Case Name: Wayne LINDAHL, Petitioner, v. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, Respondent
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1983-09-22
Citations: 718 F.2d 391
Docket Number: Appeal No. 39-81
Parties: Wayne LINDAHL, Petitioner, v. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, Respondent.
Judges: DAVIS, Circuit Judge, with whom FRIEDMAN, KASHIWA and SMITH, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 718
Pages: 391–412

Head Matter:
Wayne LINDAHL, Petitioner, v. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, Respondent.
Appeal No. 39-81.
United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.
Sept. 22, 1983.
John Murcko, Oakland, Cal., argued for petitioner.
Robert A. Reutershan, Washington, D.C., argued for respondent. With him on the brief were J. Paul McGrath, Asst. Atty. Gen., David M. Cohen, Director, Donnie Hoover and Judith E. Cohn, Washington, D.C.

Opinion:
MARKEY, Chief Judge.
Petitioner Lindahl appeals from a decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) affirming the denial by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) of his request for a disability annuity. We order dismissal of the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
Background
On September 5, 1978, Lindahl elected to retire, on the basis of disability, from his civilian employment with the United States Navy. On September 25, 1979, the Navy notified him that he would be separated for physical disability. He accepted the disability separation but claimed an annuity. On March 21,1980, OPM's denial of the annuity was affirmed in a comprehensive opinion, . No. SF 831L8110492, in which MSPB pointed out that the degree of disability required for voluntary separation is less than that required for entitlement to an annuity, and that Lindahl was not disabled to the extent required for an annuity. Lindahl filed an appeal in the Court of Claims, on June 10, 1981, and the case was transferred to this court on 1 October 1982 in accord with the Federal Courts Improvement Act (FCIA), Pub.L. No. 97-164, 96 Stat. 25.
The government moved to dismiss, citing as alternate grounds: (1) judicial review is precluded by 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c); (2) jurisdiction is lacking under 5 U.S.C. § 7703 because Lindahl is not an "employee". Because we dismiss on (1), we need not and do not in this case determine the meaning or scope of the word "employee" in § 7703.
Opinion
Judicial Review is Precluded by 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c)
Congress established a retirement system for federal employees. 5 U.S.C. § 8337. The right to retirement per se, or to a retirement annuity is not founded in the Constitution. The rights created having their genesis in a statute, Congress was at liberty, Dismuke v. United States, 297 U.S. 167,172, 56 S.Ct. 400, 403, 80 L.Ed. 561 (1936), to establish a statutory scheme in which the decisions governing eligibility for disability retirement and annuities would be made entirely within the administrative process. Congress was further at liberty to amend that scheme to provide a review step within the administrative process, and to provide for judicial review of one type of such decisions.
Congress did precisely that, the amended statutory scheme being set forth in the current statute at 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c) and (d):
(c) The Office [OPM] shall determine questions of disability and dependency arising under this subchapter. Except to the extent provided under subsection (d) of this section, the decisions of the Office concerning these matters are final and conclusive and are not subject to review. The Office may direct at any time such medical or other examinations as it considers necessary to determine the facts concerning disability or dependency of an individual receiving or applying for annuity under this subchapter. The Office may suspend or deny annuity for failure to submit to examination.
(d)(1) Subject to paragraph (2) of this subsection, an administrative action or order affecting the rights or interests of an individual or of the United States under this subchapter may be appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board under procedures prescribed by the Board.
(2) In the case of any individual found by the Office to be disabled in whole or in part on the basis of the individual's mental condition, and that finding was made pursuant to an application by an agency for purposes of disability retirement under section 8337(d) of this title, the procedures under section 7701 of this title shall apply and the decision of the Board shall be subject to judicial review under section 7703 of this title.
The emphasized matter is that added in 1980 by Pub.L. No. 96-500, 94 Stat. 2696.
The parties' briefs and arguments do not note that the OPM decision in this case was rendered before the January 1, 1981 effective date of the 1980 amendment. When the OPM decision was rendered, sections 8347(c) and (d) were as above quoted, but without the emphasized matter. We are required, absent manifest injustice, to apply the law as it exists at the time of our decision. Bell v. New Jersey and Pennsylvania, -U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 2187, 2199, 76 L.Ed.2d 313 (1983) (White, J., concurring). In the present case, no such manifest injustice would result, which may account for the parties' discussion of the statute as it was amended in 1980.
We decide here only the question of our jurisdiction to hear the type of appeal before us, i.e., an appeal from an MSPB decision affirming the denial of a claim for annuity following a voluntary physical disability retirement, a decision reached by MSPB under the authority provided it in § 8347(d)(1). In such cases, the initial decision is that of the employee who has elected to retire, and who has asserted disability as the reason, and who has then sought an annuity.
Lindahl here seeks judicial review of MSPB's decision on the "question" of his disability as entitling him to an annuity. The so-called "finality clause" in §.8347(c) states unequivocally and unambiguously that administrative decisions on questions of disability "are final and conclusive and are not subject to review". It is difficult to conceive of a more clear-cut statement of congressional intent to preclude review than one in which the concept of finality is thrice repeated in a single sentence.
The finality clause first appeared, in relation to survivorship benefits, in 5 U.S.C. § 724, in 1948. No legislative history existed in relation to that section, and none is needed in view of its continued unambiguous nature. In 1956, as codified at 5 U.S.C. § 2266(c), the preclusion of review was extended to include disability cases.
Subsequent legislative enactments and court decisions dealing with federal employee retirement, as well as those dealing with other rights of federal employees, have resulted in substantial confusion respecting the limited question before us.
Respecting retirement, Congress passed in 1978 an amendment to § 8347, Pub.L. No. 95-454, 92 Stat. 1111, providing for review by MSPB of OPM disability decisions. § 8347(d). By that amendment, Congress continued to limit the enforcement of voluntary disability retirement rights to the administrative process. It nonetheless provided, to an individual dissatisfied with an OPM decision, an appeal to a quasi-judicial tribunal independent of OPM and affording appropriate administrative review procedures.
In the 1978 amendment Congress let stand the provision in § 8347(b) that OPM "shall adjudicate all claims under this chapter". Congress did not specifically spell out in the statute that § 8347(d) was an exception to the finality clause in § 8347(c).
The history of what Congress did, up to and including its adoption of the 1980 amendment indicates its present intent to deny judicial review of MSPB decisions on questions of disability, other than those involved when an agency forces retirement for mental disability. By the language it selected in constructing § 8347, Congress began with a total limitation to the administrative process, stopping the process with the decision by the Civil Service Commission (now OPM). In 1978, Congress provided for review of OPM decisions, still within the administrative process, by MSPB. In reenacting § 8347(c) without change, Congress thus provided that the review process of § 8347(d) ended at the MSPB level. Until 1980, Congress had at no time specifically granted jurisdiction to any court to review any decision, by either OPM or MSPB, on questions of disability and dependency. Then, in 1980, for the first time, Congress provided for judicial review, but only to individuals forced to retire at the instance of an agency on the basis of the individual's alleged mental condition. In that 1980 amendment, Congress clarified the relationship between § 8347(c) and (d) by inserting in the former "Except to the extent provided under subsection (d)".
Thus, the plain language of the statute, with which we must begin, Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397,405, 99 S.Ct. 2361, 2366, 60 L.Ed.2d 980 (1979), expressly precludes review beyond the administrative process, i.e., it precludes judicial review, of denials of voluntary disability retirement annuity claims such as Lindahl's. An express statutory provision that certain decisions of an administrative agency "are final and conclusive and are not subject to review" should not be interpreted as though it said such decisions "are not final and are not conclusive and are subject to some judicial review". Certainly that interpretation should not be adopted after Congress has in the same statute provided that other decisions are subject to review. To so read the review-precluding language of the present statute would appear not a judicial act of interpretation but a legislative act of repeal.
Whatever may be said of the finality clause in the abstract, the subsequent actions of the Congress providing specific and particular exceptions to that clause, one administrative, the other judicial, provide compelling evidence of its intent to preclude judicial review of MSPB decisions on voluntary disability retirement claims. Congress having provided for administrative review in § 8347(d)(1), the express exclusion of review in § 8347(c) can relate only to judicial review.
Where, as here, Congress has repeatedly revisited the statute, and where, as here, those self-reviews of its earlier handiwork included two in which it has spelled out specific exceptions to its total preclusion of review, and the specific forums for each, it is not within the province of a court to create additional exceptions. Congress has addressed the question of exceptions, has in the 1980 amendment created legislation without ambiguity or inconsistency, has assured uniformity in the retirement law by making certain discrete disability claims decidable exclusively by MSPB and others exclusively reviewable in this court, has dealt with all classes of disability annuity claimants, and has provided specific means through which each class may pursue claims for annuity. No basis exists on which this court could exercise an assumed power to create some new class of annuity claimants 'or to design some new procedure that would include a right of such claimants to appeal to this court.
Lindahl is not within the class of claimants to- which the right to judicial review of MSPB disability decisions is provided by § 8347(d)(2). He cites no constitutional infirmity in the legislation- governing disability retirement or in the classifications made in that legislation.
This court's grant of jurisdiction to review MSPB decisions is broad but not unlimited. Among the limitations on that grant is necessarily a statute expressly excluding review of certain decisions. Such a statute is spelled out in 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c) and (d). The government's motion to dismiss must therefore be granted.
Asserted Bases For Jurisdiction
As above indicated, legislation creating rights of federal employees, and the legislative history of that legislation, have clouded the search for clarity that is an integral part of the judicial process. Equally well intentioned and careful courts have reached differing conclusions respecting what the intent of Congress was when it enacted and amended § 8347. Intent of Congress being the touchstone in cases of statutory interpretation, we have been cited to a number of bases upon which it might be held that Congress intended this court to exercise a jurisdiction to review MSPB decisions on voluntary disability retirement annuity claims.
(a) The Scroggins Line of Cases
In Scroggins v. United States, 397 F.2d 295, 297, 184 Ct.Cl. 530, - cert. denied, 393 U.S. 952, 89 S.Ct. 376, 21 L.Ed.2d 363 (1968), it was said that the finality clause of § 8347(c) meant that "at best, a court can set aside the Commissioner's determination only 'when there has been a substantial departure from important procedural rights, a misconstruction of the governing legislation, or some like error going to the heart of the administrative determination' ".
Though the "procedural departure, legislation misconstruction, or like error" quotation was from Gaines v. United States, 158 Ct.Cl. 497, 502, cert. denied 371 U.S. 936, 83 S.Ct. 309, 9 L.Ed.2d 271 (1962), it has been labeled the "Scroggins formula", and referred to in: Polos v. United States, 621 F.2d 385, 391-92, 223 Ct.Cl. 547, 559-60 (1980); Fancher v. United States, 588 F.2d 803, 806, 218 Ct.Cl. 504, 509-10 (1978); Allen v. United States, 571 F.2d 14, 17, 215 Ct.Cl. 524, 529-30 (1978); McFarland v. United States, 517 F.2d 938, 942-43, 207 Ct.Cl. 38, 45-48 (1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1049, 96 S.Ct. 776, 46 L.Ed.2d 638 (1976); McGlasson v. United States, 397 F.2d 303, 307, 184 CtQ. 542,-(1968).
The "Scroggins formula", though quoted from Gaines in Scroggins, had its genesis in Smith v. Dulles, 236 F.2d 739, 742 (D.C.Cir. 1956), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 955, 77 S.Ct. 329, 1 L.Ed.2d 244 (1956). Smith was one of three cases decided on the same day and denying reinstatement, back pay, and declaratory judgments. A footnote in Smith traces the "formula" back to Powell v. Brannan, 196 F.2d 871, 873 (D.C.Cir.1952), a reduction-in-force case having no relation whatever to retirement. (See reference to "decisional leapfrogging" in Griswold, The Judicial Process, 28 Rec.A.B. City N.Y. 14, 24-25 (1973)).
Smith, Gaines, Scroggins, McGlasson, and McFarland dealt with forced retirements for mental conditions. Fancher, Allen, and Polos dealt with forced retirement for physical disability. No case dealt with a voluntary retirement claim for annuity, and in no case (except in Allen, overruled in Polos) did application of the "Scroggins formula" result in reversal.
We face here no settled case law. Sections 8347(c) and (d), and the "Scroggins formula" have appeared in the opinions of other courts with varying results, some rejecting it, see: Campbell v. OPM, 694 F.2d 305 (3d Cir.1982); Chase v. OPM, 695 F.2d 790 (4th Cir.1982); Morgan v. OPM, 675 F.2d 196 (8th Cir.1982), some applying it, Parodi v. MSPB, 690 F.2d 731 (9th Cir. 1982); McCard v. MSPB, 702 F.2d 978 (11th Cir.1983); Turner v. OPM, 707 F.2d 1499 (D.C.Cir.1983); Pitzak v. OPM, 710 F.2d 1476 (10th Cir.1983), and one accepting it with a limitation, Lancellotti v. OPM, 704 F.2d 91 (3d Cir.1983). Our independent consideration has led us to what is in our view the sounder conclusion.
If the cases of our predecessor court referring to the "Scroggins formula" were interpreted as holding that § 8347(c) and (d) leave room for judicial review of voluntary disability retirement annuity claims, those cases to that extent would have to be viewed as wrongly decided and overruled.
The concern that apparently led to the initial application of the "Scroggins formula" by our predecessor court, i.e., that administrators might unfairly force individuals from federal employment with an attached mental condition "stigma", has been fully met by Congress' enactment of § 8347(d)(2). The cases dealing with that form of retirement are therefore simply no longer viable.
Because all references to the "Scroggins formula" by our predecessor court appear in opinions of that court dealing with forced retirement, the Scroggins line of cases cannot serve as a basis for an assertion of jurisdiction to review an MSPB decision on voluntary retirement like that presented here.
(b) Review of Agency Action
Treatment of 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c) in the courts since 1956 seems to have been influenced by an apparent tendency to resolve doubt in favor of assuring federal court review of every conceivable objection to agency action. The tendency has on occasion served well the paramount public interest in the administration of justice, and has avoided a slamming of the federal courthouse door in the face of persons entitled to be there. Courts should be equally zealous in avoiding the unauthorized jamming of the courthouse door. Persons entitled to be there are harmed when denied or delayed entry by a crowd which is there not because a constitutional right is involved, or because a statute provides a right to be there, but only because a court had adopted an overly expansive view of its own jurisdiction.
In the present case, for example, it is nowhere asserted that Congress has ever specifically granted jurisdiction to any court to hear appeals from administrative decisions on claims for annuity by those who voluntarily retire. Whatever may be their "traditional powers", all federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. It is not within the powers, traditional or otherwise, of federal courts to fill every seeming jurisdictional void they may detect in congressional legislation; but if it were, there is no void detectable in § 8347(c) and (d).
The Administrative Procedure Act provides for judicial review of agency action, 5 U.S.C. § 704, but specifies that judicial review is not available when precluded by statute, 5 U.S.C. § 701(a). In Dismuke, 297 U.S. at 172, 56 S.Ct. at 403, in Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 140-41, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1511, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967), and in Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159,166-67, 90 S.Ct. 832, 837-38, 25 L.Ed.2d 192 (1970) (quoting Abbott), the Supreme Court has erected a presumption of judicial review over agency action. It has, however, been careful in those cases to recognize the right of Congress, within constitutional boundaries, to rely on the administra tive process and to preclude judicial review. As above indicated, we hold § 8347(c) an express preclusion of judicial review. Hence the presumption outlined in Abbott is inapplicable, and our holding here does not impinge upon or conflict with that presumption.
It is suggested that this court might reconcile the presumption of reviewability with the finality clause of § 8347(c) by noting the inclusion of OPM's fact finding role in that section, and by saying that Congress intended to preclude only a review of OPM's factual determinations. Then, we are asked to say, a claimant for a voluntary disability retirement annuity would retain a "right" to judicial review for a possible procedural or legal error by OPM or MSPB. We decline the suggestion. The question before us is not whether this or that type or breadth of judicial review would be in our lights advisable or appropriate. The question is whether any is authorized.
However attractive may have been the temptation to reconcile the reviewability presumption with § 8347(c) and (d) as they stood before the 1980 amendment, no such reconciliation is now possible. The current statute provides that OPM shall determine "questions" of disability and that its "decisions" concerning such matters are reviewable under § 8347(d)(1) only by MSPB. Thus Congress has provided, not precluded, review of OPM's factual determinations. It lodged that function, however, in MSPB. The statute further provides in § 8347(d)(2) for judicial review of particular MSPB decisions, under a particular standard of review found in § 7703. Congress having so divided and allocated the review function between the executive and judicial branches, the courts are not at liberty to reallocate it.
Moreover, the factual determination that a voluntary claimant is not disabled can be expected to control the outcome, as illustrated by the virtually universal denial of relief, even in forced retirement cases, under the judicially crafted "Scroggins" type of review. Nor, the fac- . tual determinations being non-reviewable, is relief likely on legal or procedural grounds. As above indicated, one whose application for an annuity is denied after voluntary disability retirement is not by that denial alone deprived of a constitutional right. There being no liberty or fundamental pre-existing property interest at risk, the simplest procedures adopted by the agency will avoid a claim of denial of procedural due process.
It is, of course, possible to posit a scenario in which OPM and MSPB might both act so irresponsibly and arbitrarily as to employ unacceptable interpretations of law, statutes, or regulations, and totally inadequate procedures, for the purpose of denying annuities to those who voluntarily retire. Conjecture cannot alone, however, serve as a grant of jurisdiction. A facile formula based on a fear of faceless functionaries would be such a grant, for the court would have to exercise jurisdiction to determine whether legal or procedural error had occurred. Allegations of procedural error are easily made, as were the assertions here of failure to follow procedures inapplicable to Lindahl.
Whether the supposed scenario is realistic, and whether it be of a nature and breadth to warrant judicial review of all MSPB decisions on all voluntary retirement claims, would be a matter for investigation and legislation (if deemed appropriate) by the Congress, not the courts.
(c) 5 U.S.C. § 7708 and 28 U.S.C. § 1295
Lindahl cites the broad provisions for review by this court of what he describes as "any" MSPB decision, and the grant of "exclusive" jurisdiction to this court over appeals from what he calls "all" MSPB decisions in 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9). It is implied that a "conflict" or "anomaly" would somehow arise if, in the light of § 7703, it were held that § 8347(c) and (d) expressly preclude judicial review of voluntary disability retirement claims. We find no basis for that view.
First, retirement benefit claims are not adverse action claims. Fancher v. United States, supra, 588 F.2d at 807, 218 Ct.Cl. at 511; Piccone v. United States, 407 F.2d 866, 872, 186 Ct.Cl. 752, 762-64 (1969). No voluntary disability claims have been reviewed under § 7703. Respecting involuntary claims, it was the Scroggins line of cases, not § 7703, which was looked to as a basis for jurisdiction.
Second, there is no "conflict" or "anomaly" created when Congress provides different routes and different forums for enforcement of different statutory rights. Indeed, Congress provided a divergent route in § 7703(b)(2) for a claim that an adverse action was based on discrimination. Thus an anomaly is avoided, not created, when the court honors the express exception to its § 7703 jurisdiction appearing in § 7703(b)(2) and simultaneously honors the express exception to its § 7703 jurisdiction appearing in § 8347(c) and (d).
Third, there are numerous differences between an appeal from OPM's denial of a claim for annuity on voluntary retirement that may be brought to MSPB under § 8347(d)(1), and appeals that may be brought to this court under § 7703. The former may be brought by "individuals"; involve "procedures prescribed" by MSPB; and place the burden on the applicant, Chavez v. OPM, 6 MSPB 343, 353 (1981). Those differences warrant, if warrant were needed, a difference in congressional treatment.
Fourth, a specific statute dealing with disability claims prevails over a general statute dealing with appeals generally from decisions of the MSPB. HCSC-Laundry v. U.S., 450 U.S. 1, 6,101 S.Ct. 836, 838, 67 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981).
Decisions of MSPB that can be challenged by a de novo trial in the district court (i.e., those resolving discrimination claims), and OPM decisions that Congress has specifically said are not reviewable except by MSPB (§§ 8347(c) and (d)(1)) are clearly not encompassed within the words "any" and "all" that were used by some congressmen in discussing the jurisdiction provisions in the FCIA. S.Rep. No. 95-969, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 62, reprinted in 1978 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 2723, 2784. It will not do to argue that references by some congressmen to review of "all" MSPB decisions by this court resulted in a repeal, sub-silentio, of § 7703(b)(2) and 8347(c). Repeal of a statute should never be assumed. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 99, 101 S.Ct. 411, 417, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980).
Quite apart from the presence of § 7703(b)(2) and 8347(c) and (d), it is not true that Congress made "all" MSPB decisions appealable to this court. In 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9),' Congress provided this court with a jurisdiction over MSPB decisions different from that previously provided the Court of Claims and the regional Circuit Courts of Appeals. As discussed in Lancellotti v. OPM, supra, 704 F.2d at 97-99, those courts had been stated to have jurisdiction over "all final orders of the Merit Systems Protection Board" except those in § 7702(b)(2) cases. 28 U.S.C. § 2342(6) (Supp. IV 1980). In contrast, the FCIA makes the jurisdiction of this court applicable to appeals "pursuant to sections 7703(b)(1) and 7703(d) of title 5". Appeals of MSPB decisions under 5 U.S.C. § 1207 are directed to the regional circuits, not to this court. There is no appeal, even to the MSPB, under 5 U.S.C. § 3592.
As complicated and complex as the Civil Service Reform Act is, it is at least clear, when § 7703(b)(1) and 7703(d) are read in context, that among the final orders and decisions of the MSPB appealable to this court are those under § 7703(a)(1). Section 7703(a)(1), as applicable to this court, encompasses MSPB original jurisdiction cases and appeals properly brought to the MSPB under § 7701. Section 7701 itself encompasses agency decisions either specifically designated by the statute as appealable to MSPB under § 7701, e.g., 5 U.S.C. § 3593(c)(2); 3595(c); 7543(d); and 8347(d)(2); or those so designated by "rule or regulation".
The provision governing MSPB's jurisdiction, 5 U.S.C. § 7701, raises no conflict with our adherence to the statutory preclusion of judicial review present in § 8347(c) and (d). In connection with appeals to MSPB like Lindahl's, MSPB has by regulation elected to employ § 7701 procedures. See 5 CFR § 1201.3(a)(6). The question of whether MSPB correctly employs § 7701 procedures in exercising its review authority of particular agency decisions under § 8347(d)(1), however, is not before us. An MSPB election to treat its review authority under § 8347(d)(1) as permitting use of § 7701 procedures cannot constitute a grant of jurisdiction to this court to review all decisions MSPB reaches under § 8347(d)(1). Schwartz v. Department of Transportation, 714 F.2d 1581 (Fed.Cir.1983). Nor can that election work a repeal of § 8347(c). Nor is there reason to suppose that MSPB authority to render decisions and this court's jurisdiction to review MSPB decisions must be identical or coextensive.
To hold that judicial review of all § 8347(d)(1) decisions had all along been available under § 7703, would be to render superfluous Congress' action in § 8347(d)(2), making judicial review available for particular claims under § 7703.
We need not, and hence do not, decide in this case whether all decisions of MSPB under § 8347(d)(1) are denied judicial review by § 8347(c). If § 8347(c) is to have any meaning, there must be some decisions of OPM that are final and conclusive and not reviewable except by MSPB under § 8347(d)(1). It is enough to hold, as we do, that § 7703 does not make MSPB decisions on voluntary disability retirement claims appealable, either by claimants or by OPM, to this court.
(d) The 1980 Amendment
It is suggested that Congress knew of Scroggins at the time of the 1980 amendment, and that it effectively ratified judicial review under the limited "Scroggins formula", because it did not specifically say it was not doing so. We are cited to statements of congressmen mentioning Scrog-gins, H.R.Rep. No. 96-1080, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1980), and to contrary statements of other congressmen who thought that all judicial review was precluded by § 8347(c). S.Rep. No. 96-1004, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 2, reprinted in 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News 5986, 5987; H.R.Rep. No. 96-1080, supra, at 4. Though OPM's director could not express the intent of Congress, we are cited to a letter from him in which he acknowledged existence of the review referred to in Scroggins. H.R.Rep. No. 96-1080, supra, at 8-10. The legislative history contains no statement of the "formula", no recognition that the "formula" had been mentioned in forced retirement cases, and no express acknowledgement that the "formula" had resulted in virtually no reversals of the decisions reached in the administrative process.
We find no support for the view that the 1980 amendment merely expanded the "breadth" of review, in cases of forced retirement on mental condition, beyond the "limited" review said to be available for such cases in Scroggins. If that were true, it would, as above indicated, merely remove the viability of Scroggins. It would not establish that a judicially created and judicially limited review had existed for other types of cases, such as the voluntary retirement type presented here. What did not properly exist cannot be expanded.
It is one thing to say on a particular record that Congress had incorporated the judicial "gloss" placed on a statute. It is another to say that a court's departure from an express preclusion of review is adopted unless Congress in reenacting the preclusion verbatim specifically adds "we meant what we said the first time". Whether a court may require Congress to specifically disallow review the court had "allowed" is not here a relevant consideration. In § 8347(d)(2) Congress not only allowed but legitimized judicial review in the type of case in which our predecessor court had said it was appropriate, while simultaneously reenacting the express review preclusion in § 8347(e) and making plain that § 8347(d)(1) and (d)(2) were exceptions to that preclusion.
That some congressmen and the director of OPM referred to the existence of a court-designed review formula, or that some congressmen said the law was not being changed, or that some criticized Scroggins, or that some said § 8347(c) barred all judicial review, cannot be controlling. We look not to conflicting comments of a few congressmen, but to what Congress did. What it did in 1980, as above indicated, was to add an exception to its prohibition of review in disability cases, and allowed judicial review when the government orders retirement for mental disability. What it did was to leave § 8347(c) and its finality clause untouched. The "law" that Congress did not change in 1980 was the law Congress enacted in § 8347(c) and never repealed.
CONCLUSION
A Congress frequently criticized for vastly increasing the jurisdiction of the federal courts, with insufficient concern for the impact of its legislation on those institutions, has enacted an employee retirement scheme which relies on the administrative process, and in 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c) and (d)(1) excludes the courts from review of administrative decisions in at least those cases involving voluntary claims for disability annuities. That effective congressional solicitude for crowded court dockets, and for the effect of that crowding on deserving litigants, deprives no one of any constitutional or statutory right.
The statute, 5 U.S.C. § 8347(c) and (d), is clear and unambiguous. Whether the finality clause of § 8347(c) should have been from the outset honored by judicial recognition that jurisdiction was lacking is academic. Today this court applies to the case before it the statute as written.
ORDER
It is ordered that respondent's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction be and it is hereby granted.
DISMISSED.
. Lindahl suggests that 28 U.S.C. § 1491 may supply jurisdiction in the Claims Court to determine the question of whether his disability entitles him to an annuity following his voluntary disability retirement, the claim having been denied by OPM and by MSPB after review under § 8347(d)(1). Jurisdiction of the Claims Court being a matter for its decision in the first instance, we need not and do not here respond to Lindahl's suggestion.
. The powers of federal courts have been the subject of controversy since long before those courts were bom. There was deep distrust of a federal judicial system in the Constitutional Convention. See Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention, (Rev.Ed.1937); Prescott, Drafting the Federal Constitution, ch. 17 (1941). There was concern that the federal judiciary would find it had jurisdiction to achieve broad purposes of federal statutes. See 3 Elliott, Debates, 565. Early on, the Supreme Court held that inferior federal courts received no powers directly from the Constitution, but only such authority as may be vested in them by Congress, Turner v. Bank of North-America, 4 U.S. (4 Dall. 7), 1 L.Ed. 717 (1799); Mclntire v. Wood, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch 503), 3 L.Ed. 420 (1813); Kendall v. United States, 37 U.S. (12 Pet. 524), 9 L.Ed. 1181 (1838); Caryv. Curtis, 44 U.S. (3 How. 236), 11 L.Ed. 576 (1845), and that for jurisdiction to exist the Constitution must have given the capacity to take it and an act of Congress must have supplied it. The Mayor v. Cooper, 73 U.S. (6 Wall. 247), 18 L.Ed. 851 (1867).