Court Opinion

ID: 9396376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-22 14:00:59.666806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:16.480643
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-2246   Document: 21     Page: 1   Filed: 05/22/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                   ERIC WILLIAMS,
                      Petitioner

                            v.

            DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,
                     Respondent
               ______________________

                       2022-2246
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-3330-18-0427-I-1.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: May 22, 2023
                 ______________________

    ERIC WILLIAMS, North Charleston, SC, pro se.

     KELLY GEDDES, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
 Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
 ton, DC, for respondent. Also represented by BRIAN M.
 BOYNTON, STEVEN JOHN GILLINGHAM, PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY.
                  ______________________

  Before MOORE, Chief Judge, TARANTO and CHEN, Circuit
                        Judges.
Case: 22-2246    Document: 21      Page: 2    Filed: 05/22/2023

 2                                       WILLIAMS   v. DEFENSE

 PER CURIAM.
    Eric Williams appeals from the final decision of the
 Merit Systems Protection Board (Board) denying his re-
 quest for corrective action under the Veterans Employment
 Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA). For the following rea-
 sons, we reverse.
                        BACKGROUND
      In February 2018, Mr. Williams, a preference-eligible
 veteran, applied for a contract specialist position with the
 Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Mr. Williams submitted
 several documents with his application, including his re-
 sume, transcript, military discharge form, and Standard
 Form 50, which detailed his previous federal service as a
 contract specialist. As part of the application, Mr. Williams
 was required to complete an assessment questionnaire
 with several questions regarding his qualifications. Ques-
 tion 2 of the assessment read: “From the descriptions be-
 low, select the letter that BEST describes the highest level
 of education and/or experience that you fully possess in or-
 der to minimally qualify for this position. Read all of the
 statements completely before making your selection.” In
 response to Question 2, Mr. Williams selected Answer E: “I
 do not possess the required level of specialized experience
 and/or education to qualify for this position.” Because he
 selected this response, the online staffing system automat-
 ically deemed him ineligible for the position and the DLA
 did not consider the remainder of his application materials.
     Upon receiving notice that he was deemed ineligible,
 Mr. Williams filed a complaint with the United States De-
 partment of Labor (DOL) alleging the DLA had violated his
 rights pursuant to the VEOA. DOL denied his claim, and
 he appealed to the Board. In an initial decision, the admin-
 istrative judge determined Mr. Williams failed to show
 DLA violated his veteran’s preference rights. The Board
Case: 22-2246     Document: 21      Page: 3    Filed: 05/22/2023

 WILLIAMS   v. DEFENSE                                        3

 affirmed with modifications. 1 Mr. Williams appeals. We
 have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).
                          DISCUSSION
     We must affirm the Board’s decision unless it is (1) ar-
 bitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not
 in accordance with the law; (2) obtained without proce-
 dures required by law, rule, or regulation having been fol-
 lowed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence. 5 U.S.C.
 § 7703(c). We review the Board’s statutory and regulatory
 interpretations de novo. Augustine v. Dep’t of Veterans
 Affs., 503 F.3d 1362, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
      Mr. Williams argues the DLA violated 5 U.S.C.
 § 3311(2) by failing to credit him for all experience material
 to the position. Appellant’s Informal Opening Br. at 2–5.
 Section 3311(2) provides: “In examinations for the compet-
 itive service in which experience is an element of qualifica-
 tion, a preference eligible is entitled to credit . . . for all
 experience material to the position for which [he is] exam-
 ined, including experience gained in religious, civic, wel-
 fare, service, and organizational activities.” 5 U.S.C.
 § 3311(2). The rules implementing this statute require
 that “an agency shall credit a preference eligible . . . with
 all valuable experience.” 5 C.F.R. § 302.302(d). The Board
 determined the DLA had not violated these provisions be-
 cause the application instructions did not restrict Mr. Wil-
 liams from considering this relevant experience in
 responding to Question 2’s inquiry of whether he

     1   The Board determined the administrative judge
 procedurally erred by failing to notify Mr. Williams that his
 hearing request was denied, failing to set a date on which
 the record would close, and denying him the opportunity to
 submit rebuttal evidence. After reviewing all of Mr. Wil-
 liams’ submissions, however, the Board concluded these
 procedural errors did not prejudice his substantive rights.
Case: 22-2246     Document: 21     Page: 4    Filed: 05/22/2023

 4                                        WILLIAMS   v. DEFENSE

 considered himself qualified. S. Appx. 3; see also S. Appx.
 14. Thus, the Board concluded, to the extent Mr. Williams
 did not consider these experiences in responding to Ques-
 tion 2, that error is attributable to him, not the DLA. S.
 Appx. 3. While that may be factually true, the statute and
 rules require more of the DLA.
     Section 3311(2) requires the agency to credit all expe-
 rience material to the position. Kirkendall v. Dep’t of Army,
 573 F.3d 1318, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Indeed,
     The court has explained that “[a]t the very least,
     ‘credited’ must mean ‘considered.’” In Kirkendall,
     the agency had refused to consider military experi-
     ence submitted in a document separate from an ap-
     plication, and the court held that the agency’s
     refusal to look at a relevant document is a statutory
     violation of § 3311(2)’s guarantee of credit for all
     material experience. Kirkendall requires not only a
     complete record, but consideration of that entire
     record.
 Miller v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., 818 F.3d 1361, 1366 (Fed.
 Cir. 2016) (internal citations omitted) (quoting Kirkendall,
 573 F.3d at 1324).
     As we made clear in Kirkendall and Miller, the agency
 must consider all material experience. The DLA failed to
 do so here. It is undisputed that the DLA did not consider
 any of Mr. Williams’ application materials detailing his rel-
 evant experience, as the online staffing system automati-
 cally deemed him ineligible for the position. Although Mr.
 Williams was declared ineligible based on his response to
 Question 2, this response does not excuse the DLA’s failure
 to comply with § 3311(2). The statute requires “considera-
 tion of that entire record,” not only the response to a single
 question in an application. See id. (emphasis added). The
 DLA cannot give dispositive weight to a single question-
 naire response without considering the rest of the applica-
 tion materials, which contained information about Mr.
Case: 22-2246     Document: 21      Page: 5   Filed: 05/22/2023

 WILLIAMS   v. DEFENSE                                      5

 Williams’ experience. See, e.g., Kirkendall, 573 F.3d at
 1324 (holding the agency violated § 3311(2) by ignoring the
 preference-eligible veteran’s military documents submit-
 ted with his application simply because the agency’s prac-
 tice required that all information be in a single document).
 In fact, the DLA’s application form expressly stated all
 questionnaire responses “are subject to evaluation and ver-
 ification.” S. Appx. 21; see also S. Appx. 18 (“Your applica-
 tion package will be reviewed to ensure you meet the basic
 eligibility and qualifications requirements . . . .”).
     While the DLA was not obligated to go beyond Mr. Wil-
 liams’ application to determine whether Mr. Williams was
 qualified for the position, it was obligated to independently
 assess Mr. Williams’ qualifications based on the materials
 included in his application—materials that, in this case, all
 parties appear to agree demonstrate Mr. Williams met the
 minimum qualifications. See Appellant’s Informal Open-
 ing Br. at 6. The DLA may not abdicate its statutory and
 regulatory duty to credit a preference-eligible veteran for
 all his relevant experience by shifting the burden to Mr.
 Williams to assess his qualifications.
     We therefore reverse the Board’s final decision. The
 DLA violated Mr. Williams’ rights under VEOA, and he is
 therefore entitled to relief. To be clear, we hold only that
 the DLA violated Mr. Williams’ right to have his experience
 credited as part of his application. We express no opinion
 as to whether Mr. Williams should have been placed in a
 specific quality category in DLA’s category ranking system
 or whether he should have been awarded the job. We re-
 mand to the Board to craft the appropriate relief. See
 Kirkendall, 573 F.3d at 1325.
              REVERSED AND REMANDED
                            COSTS
 Costs to Mr. Williams.