Opinion ID: 447530
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the claims based on department regulations

Text: 17 The plaintiff contends that the charges brought against her should have been referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), or both, pursuant to internal DOJ regulations. Both sets of guidelines cited by the plaintiff establish special procedures for dealing with particular kinds of employee problems and misconduct. Courts, of course, have long required agencies to abide by internal, procedural regulations concerning the dismissal of employees even when those regulations provide more protection than the Constitution or relevant civil service laws. See, e.g., Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 79 S.Ct. 968, 3 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1959); Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363, 77 S.Ct. 1152, 1 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1957). The guidelines involved in those cases, however, explicitly required agencies to follow elaborate and mandatory pre-termination procedures. The regulation at issue in Vitarelli, for example, required 30 days notice of a proposed discharge, a written statement of the asserted grounds for termination, and a formal, trial-type hearing before a specially constituted hearing board. See Vitarelli, 359 U.S. at 540-46, 79 S.Ct. at 973-76; see also Service, 354 U.S. at 373-76, 77 S.Ct. at 1157-59. In sharp contrast, neither the OPR nor the EAP regulations involved in this case create any explicit or formal procedural protection for employees, and neither operates as a mandatory constraint on the Department's actions. 18 The EAP was established to encourage Department employees with chronic drug, alcohol or emotional problems to seek professional help. See DOJ Order No. 179.1 at 1-2 (May 15, 1978), J.A. at 53-54. The implementing guidelines provide that employees with alcohol or drug related problems are encouraged to seek EAP assistance to overcome their illness and to avoid adverse employment actions in the future. See id. Yet the guidelines themselves disavow any intent to provide job protection to employees whose work performance is suffering as a result of alcoholism or any other condition. 19 This referral to assistance will in no way affect the processing of a disciplinary action for the employee's misconduct or criminal activities, including removal, if the nature of the offense and the nature of the employee's duties warrant that action. 20 Id. at 9, J.A. at 60. Moreover, as the district court observed, the plaintiff has consistently denied that she had or has any drinking problem; indeed the Department discharged Doe for alleged unprofessional conduct and dishonesty, not for alcoholism. Accordingly, she cannot rely on the EAP program to challenge her discharge. See Spragg v. Campbell, 466 F.Supp. 658 (D.S.D.1979) (upholding a federal employee's dismissal for alcohol related misconduct despite the existence of a program similar to the EAP); Allen Vyse, 226 Ct.Cl. 683 (1981) (same). 21 The regulations creating the Department's OPR, 28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.39 (1984), provide that the OPR shall [r]eceive and review any information or allegation concerning conduct by a Department employee that may be in violation of law, regulations or orders, or of applicable standards of conduct.... Id. Sec. 0.39a(a). They also provide that the OPR shall make such preliminary inquiry as may be necessary to determine whether a disciplinary matter should be referred from an employee's immediate supervisor to another DOJ official. Id. Sec. 0.39a(c); see also id. Sec. 0.39a(d)(3). The plaintiff contends that the Department violated this mandate because the OPR neither investigated her case nor reviewed the decision made by her direct supervisors. 22 Doe's reliance on these regulations, however, cannot withstand scrutiny. The OPR regulations explicitly state that the responsibility of investigating employee misconduct and of instituting adverse employment actions remains with the various unit heads within the Department. 23 Primary responsibility for investigating an allegation of unprofessional conduct that is lodged against an employee of the Department normally shall continue to rest with the head of the office, division, bureau, or board to which the employee is assigned, or with the head of its internal inspection unit, or, if the conduct appears to constitute a violation of law, with the head of the agency having jurisdiction over the subject matter involved. 24 Id. Secs. 0.39d(a), (b); see also id. Sec. 0.39a(a) (stating that the OPR does not preempt the primary responsibility of internal inspection units within the Department). The regulations nowhere assert that the OPR has exclusive or even mandatory jurisdiction to investigate charges such as those involved in this case. 6 Nor do the regulations grant employees any right to appeal disciplinary investigations or decisions to the OPR. 25 At best, then, the OPR is intended to supplement, not to supplant, existing investigative procedures. The OPR rules were not, in any event, adopted to provide procedural protections to DOJ employees. Rather, the rules were intended to benefit the Department as a whole by establish[ing] procedures for the disclosure of information evidencing misconduct by Department employees.... 45 Fed.Reg. 27754 (April 24, 1980); see 28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.39a(b) (1984). Although an agency is ordinarily bound by its own procedural rules, it is also within the agency's discretion to modify or waive those rules not intended primarily to confer important procedural benefits upon individuals in the face of otherwise unfettered discretion. American Farm Lines v. Black Ball Freight Service, 397 U.S. 532, 538, 90 S.Ct. 1288, 1292, 25 L.Ed.2d 547 (1970). Moreover, even assuming that the OPR was required to act in this case, its sole function would have been to report the matter to a senior Department official. See 28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.39a(a)(1) (1984). Flint's investigation and Doe's actual discharge were in fact reviewed and approved by Deputy Attorney General Schmults, one of the independent senior officers identified for referral in the OPR regulations. See id. Sec. 0.39a(d)(3). 7 26 The district court therefore correctly held that neither the OPR regulations nor the EAP guidelines constrained the Department's ability to terminate Doe. And if the plaintiff cannot challenge her actual termination under Department regulations, 8 her claim for reinstatement must fail. Doe's back pay claim presents a somewhat more difficult problem. On the one hand, we believe that Doe cannot seek back pay if she cannot challenge her actual discharge. As a member of the excepted civil service, Doe enjoyed no statutory entitlement to her position with the Department; similarly, the Department was not procedurally constrained by the civil service laws or any other regulations in its actual decision to terminate Doe. If her claims based on the OPR and EAP guidelines fail, then, she cannot challenge her removal from the Department; 9 she cannot therefore claim any right to continued compensation that would entitle her to relief under the Back Pay Act. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 5596(b)(1)(A); Crimaldi v. United States, 651 F.2d 151 (2d Cir.1981). 27 Nonetheless, although no party has raised any question concerning the jurisdiction of this court to hear Doe's appeal, Judge MacKinnon's dissent does so now at the eleventh hour. Hence, we briefly consider and reject his challenge based on the Federal Courts Improvements Act of 1982, Pub.L. No. 97-164, 96 Stat. 25 (codified in scattered sections of 28 U.S.C.). That Act provides that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit shall have exclusive jurisdiction over an appeal from a district court if the district court based its jurisdiction in whole or in part on 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1295(a)(2). Section 1346(a)(2), in turn, confers concurrent jurisdiction in district court and the Claims Court for civil actions against the United States based on the Constitution, acts of Congress or agency regulations for amounts not exceeding $10,000. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2). Jurisdiction for those monetary claims against the United States exceeding $10,000 lies exclusively with the Claims Court. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1491. 28 In this case, Doe appended a claim for back pay to her more central constitutional claims. Although Doe did not specify the precise amount of the back pay she sought, we conclude that her complaint should be read to seek more than $10,000 in back pay because Doe, a GS-14 attorney earning approximately $45,000 a year, was discharged over two years before she brought this lawsuit and alleges that she has not been able to secure comparable employment in her field. See Plaintiff's Complaint paragraphs 12, 29, J.A. at 4, 12. Accordingly, it appears that the district court lacked jurisdiction over her back pay claim under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346. The district court dismissed the entire reinstatement-related claim for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. We are confident that this is precisely the route that the Claims Court and the Federal Circuit would have taken had Doe brought her back pay claim there. See, e.g., Biagioli v. United States, 2 Cl.Ct. 304 (1983); cf. United States v. Connolly, 716 F.2d 882, 886-88 (Fed.Cir.1983), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 1414, 79 L.Ed.2d 740 (1984). We therefore affirm the dismissal for jurisdictional reasons as well as those stated by the district court. 29 Although in another case, the district court's lack of jurisdiction over the back pay claim might present a question of whether it also lacked jurisdiction to hear the closely-related reinstatement claim, see, e.g., Giordano v. Roudebush, 617 F.2d 511, 514-15 (8th Cir.1980), we believe that it would confound common sense and judicial economy to address that complex issue at this juncture where the underlying claim for reinstatement so clearly lacks merit. We therefore invoke Supreme Court precedent which permits us, in exceptional cases, to defer the resolution of a difficult jurisdictional issue where the decision on the merits is clearly fore-ordained whatever the jurisdictional outcome. See Secretary of Navy v. Avrech, 418 U.S. 676, 94 S.Ct. 3039, 41 L.Ed.2d 1033 (1974) (per curiam); cf. National Juvenile Law Center, Inc. v. Regnery, 738 F.2d 455, 466-67 (D.C.Cir.1984) (per curiam). 30 We also conclude that the back pay claim does not create any jurisdictional impediment to our review of Doe's more central constitutional claims. Section 1346, of course, would not under any circumstances deprive a district court of jurisdiction to consider Doe's Bivens action, which does not involve a claim against the United States, or her claim for equitable relief under the Constitution in the form of a name-clearing hearing. See infra pp. 1112-14. Those claims do not in any way implicate reinstatement or back pay and they unquestionably fall within the district courts' general federal question jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331. Similarly, where the district court's jurisdiction could not have been based in whole or in part on 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346, see 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1295(a)(2)--as it could not have been here--nothing in the Courts Improvements Act or its legislative history precludes this court from considering Doe's appeal of the remaining non-monetary claims. See S.Rep. No. 275, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 19-20 (1982), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, pp. 11, 29-30 (noting that litigants should not be allowed to create or deny federal court jurisdiction through subsidiary claims and that federal courts must ensure the integrity of appellate jurisdiction under the act by separating substantial from frivolous claims). We therefore affirm the district court's dismissal of the reinstatement claim for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and we affirm its implicit dismissal of the back pay claim for jurisdictional reasons as well as those relied upon by the district court. 31