Court Opinion

ID: 9391838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-03 15:00:53.625274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:19.145825
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1012   Document: 18     Page: 1   Filed: 05/03/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                EDWARD J. SIMPKINS,
                     Petitioner

                            v.

      MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                    Respondent
              ______________________

                       2023-1012
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-3443-22-0190-I-1.
                 ______________________

                  Decided: May 3, 2023
                 ______________________

    EDWARD J. SIMPKINS, Greenbelt, MD, pro se.

     ELIZABETH W. FLETCHER, Office of General Counsel,
 United States Merit Systems Protection Board, Washing-
 ton, DC, for respondent. Also represented by ALLISON JANE
 BOYLE, KATHERINE MICHELLE SMITH.
                   ______________________

     Before PROST, REYNA, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
Case: 23-1012    Document: 18      Page: 2    Filed: 05/03/2023

 2                                           SIMPKINS   v. MSPB

      Edward J. Simpkins appeals a decision of the Merit
 Systems Protection Board (“Board”) dismissing his appeal
 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Because the Board
 properly dismissed Mr. Simpkins’s appeal, we affirm.
                        BACKGROUND
      Mr. Simpkins was removed from his position as a ben-
 efits specialist at the Department of Labor (“DOL”) for
 cause in early 2009. See S.A. 46. 1 Later that year,
 Mr. Simpkins and DOL entered into a settlement agree-
 ment, changing his removal to a resignation. S.A. 46.
 Mr. Simpkins then submitted his resignation. However,
 because of the settlement’s timing, Mr. Simpkins’s final
 pay card from DOL—submitted on January 15, 2009—
 identifies his status as “removed” instead of “resigned.” See
 S.A. 31–32.
     On January 20, 2022, Mr. Simpkins filed an appeal
 with the Board. S.A. 24, 28. He asserted that an Office of
 Personnel Management (“OPM”) action taken on Janu-
 ary 6, 2022, constituted (1) a negative suitability determi-
 nation; (2) an improper employment practice; or (3) a
 failure to reinstate or reemploy. S.A. 25. Based on the
 date, the purported OPM action is a response letter from
 OPM to Senator Van Hollen, who had contacted OPM at
 Mr. Simpkins’s request. See S.A. 31–32. According to that
 letter, Mr. Simpkins was seeking correction of his final
 DOL pay card to list his status as “resigned” instead of “re-
 moved.”     See S.A. 31. 2      OPM acknowledged that

     1  We cite to the supplemental appendix attached to
 Respondent’s brief (“S.A.”) for ease of reference because
 Mr. Simpkins’s appendix is not paginated.
     2  Mr. Simpkins’s final notification of personnel ac-
 tion—retroactively dated to April 16, 2009, per the settle-
 ment agreement—correctly reports Mr. Simpkins’s
 resignation. See S.A. 44; S.A. 31–32; S.A. 46.
Case: 23-1012         Document: 18   Page: 3   Filed: 05/03/2023

 SIMPKINS   v. MSPB                                           3

 Mr. Simpkins’s final pay card lists Mr. Simpkins as re-
 moved but clarified that that was “because it was com-
 pleted before [Mr. Simpkins] resigned”—i.e., after
 Mr. Simpkins’s removal but before the settlement agree-
 ment. S.A. 32. OPM noted that “OPM cannot make any
 changes to” that final pay card because Mr. Simpkins did
 not retire with OPM; only DOL can change Mr. Simpkins’s
 final pay card to reflect his resignation. S.A. 31–32.
     The Board dismissed Mr. Simpkins’s appeal of the Jan-
 uary 2022 OPM letter for lack of jurisdiction. S.A. 1. The
 Board determined that Mr. Simpkins “failed to present a
 nonfrivolous allegation that he was subject to any [1] suit-
 ability action, [2] employment practice violation, or [3] fail-
 ure to reinstate or reemploy following compensable injury.”
 S.A. 4; see S.A. 4–6.
    Mr. Simpkins appeals, and we have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).
                            DISCUSSION
     We review the Board’s determination that it lacked ju-
 risdiction without deference. Mouton-Miller v. MSPB,
 985 F.3d 864, 868 (Fed. Cir. 2021). Because the Board
 properly concluded that Mr. Simpkins failed to allege facts
 sufficient to support Board jurisdiction, we affirm.
      The Board has limited jurisdiction, but, as relevant
 here, it can review: (1) “a suitability action against a per-
 son,” see 5 C.F.R. § 731.501(a); (2) an “employment prac-
 tice . . . violat[ion]” of 5 C.F.R. § 300.103, see id.
 § 300.104(a); and (3) “an agency’s failure to restore . . . an
 employee following a leave of absence” after recovering
 from a compensable injury, see id. §§ 353.304(a),
 1201.3(a)(4).      The Board properly determined that
 Mr. Simpkins did not allege facts that, if proven, could es-
 tablish jurisdiction by the Board under any of these three
 grounds.
Case: 23-1012     Document: 18     Page: 4    Filed: 05/03/2023

 4                                           SIMPKINS   v. MSPB

      First, the Board properly concluded that Mr. Simpkins
 failed to allege sufficient facts to show that the OPM letter
 could constitute an appealable suitability action. Appeala-
 ble suitability actions are defined in § 731.203(a) as cancel-
 lation of eligibility, removal, cancellation of reinstatement
 eligibility, and debarment. Id. § 731.203(a); see Ricci v.
 MSPB, 953 F.3d 753, 757 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (citing 5 C.F.R.
 § 731.203(a)). Mr. Simpkins asserts that he hasn’t been
 able to obtain employment because his final DOL pay card
 shows “removed” instead of “resigned” and that, as a result,
 he has been de facto debarred from federal employment.
 See S.A. 5–6. But as the Board correctly noted, it does not
 have jurisdiction over such de facto suitability action
 claims. Ricci, 953 F.3d at 758; see S.A. 5.
      Second, the Board properly determined that Mr. Simp-
 kins failed to allege sufficient facts that the OPM letter
 could constitute a violation of the requirements set forth in
 5 C.F.R. § 300.103. Mr. Simpkins did not provide any ex-
 planation as to what the alleged employment violation by
 OPM was. Indeed, it appears that the object of Mr. Simp-
 kins’s complaint has nothing to do with OPM. We under-
 stand Mr. Simpkins’s appeal to concern DOL’s failure to
 retroactively correct Mr. Simpkins’s final pay card to re-
 flect that, as an official matter, Mr. Simpkins resigned.
     And finally, the Board properly concluded that
 Mr. Simpkins failed to allege sufficient facts that the OPM
 letter could constitute a failure to restore Mr. Simpkins to
 federal employment following recovery from a compensable
 injury. 5 C.F.R. §§ 353.304, 1201.3(a)(4). Mr. Simpkins
 does not allege that he suffered any kind of compensable
 injury. Injury, as defined by 5 C.F.R. § 353.102 and
 5 U.S.C. § 8101(5), includes, “in addition to injury by acci-
 dent, a disease proximately caused by the employment, and
 damage to or destruction of” certain medical devices.
 5 U.S.C. § 8101(5) (emphasis added); see 5 C.F.R. § 353.102
 (defining injury with reference to 5 U.S.C. § 8101(5)).
 Mr. Simpkins notes that he is a disabled veteran and
Case: 23-1012          Document: 18    Page: 5   Filed: 05/03/2023

 SIMPKINS    v. MSPB                                           5

 cancer survivor, but he does not allege that those facts re-
 late to his prior employment as a benefits specialist at
 DOL.
     We are not unsympathetic to Mr. Simpkins’s concerns
 about his final pay card, but, as OPM has informed
 Mr. Simpkins, “[i]f [Mr. Simpkins] would like his final [pay
 card] corrected to reflect” his resignation, “then [Mr. Simp-
 kins] must contact his former agency”—DOL—for the relief
 he seeks. See S.A. 32.
                            CONCLUSION
     We have considered Mr. Simpkins’s remaining argu-
 ments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea-
 sons, we affirm.
                            AFFIRMED
                               COSTS
 No costs.