Opinion ID: 2657694
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The CSRA and Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Text: ―The portion of the CSRA that is codified in Chapter 75 of Title 5 of the United States Code details the procedural protections afforded to government employees who are subjected to certain adverse personnel actions.‖ Semper, 694 2 Section 1331 provides that ―[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.‖ The District Court of the Virgin Islands, in turn, possesses ―the jurisdiction of a District Court of the United States.‖ 48 U.S.C. § 1612(a). This Court has appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Questions of subject matter jurisdiction raised on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) are reviewed under a de novo standard. See, e.g., Baer v. United States, 722 F.3d 168, 172 (3d Cir. 2013). 13 F.3d at 92 (citing 5 U.S.C. §§ 7501-7543). As the Federal Circuit observed, this statutory scheme provides for administrative review by the Merit Systems Protection Board (―MSPB‖), followed by judicial review by the Federal Circuit itself. Id. The CSRA further ―provides that those procedures are available only to ‗employees,‘ a term that excludes members of the excepted service who do not satisfy particular eligibility or tenure requirements, and it further excludes certain categories of ‗employees‘ from entitlement to the review procedures.‖ Id. (citing 5 U.S.C. §§ 7511(a)(1), 7511(b)). ―Mr. Semper was in the excepted service, not the competitive service,‖ was not preference eligible, was not serving a probationary or trial period pending conversion to the competitive service, and, although he had competed two years of continuous service, ―his service was in the Judicial Branch and not in a position in an Executive Branch agency.‖ Id. at 92-93. Accordingly, ―Mr. Semper does not fall within the statutory definition of an ‗employee‘ and therefore is not entitled to the administrative and judicial review procedures prescribed by the CSRA.‖ Id. at 93. Semper sought to bypass the CSRA by bringing suit in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act. In United States v. Fausto, 484 U.S. 439 (1988), a non-preference eligible excepted service member in the Executive Branch employed a similar strategy, filing suit in the Claims Court because he was precluded from seeking administrative review under the CSRA. Fausto, an excepted service employee of the Fish and Wildlife Service (who, at that time, did not have a right to administrative or judicial review under the CSRA), filed a Claims Court action under the Back Pay and Tucker 14 Acts challenging his 30-day suspension for unauthorized use of a government vehicle. Fausto, 484 U.S. at 440-43. According to the Supreme Court, ―[t]he comprehensive nature of the CSRA, the attention that it gives throughout to the rights of nonpreference excepted service employees, and the fact that it does not include them in provisions for administrative and judicial review contained in Chapter 75, combine to establish a congressional judgment that those employees should not be able to demand judicial review for the type of personnel action covered by that chapter.‖ Id. at 448. As the Supreme Court subsequently explained in Elgin v. Department of the Treasury, 132 S. Ct. 2126 (2012), the Fausto Court ―found it ‗fairly discernible‘ that Congress intended to preclude all judicial review of Fausto‘s statutory claims,‖ id. at 2133 (footnote omitted) (quoting Fausto, 484 U.S. at 452). ―Just as the CSRA‘s ‗elaborate‘ framework, [Fausto, 484 U.S. at 443], demonstrates Congress‘s intent to entirely foreclose judicial review to employees to whom the CSRA denies statutory review, it similarly indicates that extrastatutory review is not available to those employees to whom the CSRA grants administrative and judicial review.‖ Id. Applying Fausto to the Judicial Branch, the Federal Circuit determined that ―Congress‘s decision not to afford persons in Mr. Semper‘s position any right of administrative or judicial review under the CSRA forecloses him from obtaining judicial review of his termination by an alternative mechanism, i.e., through an action in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491.‖ Semper, 694 F.3d at 93. 15 Even before its decision in Fausto, the Supreme Court refused to allow a NASA employee who had allegedly been suspended for whistle-blowing (and who had a right to review under pre-CSRA law and actually had obtained reinstatement with back pay through this process) to pursue a Bivens action for damages against his supervisor for retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. Bush, 462 U.S. at 368-90. In Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367 (1983), the Court observed that a proposed Bivens action could be defeated where there are ―‗special factors counseling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress,‘‖ id. at 377 (quoting Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 18-19 (1980)). ―Because [Bush‘s] claims arise out of an employment relationship that is governed by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions giving meaningful remedies against the United States, we conclude that it would be inappropriate for us to supplement the regulatory scheme with a new judicial remedy.‖ Id. at 368. The Bush Court reached this conclusion even though the civil service remedies were not as effective as a judicial award of damages would be and did not fully compensate the employee for the harm he suffered, e.g., his attorney‘s fees were not paid by the government. See, e.g., id. at 372 & n.9; see also, e.g., Schweiker, 487 U.S. at 414-29 (refusing to recognize non-statutory damages claim for unconstitutional denial Social Security disability benefits). At this time, it is undisputed that the CSRA precludes current or former federal employees from bringing a Bivens damages action for alleged constitutional violations arising out of the employment context. In fact, the Second, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have concluded that current or former 16 employees of the Judicial Branch—who otherwise have no right to administrative or judicial review under the CSRA itself—could not bring damages claims pursuant to the Bivens doctrine. Dotson, 398 F.3d at 159-83; Blankenship v. McDonald, 176 F.3d 1192, 1194-96 (9th Cir. 1999); Lee v. Hughes, 145 F.3d 1272, 1273-77 (11th Cir. 1998). As we explained in Sarullo v. USPS, 352 F.3d 789, 795 (3d Cir. 2003) (per curiam), ―[w]e held [in Mitchum] that the CSRA affords the exclusive remedy for damage claims of federal employees seeking redress for alleged constitutional violations arising out of the employment relationship,‖ id. at 795. We then determined in Sarullo that ―the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear Sarullo‘s Bivens claim [of malicious prosecution following an investigation into whether he was selling drugs to other postal employees inside the post office] as such a claim was barred by the comprehensive statutory scheme provided in the CSRA, and should have dismissed the Bivens claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.‖ Id. at 797.