Court Opinion

ID: 9471435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:32:33.46753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:24.671709
License: Public Domain

JACK R. MILLER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I cannot agree that this court lacks jurisdiction to review the MSPB’s decision that the MSPB does not have jurisdiction over this case. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction over any “appeal from a final order or final decision”1 of the MSPB pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1) except in “[c]ases of discrimination subject to the provisions of section 7702.” 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(2).2
*808This court’s recent opinion in Rosano v. Department of the Navy, 699 F.2d 1315, 1318 (Fed.Cir.1983), is clear precedent for my position that this court has jurisdiction to entertain appeals from MSPB dismissals for lack of jurisdiction.
Resolution of this case turns on the correctness of the board’s determination that the board did not have jurisdiction of the case. It is to that question we now turn, for, however the board or the court resolves it, this court has the power and duty to make that determination. [Emphasis added.]
See also Mastriano v. Federal Aviation Administration, 714 F.2d 1152 (Fed.Cir.1983), in which Judge Skelton joined the court’s opinion.
The majority opinion relies on Hadley v. Department of the Navy, No. 7-80, order (Ct.Cl. Nov. 13, 1981). There the Court of Claims held that it had no jurisdiction over back pay claims based on discrimination. It relied on Dunn v. United States Department of Agriculture, 654 F.2d 64 (Ct.Cl. 1981), for the proposition that the Court of Claims did not have jurisdiction over cases not involving a claim for money, and on Brown v. General Services Administration, 425 U.S. 820, 96 S.Ct. 1961, 48 L.Ed.2d 402 (1976), for the proposition that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided the exclusive remedy for discrimination cases. I recognize that the Civil Rights Act, referred to by 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(2), provides the correct route for resolving discrimination cases on the merits. However, that act does not resolve such threshold questions as what constitutes a “discrimination case’’ and how the limits of MSPB jurisdiction should be defined. With respect to the Dunn case, it is clear from Rosano and from the Federal Courts Improvement Act that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is not limited to rendering money judgments and that Dunn is not applicable to this court.3
In both Hadley and Richardson v. Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons, No. 40-81, order (Ct.Cl. Jan. 29, 1982), which followed the rationale of Hadley that the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims was governed by the Tucker Act, the court declined to dismiss where dismissal by the MSPB for lack of jurisdiction was appealed, but, instead, transferred the cases to circuit courts of appeals. This was consistent with the former version of § 7703(b)(1), which stated:
Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this subsection, a petition to review a final order or final decision of the Board shall be filed in the Court of Claims or a United States court of appeals .... [Emphasis added.]
In transferring these cases, the Court of Claims recognized the limits placed upon its jurisdiction by the Tucker Act, as enunciated by Dunn. However, Dunn is not applicable to this court, just as it was not applicable to a transferee circuit court of appeals. This is not a situation in which jurisdiction has been clearly placed in the district courts in the past. Further, the Court of Claims appears to have recognized that courts of appeals were not divested of their jurisdiction over appeals from MSPB final decisions by the reference in section 7703(b)(1) to the exception of paragraph (2) for “[c]ases of discrimination.” Contrary to the majority view, the Federal Courts Improvement Act did change a critical aspect of our jurisdiction. It expressly replaced the “Court of Claims or a United States court of appeals” with a single court — the “Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.” This court, as the statutory successor in MSPB appeals to the “Court of Claims or a United *809States court of appeals,” is equally empowered to review MSPB appeals dealing solely with jurisdictional issues, unhampered by the section 7702(b)(2) exception for “[cjases of discrimination.” Thus, our jurisdiction is not identical to that of the old Court of Claims, but has been expanded to encompass appeals which were formerly taken from the MSPB to the other circuit courts of appeals.
The majority opinion would deprive petitioner and others similarly situated from a previously available judicial review. Prior to the Federal Courts Improvement Act, MSPB appeals that were dismissed by the Court of Claims because of its own peculiar jurisdictional limitations could be transferred to a circuit court of appeals, despite the presence of an allegation of discrimination, for judicial review of the narrow question of whether the MSPB had properly dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The majority opinion says that now, due to enactment of that Act, such judicial review has simply disappeared. In Rosano, this court responded to a similar argument as follows:
If Dunn applied, then by removing all jurisdiction over board appeals from the other circuits and granting it exclusively to the Federal Circuit, the Federal Courts Improvement Act would have created a situation in which there is no judicial review available for non-monetary board cases. Putting aside any constitutional problems with this arrangement, there is a strong presumption against unreviewability in the absence of a specific congressional directive. Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U.S. 560, 567, 95 S.Ct. 1851, 1857, 44 L.Ed.2d 377 (1975); Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 140, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1511, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967).
Rosano, 699 F.2d at 1318 n. 13. There is no evidence that Congress intended that a class of petitioners who wish to contest the MSPB's dismissal of their cases for lack of jurisdiction would be deprived by the Federal Courts Improvement Act of the judicial review they once had.
The majority cites Williams v. Department of the Army, 715 F.2d 1485 (Fed.Cir.1983), as strengthening its position, when, in fact, all that Williams holds is that a mixed case having a discrimination claim and a non-discrimination claim must be tried as a whole in a district court.4 A case under section 7702, according to Williams must involve a specific type of action against an employee which may be appealed to the MSPB and an allegation of discrimination. Here, we have neither. The majority admits that petitioner’s probationary status precludes him from bringing a claim of discrimination based on national origin under section 7702. Further, petitioner cannot contest the merits of his removal (appealable adverse action) because he has not yet been able to argue it below. All that is on appeal here is the threshold question of MSPB jurisdiction. Therefore, this cannot be a mixed case under section 7702.
This view is consistent with the interpretation by Williams of Poppos v. Department of the Navy, No. 81-81, order (Ct.Cl. August 20, 1982), involving the question of jurisdiction over a probationary employee’s appeal. (Racial and age discrimination were alleged, as well as discrimination for partisan political reasons.) Williams states that Poppos “did not become a mixed case under § 7702 because it failed to pass the first criterion of ‘an action which the employee ... may appeal to the board.’ ” Williams, 715 F.2d at 1488.
The majority’s view seemingly rests on the theory that a petitioner, whose case is wrongfully dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the MSPB, still, at least theoretically,5 can pursue the administrative remedies nec*810essary to support filing suit in federal district court. Thus, petitioners with the slightest jurisdictional doubts would be encouraged to simultaneously pursue both avenues, leading to an increase in the workload for the MSPB, federal district courts, and federal agencies. Moreover, once a petitioner, whose ease was wrongfully dismissed by the MSPB, reached the district court, that court might feel constrained to transfer the case back to the MSPB, resulting not only in a waste of time and resources, but also in lack of uniformity as each of some 94 different federal district courts (with appeals to their respective circuits) proceeds to define, the metes and bounds of MSPB jurisdiction. Congress sought to avoid such consequences by consolidating appellate jurisdiction over MSPB cases in a single court — the Federal Circuit.6 ’
The decision of the board should be affirmed.

. 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).

. A number of questions remain to be settled in drawing the line between what is, and what is not, a “discrimination case.” In Meehan v. United States Postal Service, 718 F.2d 1069 *808(Fed.Cir.1983), this court determined that a mere statement on a standard MSPB appeal form that complainant was working in a “predominantly black facility” did not rise to the level of a “contention” of racial discrimination; further, that no evidence of racial discrimination was present. The court concluded that it had jurisdiction over the appeal since the case involved only “nondiscrimination” issues.

. “Dunn applies to an aspect of Court of Claims jurisdiction which was expressly changed by the Federal Courts Improvement Act in creating the Federal Circuit. Dunn need not be overruled for it is simply inapplicable; to the extent that it is overruled, Congress has done it.” Rosano, 699 F.2d at 1318.

. Williams cautions that its holding “is limited to situations in which the employee is challenging judicially the board’s determinations of both the discrimination and non-discrimination issues.” Williams, 715 F.2d at 1491. (Emphasis added.)

. This theory assumes that petitioner has had the foresight to submit a discrimination complaint to an Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor within 30 days following the alleged discriminatory act and has continued to timely meet the stringent procedural requirements of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 while awaiting the outcome of the MSPB appeal.

. The same comment is applicable to the majority’s suggestion that a federal district court would be the appropriate forum if transfer were contemplated.