Court Opinion

ID: 9491357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:11:49.753036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:41.210678
License: Public Domain

KEETON, District Judge,
dissenting in part.
The outcome on the merits that results from the Per Curiam affirmance is quite likely to be an appropriate outcome because all parties consent. Indeed, they may have done so already and, if not, might do so quickly on remand to avoid pouring more resources into this ill-starred controversy.
A distinct possibility remains, however, that this roughly $25,000 award of damages (including some but not all interest claimed) is not the most appropriate outcome on the merits. I respectfully dissent in part because in my view we should not order this result on the record before us. Doing so disregards on preelusionary grounds two possibilities that we should take into account. First, if ordered to reach a final disposition on plaintiff-appellant’s claim, the Department of Agriculture might award him more or less, and the district court on review might affirm that different award. Second, on the record before us, a doubt remains as to the jurisdiction of the district court to adjudicate the merits de novo rather than limiting itself to ordering the DOA to reach a final disposition and then judicially reviewing the agency decision if either party so requested.
In general, United States district courts are courts having only the limited jurisdiction conferred upon them by the Constitution or by constitutionally authorized Acts of Congress, signed by the President or enacted oyer his veto. Conduct of the parties to a controversy that might warrant preclusion of other kinds of contentions cannot bar a challenge to subject-matter jurisdiction, or authorize the district court to forego its own obligation to take note of relevant limitations on its subject-matter jurisdiction even if no party has, raised the issue.
The jurisdictional doubt that concerns me is based on what Professor Geoffrey Hazard, as Director of the American Law Institute, referred to as “ambivalence” of constitutional and statutory mandates, and interpretive precedents, about “the scope of jurisdiction of the federal district courts.” American Law Institute, Federal Judicial Code Revision Project, Tentative Draft No. 2 ix (April 14, 1998). The more particular concern relevant to this appeal arises from tension between the possibly decisive implications of Chandler v. Roudebush, 425 U.S. 840, 96 S.Ct. 1949, 48 L.Ed.2d 416 (1976), which the Per Curiam opinion takes as decisive of jurisdiction in this case, and other statutes and precedents. Chandler came to the Court before the statute that defined the trial court’s jurisdiction was amended to confer on EEOC an authority like that the statute had conferred on the Civil Service Commission before amendment. Both the earlier statute and the amended statute authorized the agency to issue regulations. Most of the regulations issued by EEOC track those previously issued by CSC, but EEOC also issued additional regulations regarding the agency’s (here DOA’s) obligation to reach a final decision. See 29 C.F.R. § 1613.281(d) (1988) (An agency decision is final “only when the agency makes a determination on all of the issues in the complaint ....”); see also 29 C.F.R. § 1613.221 (1988).
The policy choice about whether district courts shall have plenary jurisdiction over the merits of employment disputes that have previously been before an agency is one preferably resolved by Act of Congress. Especially is this so in view of current controversy *39over many other proposals for expanding or limiting the jurisdiction and workload of federal courts. One may hope that Congress will take note of conflicting implications regarding the relatively smaller concern involved in this appeal as well as the issues of larger consequence that are being explored in the ALI Project.
In any event, in these circumstances I believe the wiser course is not to reach any doubtful issue about subject-matter jurisdiction that might be resolved more easily on a better record. I favor a remand to the district court for further proceedings rather than affirmance on the present record.