Court Opinion

ID: 9395157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-17 14:00:45.212258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:05.979514
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1212     Document: 23     Page: 1    Filed: 05/17/2023

            NOTE: This order is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                   ______________________

                CHARLES DERECK ADAMS,
                       Petitioner

                              v.

       MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                     Respondent
               ______________________

                         2023-1212
                   ______________________

      Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in Nos. DC-3443-22-0385-I-1 and DC-3443-22-0387-
 I-1.
              -------------------------------------------------

                CHARLES DERECK ADAMS,
                       Petitioner

                              v.

       MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                     Respondent
               ______________________

                         2023-1213
                   ______________________
Case: 23-1212     Document: 23     Page: 2    Filed: 05/17/2023

 2                                              ADAMS   v. MSPB

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-3443-22-0386-I-1.
            -------------------------------------------------

                CHARLES DERECK ADAMS,
                       Petitioner

                              v.

       MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                     Respondent
               ______________________

                         2023-1214
                   ______________________

      Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in Nos. DC-3443-22-0385-I-1 and DC-3443-22-0387-
 I-1.
              -------------------------------------------------

                  CHARLES D. ADAMS,
                      Petitioner

                              v.

       MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                     Respondent
               ______________________

                         2023-1215
                   ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-3443-22-0388-I-1.
                 ______________________

 PER CURIAM.
Case: 23-1212      Document: 23   Page: 3    Filed: 05/17/2023

 ADAMS   v. MSPB                                           3

                         ORDER
    Having considered the parties’ responses to this court’s
 January 30, 2023, show cause order, we summarily affirm.
     Charles Dereck Adams served as an Information Tech-
 nology Specialist with the Missile Defense Agency of the
 Department of Defense. His position required him to have
 and maintain a Top-Secret security clearance. In 2010,
 Mr. Adams’ security clearance was revoked, resulting in
 his removal from the agency. As relevant here, Mr. Adams
 appealed his removal to the Merit Systems Protection
 Board (“Board”). The Board concluded that it lacked juris-
 diction to review the merits of the agency’s decision to re-
 move Mr. Adams for failure to maintain the required
 security clearance, which we affirmed. See Adams v. Dep’t
 of Def., 688 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
     In April and May 2022, Mr. Adams initiated the four
 above-captioned Board proceedings challenging the revoca-
 tion of his security clearance as discriminatory and the re-
 sult of a biased process. 1 In the two matters underlying
 Appeal Nos. 2023-1213 and 2023-1215, the Board dis-
 missed for lack of jurisdiction. In the two matters under-
 lying Appeal Nos. 2023-1212 and 2023-1214, the Board
 dismissed because the appeals raised materially identical
 claims to the already-pending appeals. Because Mr. Ad-
 ams raised a discrimination claim before the Board and
 was interested in seeking judicial review of that claim, we
 directed the parties to address our jurisdiction.
     We have jurisdiction to review a final decision from the
 Board except in “[c]ases of discrimination subject to the
 provisions of [5 U.S.C. §] 7702,” which are instead brought

    1   Mr. Adams had filed a materially similar appeal
 with the Board in April 2021, which was recently denied.
 See Adams v. Dep’t of Def., MSPB No. DC-0752-21-0372-
 I-1.
Case: 23-1212     Document: 23      Page: 4    Filed: 05/17/2023

 4                                               ADAMS   v. MSPB

 in district court. 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1)(A), (b)(2); Perry v.
 Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 137 S. Ct. 1975, 1984 (2017). For a
 “case[] of discrimination [to be] subject to the provisions of
 section 7702,” it must involve both (1) “an action which the
 employee [ ] may appeal to the” Board and (2) an “al-
 leg[ation] that a basis for the action was [covered] discrim-
 ination,” § 7702(a)(1). Here, Mr. Adams did not bring
 Board proceedings under § 7702 because he did not raise a
 non-frivolous basis to invoke the Board’s jurisdiction.
      Mr. Adams’ removal action was resolved in 2012, Ad-
 ams, 688 F.3d 1330, and the Board clearly lacks jurisdic-
 tion to solely review the manner in which the security
 clearance revocation proceeding was conducted. It has long
 been settled that “[a] denial of a security clearance is
 not . . . an ‘adverse action,’ and by its own force is not sub-
 ject to Board review,” Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518,
 530 (1988). See Hesse v. Dep’t of State, 217 F.3d 1372,
 1376–77 (Fed. Cir. 2000). These petitions also seem to in-
 volve the same issue as resolved in our earlier decision,
 which is collateral estoppel as to the Board’s jurisdiction
 relating to adjudication of his security clearance. See Ad-
 ams, 688 F.3d at 1334. In any event—and as already ex-
 plained to Mr. Adams in his prior appeal—“neither this
 court nor the [Board] has authority to review the charge
 that retaliation and discrimination were the reasons for
 revocation of the security clearance.” Id.
     It follows that Mr. Adams’ petitions are not “[c]ases of
 discrimination subject to the provisions of [§] 7702,”
 § 7703(b)(2), but instead fall within this court’s jurisdiction
 under § 7703(b)(1)(A). See Perry, 137 S. Ct. at 1984 (hold-
 ing that a “nonfrivolous” allegation under § 7702 channels
 judicial review to district court); cf. Granado v. Dep’t of
 Just., 721 F.2d 804, 807 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (dismissing peti-
 tion for review for lack of jurisdiction where the allegation
 of Board jurisdiction was not found to be frivolous).
Case: 23-1212      Document: 23    Page: 5     Filed: 05/17/2023

 ADAMS   v. MSPB                                             5

      It further follows that summary affirmance is appro-
 priate because “no substantial question regarding the out-
 come of the appeal exists.” Joshua v. United States, 17 F.3d
 378, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1994). The Board was clearly correct in
 its decisions in Appeal Nos. 2023-1213 and 2023-1215 that
 it lacked jurisdiction over Mr. Adams’ appeals. Summary
 affirmance of the dismissal in Appeal Nos. 2023-1212 and
 2023-1214 is likewise appropriate because those cases in-
 volved materially similar allegations of Board jurisdiction. 2
     Accordingly,
     IT IS ORDERED THAT:
     (1) The decisions of the Board are summarily affirmed.
     (2) All pending motions are denied as moot.
     (3) Each side shall bear its own costs.
                                     FOR THE COURT

 May 17, 2023                        /s/ Peter R. Marksteiner
    Date                             Peter R. Marksteiner
                                     Clerk of Court

     2    Under the circumstances, even if we were to con-
 clude that we lacked jurisdiction, we would nonetheless de-
 cline to transfer these cases because it would not be in the
 interest of justice under 28 U.S.C. § 1631 for the reasons
 provided above. Cf. Campbell v. McCarthy, 952 F.3d 193,
 203 (4th Cir. 2020) (“[W]e have never discerned an unmis-
 takable expression of purpose by Congress in Title VII of
 the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to subject security clearance
 decisions to judicial scrutiny.” (internal quotation marks,
 brackets, and citation omitted)).