Court Opinion

ID: 9495190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:56:57.938926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:52.698943
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The Administrative Procedure Act provides that a “person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.” 5 U.S.C. § 702 (emphasis added). The three plaintiffs, civilian employees of the Defense Department at the Youngstown-Warren Air Force Base, brought this action as aggrieved parties under the Administrative Procedure Act to review a contracting-out decision. The employees are in the “vehicle maintenance group” at the Base and allege that an award of a Defense Department contract to Griffin Services, Inc. will cause them to “lose their federal jobs unless” the award is enjoined. The *468District Court held that they lack standing because their claim does not satisfy either the “injury-in-fact” test for Article III standing or the APA “zone of interest” test for “Prudential APA standing” as outlined in NCUA v. First National Bank & Trust, 522 U.S. 479, 488, 118 S.Ct. 927, 140 L.Ed.2d 1 (1998). Such contracting-out or privatization decisions are governed by Circular A-76, adopted in 1983 by the Office of Management and Budget for its subsidiary Office of Federal Procurement, pursuant to the Office of Federal Procurement Act Amendments of 1979, 41 U.S.C. § 401. Section 6g of Circular A-76 provides that when contracting-out decisions are made: “Directly affected parties are Federal employees and their representative organizations and bidders or offerors on the instant solicitation” (emphasis in original). The precise question here, a question not expressly addressed in the District Court, is whether this provision of Circular A-76 defining Federal employees as “directly affected parties” under the Procurement Act is sufficient to make federal employees who are about to lose then-jobs “adversely affected or aggrieved” parties under the Procurement Act and APA. The contracting-out decision in this case may turn out to be fine on the merits, and the plaintiffs will simply have to suffer the consequences. But to say they are not “adversely affected” by agency action abolishing their jobs defies common sense as well as the position and interpretation of the White House — embodied in Circular 76-A — about who is “directly affected” by such decisions. For this reason, as well as the reasons generally stated in Judge Mikva’s dissent in National Federation of Federal Employees v. Cheney, 883 F.2d 1038, 1054 (D.C.Cir.1989), I would grant standing.