this statute is in the complaint and it does not appear to have been called to the attention of the district court. In any event, the Executive Order did not provide a civil action "authorized by law", within the meaning of § 1343(4). Congress of Racial Equality v. Commissioner, Social Security Administration, 270 F.Supp. 537, 542 (D.Md.1967). See Farmer v. Philadelphia Elec. Co., supra, 329 F.2d at 8-10.
This court, of course, is most familiar with the Jones case. We fail to see its application here, and we get little assistance from the plaintiff's argument as to its general applicability. The Joneses did invoke federal jurisdiction under § 1343(4) but their action, if 42 U.S.C. § 1982 was applicable, was then clearly "authorized by law". Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., supra, 392 U.S. at 412 n.1, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189. The Supreme Court held that § 1982 was applicable. In the present case, there is nothing comparable to § 1982 unless the Executive Order in question could so qualify. We have held above that it does not.
"Section 101. It is the policy of the Government of the United States to provide equal opportunity in Federal employment for all qualified persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a positive, continuing program in each executive department and agency. The policy of equal opportunity applies to every aspect of Federal employment policy and practice
Sections 101 and 104 have been amended, in ways not of significance here, by Executive Order No. 11375 of October 17, 1967, 32 F.R. 14303, 2 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News, pp. 3519, 3520 (1967). Executive Order Nos. 11246 and 11375 have been superseded in part by Executive Order No. 11478 of August 8, 1969.
We almost hesitate even to mention this, for it is reminiscent of the old negative order approach of somewhat sad and confusing memory. See Proctor & Gamble Co. v. United States, 225 U.S. 282, 32 S. Ct. 761, 56 L.Ed. 1091 (1912), and Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U.S. 125, 59 S.Ct. 754, 83 L.Ed. 1147 (1939)