Opinion ID: 6330369
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of the CSRA

Text: The Government contends that, under Elgin, the district court erroneously held that the CSRA does not apply until the plaintiffs suffer an adverse employment action. It urges that adopting the district court’s logic would allow federal employees to circumvent the CSRA by filing suit before their employer disciplines or discharges them, thereby “gut[ting] the statutory scheme.” This, it argues, would be inconsistent with Congress’s intent to limit judicial review through the CSRA. See id. at 11. The Government acknowledges that the Elgin plaintiffs, unlike the current plaintiffs, had already suffered an adverse employment action— termination—when they filed suit. But it disputes that Elgin “turned on that distinction.” Meanwhile, the plaintiffs, like the district court, attempt to distinguish Elgin and other cases applying the CSRA’s jurisdictional provisions by arguing that those cases concerned challenges to individual adverse employment actions. The CSRA’s “text, structure, and purpose” support the Government’s position. See id. at 10. Starting with the text and structure, the CSRA guarantees an MSPB appeal to only “[a]n employee against whom an action is taken.” 5 U.S.C. § 7513(d). In contrast, “[a]n employee against whom an action is proposed is entitled to” the protections listed above. Id. § 7513(b). The Supreme Court recognized as much in Elgin when it observed that the CSRA offers an employee the right to a hearing before the MSPB “[i]f the agency takes final adverse action against the employee” and that the statute separately “sets out the procedures due an employee prior to final agency action.” Elgin, 567 U.S. at 6, 11. Critically, in this case, any adverse action against the plaintiffs remains “proposed.” They are thus entitled to “notice, representation by counsel, an opportunity to respond, and a written, reasoned decision from the agency” under § 7513(b), not administrative review under § 7513(d). Id. at 6. In other words, the plaintiffs 9 Case: 22-40043 Document: 00516272475 Page: 10 Date Filed: 04/07/2022 No. 22-40043 are “employees to whom the CSRA denies statutory review.” Id. at 11 (emphasis in original). Congress intended “to entirely foreclose judicial review to” such employees. Id.; Griener, 900 F.3d at 703. This construction is consonant with Congress’s purpose in enacting the CSRA, which was to establish “an integrated scheme of review.” Elgin, 567 U.S. at 14. As the facts of this case reveal, granting the plaintiffs extrastatutory review would “seriously undermine[]” that goal. See id. Allegedly, the plaintiffs who are not pursuing exception requests are “threatened with imminent discipline unless they give in and get vaccinated.” The district court concluded that those plaintiffs had ripe claims because they “face an inevitable firing.” Feds for Med. Freedom I, --- F. Supp. 3d at ----, 2022 WL 188329, at . It added that “[m]any of these plaintiffs already have received letters from their employer agencies suggesting that suspension or termination is imminent, have received letters of reprimand, or have faced other negative consequences.” Id. Accordingly, these plaintiffs’ terminations were “actual and imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Id. (quoting Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 493 (2009)). That finding, which the Government does not dispute, underscores that by filing this suit on the eve of receiving discipline, the plaintiffs seek to circumvent the CSRA’s exclusive review scheme. Permitting them to do so would “reintroduce the very potential for inconsistent decisionmaking and duplicative judicial review that the CSRA was designed to avoid.” Elgin, 567 U.S. at 14. We therefore decline their invitation. Next, the plaintiffs contend that, even if Congress intended to limit judicial review through the CSRA, Congress did not intend to limit review of their claims. Specifically, they suggest that this court should “presume that Congress [did] not intend to limit jurisdiction” here because (1) “a finding of preclusion could foreclose all meaningful judicial review,” (2) their suit is “wholly collateral to [the CSRA’s] review provisions,” and (3) their “claims 10 Case: 22-40043 Document: 00516272475 Page: 11 Date Filed: 04/07/2022 No. 22-40043 are outside the agency’s expertise.” See Cochran v. U.S. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n, 20 F.4th 194, 206 (5th Cir. 2021) (en banc) (quotation omitted). The district court agreed, holding that “[t]o deny the plaintiffs the ability to challenge the mandate pre-enforcement, in district court, is to deny them meaningful review.” Feds for Med. Freedom I, --- F. Supp. 3d at ----, 2022 WL 188329, at . On appeal, the Government maintains that these arguments are meritless. We agree with the Government. The plaintiffs assert that district court review is necessary because proceeding through the CSRA’s remedial scheme could foreclose all meaningful review. But the CSRA “merely directs that judicial review . . . shall occur in the Federal Circuit,” which is “fully capable of providing meaningful review.” Elgin, 567 U.S. at 10. In Elgin, the Supreme Court held that “even if [the MSPB] was incapable of adjudicating a constitutional claim, meaningful judicial review was still available in the court of appeals.” Cochran, 20 F.4th at 208. That was because the plaintiffs “sought substantive relief”—reinstatement, backpay, and attorney’s fees— that “would have . . . fully redressed” the harm they suffered. Id. at 208–09. In contrast, where a plaintiff asserts a claim for “structural relief” from a remedial scheme, that scheme will be declared inadequate. Id. at 208 (citing Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Acct. Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 490 (2010)). The plaintiffs here seek to avoid discipline for failing to comply with Executive Order 14043. That is a claim for substantive, not structural, relief. Indeed, the MSPB can order reinstatement and backpay to any nonexempt plaintiffs who are disciplined for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Elgin, 567 U.S. at 6 (citing 5 U.S.C. §§ 1204(a)(2), 7701(g)). And “[r]emedies for discharge under the federal civil service laws are . . . an adequate remedy for individual wrongful discharge after the fact of discharge.” Garcia v. United States, 680 F.2d 29, 31 (5th Cir. 1982). 11 Case: 22-40043 Document: 00516272475 Page: 12 Date Filed: 04/07/2022 No. 22-40043 The plaintiffs also argue that the CSRA will deny meaningful review to any of them who comply with Executive Order 14043 because they will never suffer an adverse employment action. However, the plaintiffs could have challenged an agency’s proposed action against them before filing this suit and certainly before getting vaccinated. Specifically, they could have filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel (“OSC”), an independent agency, see 5 U.S.C. § 1211, asserting that Executive Order 14043 constitutes a “prohibited personnel practice” affecting a “significant change in duties, responsibilities, or working conditions.” 4 Id. § 2302(a)(1), (a)(2)(A)(xii). The CSRA prohibits agencies from taking any “personnel action” that treats employees “without . . . proper regard for their privacy and constitutional rights.” Id. §§ 2301(b)(2), 2302(b)(12). If OSC receives a complaint and determines that a “prohibited personnel practice has occurred,” it is authorized to report that finding and to petition the MSPB for corrective action. Id. § 1214(b)(2)(B)–(C). An employee who is harmed by the MSPB’s disposition of the petition can appeal to the Federal Circuit. Id. §§ 1214(c), 7703(b)–(c). There is no dispute that the plaintiffs have not attempted to avail themselves of this potential CSRA remedy, which could provide meaningful review. 4 Although the CSRA does not define “working conditions,” the district court concluded that the “term would not encompass a requirement that employees subject themselves to an unwanted vaccination.” Feds for Med. Freedom I, --- F. Supp. 3d at ----, 2022 WL 188329, at  (citing Turner v. U.S. Agency for Glob. Media, 502 F. Supp. 3d 333, 367 (D.D.C. 2020)). But, in construing Title VII of the CSRA, the Supreme Court has stated that the term “‘working conditions’ . . . naturally refers . . . to the ‘circumstances’ or ‘state of affairs’ attendant to one’s performance of a job.” Fort Stewart Schs. v. Fed. Lab. Rels. Auth., 495 U.S. 641, 645 (1990). Executive Order 14043 qualifies as a significant change to the circumstances attending the job performance of federal employees. Indeed, the Order is explicit that whether an employee has received a COVID-19 vaccine affects “the efficiency of the civil service.” 86 Fed. Reg. at 50,989. 12 Case: 22-40043 Document: 00516272475 Page: 13 Date Filed: 04/07/2022 No. 22-40043 We also reject the plaintiffs’ argument that their claims are wholly collateral to the CSRA scheme. “[W]hether a claim is collateral to the relevant statutory-review scheme depends on whether that scheme is intended to provide the sort of relief sought by the plaintiff.” Cochran, 20 F.4th at 207. The plaintiffs emphasize that they are not challenging any individual employment actions or prior discipline, which they say is “water under the bridge.” Instead, the plaintiffs purportedly request only to have Executive Order 14043 declared void. But although the plaintiffs are not attempting to reverse any previous discipline, their challenge “ultimately [seeks] to avoid compliance with”—and discipline for violating—the Order. Id. at 207. Put differently, this case is “the vehicle by which they seek to” avoid imminent “adverse employment action,” which “is precisely the type of personnel action regularly adjudicated by the MSPB and the Federal Circuit within the CSRA scheme.” Elgin, 567 U.S. at 22. At bottom, the relief the plaintiffs seek is, in effect, to avoid discharge for refusing to comply with Executive Order 14043. This sort of employment-related relief is “precisely the kind[] of relief that the CSRA empowers the MSPB and the Federal Circuit to provide.” Id. Finally, the plaintiffs’ claims do not exceed the MSPB’s expertise. To show otherwise, the plaintiffs state only that their claims involve constitutional issues and “questions of administrative law, which the courts are at no disadvantage in answering.” See Cochran, 20 F.4th at 207–08 (quoting Free Enter. Fund, 561 U.S. at 491). But the Supreme Court has recognized that “many threshold questions . . . may accompany a constitutional claim” and that “the MSPB can apply its expertise” to those questions. Elgin, 567 U.S. at 22. Further, there are often “preliminary questions unique to the employment context [that could] obviate the need to address the constitutional challenge.” Id. at 22–23. For example, an employing agency may only take an adverse action against an employee “for 13 Case: 22-40043 Document: 00516272475 Page: 14 Date Filed: 04/07/2022 No. 22-40043 such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service.” 5 U.S.C. §§ 7503(a), 7513(a). If the MSPB, reviewing an employee’s appeal, determines that the employee suffered adverse action inconsistent with that requirement, it could order corrective action on that basis and avoid any other issues. Additionally, “an employee’s appeal may involve other statutory or constitutional claims that the MSPB routinely considers,” any of which “might fully dispose of the case” if the employee receives a favorable decision from the MSPB. Elgin, 567 U.S. at 23. The MSPB thus has expertise that it can “br[ing] to bear” on the plaintiffs’ claims, and “we see no reason to conclude that Congress intended to exempt such claims from exclusive review before the MSPB and the Federal Circuit.” See id.