Court Opinion

ID: 9486682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:56:19.037083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:52.372181
License: Public Domain

KAREN LeCRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Circuit precedent, particularly the holding in American Fed’n of Gov’t Employees v. FLRA, 778 F.2d 850 (D.C.Cir.1985) (“AFGE ”), leads me to concur, albeit reluctantly, in the decision to reverse and remand. Nevertheless, our holding sidesteps a significant if not dispositive issue, namely a correct and fair explanation of the relationship between the “head of the agency” language of 5 U.S.C. § 7114(c)(2) and the “at the election of the agency” language of 5 U.S.C. § 7106(b)(1) when the “agency” election is made by the Activity. The author of the majority opinion noted this very issue in AFGE, 778 F.2d at 853 n. 6 (“[w]e express no view, for example, on whether the head of the agency is bound when the agency’s negotiators elect to negotiate an issue pursuant to § 7106(b).”).
Although the majority maintains that the Act “could not be clearer on this point” and that “Congress has spoken to the precise issue in question,” I think that we are once again avoiding the issue this court felt it was unnecessary to reach in AFGE.* Granted the FLRA’s order did not mention it either. But, because we are remanding, the FLRA will presumably be free to give us the benefit of its expertise in reconciling the relevant statutory provisions in circumstances such as those presented to us by this petition for review. If it does so, perhaps its reading will not be given the short shift it is given today.

 The decision in American Fed’n of Gov't Employees, AFL-CIO, Local 1923 v. FLRA, 819 F.2d 306 (D.C.Cir.1987), construing section 7106(b)(2) and section 7106(b)(3) does not necessarily dictate the result here because those provisions do not include the critical prefatory phrase "at the election of the agency."