Case Name: James M. CARRIER, Petitioner, v. MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD, Respondent, and United States Postal Service, Intervenor
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1999-07-20
Citations: 183 F.3d 1376
Docket Number: No. 98-3267
Parties: James M. CARRIER, Petitioner, v. MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD, Respondent, and United States Postal Service, Intervenor.
Judges: Before NEWMAN, PLAGER, and CLEVENGER, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 3d Series
Volume: 183
Pages: 1376–1384

Head Matter:
James M. CARRIER, Petitioner, v. MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD, Respondent, and United States Postal Service, Intervenor.
No. 98-3267.
United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.
July 20, 1999.
James Carrier, Bowie, Maryland, pro se.
Eric D. Flores, Attorney, Office of the General Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, for respondent. With him on the brief were Mary L. Jennings, General Counsel, and Martha B. Schneider, Assistant General Counsel.
Michal L. Tingle, Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for intervenor. With her on the brief were David M. Cohen, Director, and Sharon Y. Eubanks, Deputy Director. Of counsel on the brief was R. Andrew German, Managing Counsel, U.S. Postal Service, Washington, DC.
Before NEWMAN, PLAGER, and CLEVENGER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge PAULINE NEWMAN.
PER CURIAM.
James M. Carrier petitions for review of the decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board (Board) dismissing his appeal for lack of jurisdiction. See Carrier v. United States Postal Serv., 78 M.S.P.R. 404 (M.S.P.B.1998). We affirm.
I
James M. Carrier retired from the postal service on November 20, 1992, as part of the 1992-1993 agency-wide reorganization of the service. Shortly thereafter, he filed an appeal to the Board, challenging his retirement as involuntary. An administrative judge of the Board held that Carrier had failed to make a nonfrivolous allegation of involuntariness and dismissed his appeal on that ground. See Carrier v. United States Postal Serv., Docket No. DC-0752-93-0121-1-1 (Feb. 16, 1993) (Carrier I). Carrier appealed that decision to the Board; the Board vacated that decision and remanded the case for adjudication. See Carrier v. United States Postal Serv., 65 M.S.P.R. 54 (1994) (Carrier II).
On the remand after Carrier II, the administrative judge again dismissed Carrier's appeal for want of jurisdiction. This time, however, it was on the ground that Carrier had failed to prove that he was one of the managerial-level officials of the postal service over whom the statutes authorized the Board to take jurisdiction in personnel matters. See Carrier v. United States Postal Serv., 67 M.S.P.R. 398 (1995) (Carrier III). The Board denied review of that decision on the ground that the appeal did not meet the criteria for review. See Carrier v. United States Postal Serv., 67 M.S.P.R. 398 (1995) (Table) (Carrier IV).
Carrier brought Carrier TV to this court. In the course of reviewing the appeal, we noticed that the Board had not determined whether Carrier is barred as a matter of law from membership in a collective bargaining unit. We viewed that as pertinent to the question of jurisdiction, because we held in McCandless v. Merit Sys. Protection Bd., 996 F.2d 1193 (Fed. Cir.1993), that the Board has jurisdiction over an appeal from an employee of the postal service who is ineligible, as a matter of law, from membership in a collective bargaining unit. This holding in McCandless follows from the fact that 39 U.S.C. § 1202 bars from bargaining units those postal service employees who are managers, supervisors, or confidential-personnel employees. In that case, the employee, because he falls in one of these categories, has appeal rights to the Board under 39 U.S.C. § 1005(4)(A)(ii).
McCandless held that the statutory categories of manager, supervisor, and confidential-personnel employees in section 1202 and section 1005(4)(A) (ii) must be construed consistently. Thus, if a postal employee is barred as a matter of law from bargaining unit membership because the employee falls in one of these barred categories under section 1202, the employee by statutory definition has appeal rights to the Board under section 1005(4)(A)(ii). See McCandless, 996 F.2d at 1201. This ensures that there is no otherwise undefined "third group" of postal service employees who are both precluded as a matter of law from joining a bargaining unit and at the same time are precluded from seeking Board review of adverse personnel actions, see Bolton v. Merit Sys. Protection Bd., 154 F.3d 1313, 1320 (Fed.Cir.1998), and, assuming an available bargain ing unit providing the non-managerial employee with an appeal route for adverse agency personnel actions, this ensures an appeal mechanism for all employees.
Accordingly, we vacated the Board's decision in Carrier IV and remanded the case for the limited purpose of adjudication of the issue of whether Carrier is barred from membership in a collective bargaining unit as a matter of law. See Carrier v. Merit Sys. Protection Bd., 79 F.3d 1165, 1996 WL 91647 (Fed.Cir.1996) (Table) (Carrier V). This required the Board to consider whether, from the perspective of section 1202, Carrier is a manager, supervisor, or confidential-personnel employee.
On remand from Canier V, the administrative judge found that Carrier had not alleged that he was a supervisory or confidential-personnel employee, and found that Carrier had failed to prove that he was managerial employee. The AJ further held that Carrier had not proved that he was barred as a matter of law from membership in a collective bargaining unit-while a notation in Carrier's position description indicated that it was a nonbar-gaining position, the administrative judge found that Carrier had not made any factual showing that he was precluded from membership in a collective bargaining unit. The administrative judge noted favorably the agency's argument that unrepresented employees who are not ineligible as a matter of law may seek union representation. Once again, Carrier's appeal was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Carrier v. United States Postal Serv., Docket No. DC-0752-93-0121-M-1 (Aug. 13, 1996) (Canier VI).
The Board granted Carrier's petition for review of the AJ's decision in Canier VI. With regard to whether Carrier had proven that he was not entitled as a matter of law to membership in a collective bargaining unit, the Board affirmed the decision in Carrier VI. As to whether Carrier had proven that he is a management, employee, the Board affirmed the decision in Carrier VI that Carrier had not made such a showing. Also, the Board, noting that Carrier had alleged supervisory status, held that Carrier failed to prove that he fit in the category of supervisors. The Board, finally, held that Carrier had waived an oppor tunity to prove that he was a confidential-personnel employee, and Carrier now agrees that he has waived that point. Consequently, the dismissal of Carrier's appeal for want of jurisdiction became the final decision of the Board. Carrier v. U.S. Postal Service, 78 M.S.P.R. 404 (1998) CCarrier VII). Carrier petitioned this court for review, and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9) (1994).
II
We have limited review of the decisions of the Board. We may not disturb a decision of the Board unless we hold it to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law, or unsupported by substantial evidence. See 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c) (1994).
In his opening and reply briefs to this court, Carrier devotes his fullest efforts to rearguing the facts, in hopes that we might disagree with the Board and conclude that he indeed has proven that in fact his work in the postal service qualifies for definition as either managerial or supervisory. Our standard of review precludes us from making an independent review of the evidence. On the basis of the evidence adduced in Carrier I through Carrier VII, we are satisfied that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that Carrier is neither a management nor a supervisory employee. See Bolton, 154 F.3d at 1316, 1319 (reviewing the Board's findings as to whether employee was manager or supervisor for substantial evidence).
We reach the same conclusion when considering the matter from the perspective of section 1202, which was the Board's task on remand from Carrier V. In this regard, the Board found that Carrier had failed to establish that he was a manager, supervisor, or confidential-personnel employee under section 1202, and accordingly held that he failed to prove that he was barred as a matter of law from membership in a collective bargaining unit.
Contrary to the suggestions of the dissent, we may not reach the opposite conclusion based on the facts that the postal service described Carrier's position as nonbargaining and that there may presently be no bargaining unit in existence for Carrier to join. The Board's jurisdiction is prescribed by statute, and section 1005 restricts the Board's jurisdiction to those nonpreference eligible employees who are either a manager, supervisor, or confidential-personnel employee. Our precedent makes clear that whether Carrier was one of these types of employees must be established based on his actual job duties, not simply by the description of his position as nonbargaining. See Waldau v. Merit Sys. Protection Bd., 19 F.3d 1395, 1399 (Fed.Cir.1994) ("Whether particular employees are 'managerial' is not controlled by the specific job title of the position held by the employee. Rather, the question must be answered 'in terms of the employee['s] actual job responsibilities, authority, and relationship to management. Furthermore, this question must be resolved on a case-by-case basis' " (citations omitted).).
The jurisdiction of the Board over appeals from postal service employees is prescribed, and constrained, by statute, and is defined in terms of job status, a matter of fact proven on a case-by-case basis. If a person is not a manager, supervisor or confidential-personnel employee, that person as a matter of law has no Board appeal rights. Congress contemplated that such a person as a matter of law could qualify for membership in a collective bargaining unit, and thereby gain access to a process for pursuit of job-related- grievances. Congress did not assure that a union would be up and running for every postal operation, ready to receive membership applications from nonmanager, nonsupervisor, or nonconfidential-per-sonnel employees of the postal service. We must attend to the jurisdiction of the Board, from which our jurisdiction depends. Nothing in the statutes or our precedent, including McCandless, suggests that a person who is found, by substantial evidence, to fail the jurisdictional tests of section 1005 nevertheless may appeal to the Board on a showing that, in fact, such person had no readily available collective bargaining unit to which a grievance could be taken. Thus, the issue is not, as the dissent argues, whether Carrier had an opportunity to join a bargaining unit, or even whether such a unit existed.
Carrier has not established that, as a matter of law, his work assignment precluded him from membership in a bargaining unit. Nor has Carrier responded to the agency's assertion that persons who have held similar positions to Carrier have nonetheless been deemed eligible for membership in a collective bargaining unit. See United States Postal Serv., 232 N.L.R.B. 556, 97 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1062 (1978). In fact, Carrier does not assert that he has been told that he could not join a collective bargaining unit. To the contrary, Carrier's brief suggests that a collective bargaining unit may be "in the making" for employees such as himself. Carrier sees that possibility as a disservice to the efficiency of the postal service, arguing that persons with as much management and supervisory involvement as himself, were they union members, would be unable to manage and supervise effectively. Those concerns, however real, are not for us to consider. We are called on to decide only if the Board erred when it concluded that Carrier has not proven that he was a manager, supervisor, or confidential-personnel employee.
Since we hold that the Board did not err in its conclusion that it was without jurisdiction over Carrier's appeal, we must affirm the Board's decision dismissing Carrier's appeal for want of jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED.
. The various pieces of legislative history relied on by the dissent are neither apposite or relevant — there has been no showing that the statute is ambiguous or absurd. See American Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. United States, 177 F.3d 1368, 1381-84 (1999) (Plager, J., dissenting-in-part and concurring-in-part).