Opinion ID: 562148
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Cruz' Contentions

Text: 37 Cruz' citation of Williams v. Dept. of the Army, 715 F.2d 1485 (Fed.Cir.1983) and similar cases is inapt, for Cruz ignores a crucial distinction: those cases involved appealable agency actions over which the Board had jurisdiction, whereas a crucial and dispositive fact in the present case is that Cruz voluntarily resigned, as the AJ found and as the Board and this court have agreed. By that act, Cruz lost all right to appeal any issue to the Board, 5 C.F.R. Sec. 752.401(b)(9) (1989), much less an issue over which the Board lacks independent jurisdiction. 38 Cruz mistakenly relies on Durden v. Dept. of the Navy, 18 M.S.P.R. 373 (1983) as requiring the Board to notify him of a right to appeal the Board's decision to the EEOC. First, Durden is not precedent in this court. Second, the Board noted that the handicap discrimination issue in Durden required analysis to determine whether Durden's retirement in the face of the agency's advice to consider retirement or be removed because of his handicap was a constructive discharge, whereas the proposal to remove Cruz was based on repeated acts of insubordination, on conduct most destructive of the efficiency of the service. Third, unlike the present case, the agency suggested retirement in Durden and it was found, contrary to the facts here, that there was not even an arguable basis for Durden's discharge, the agency having previously accommodated his handicap. Finally, and most important, the Board said Durden was a narrow exception because handicap discrimination was the sole reason for the threatened discharge, i.e., the threat and Durden's retirement were intertwined with, indeed based on, Durden's handicap. There is no basis for a similar exception here, where Cruz' assertion of reprisal does not affect the voluntariness of his resignation in the face of serious charges of insubordination and unacceptable performance. Unlike the situation in Durden, as the Board held, Cruz' reprisal claim, even if true, cannot be considered the sole reason here, since the agency demonstrated an arguable basis for the proposal to remove him. 39 Cruz argues that a court may, after learning a fact necessary to its principal jurisdiction is absent, go on to decide issues within its pendent or ancillary jurisdiction, citing Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 90 S.Ct. 1207, 25 L.Ed.2d 442 (1970) and United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). The argument is unavailing, for in those cases the courts originally had jurisdiction that was subsequently defeated by later events. Here the Board never had jurisdiction. Cruz' resignation was voluntary ab initio and there was no jurisdiction on which jurisdiction over any other issues could pend. That Cruz' resignation was not found to have been voluntary until November 25, 1988 does not change its voluntary nature at its birth on February 16, 1988. The Board had no jurisdiction at that point and did not acquire jurisdiction thereafter. Surely Cruz' mere assertion of reprisal, over which the Board has no independent jurisdiction, could not have created a basis for Board jurisdiction over the appeal. Two zeros cannot make a one. 40