Court Opinion

ID: 9956513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-02 15:01:20.282369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:34.303632
License: Public Domain

Case: 24-1068    Document: 23    Page: 1   Filed: 04/02/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                ERICE MAURICE KENCY,
                       Petitioner

                            v.

      MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                    Respondent
              ______________________

                       2024-1068
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. AT-3330-18-0193-I-1.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: April 2, 2024
                 ______________________

    ERICE MAURICE KENCY, Grovetown, GA, pro se.

     CALVIN M. MORROW, Office of General Counsel, United
 States Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC,
 for respondent. Also represented by ALLISON JANE BOYLE,
 KATHERINE MICHELLE SMITH.
                  ______________________

     Before LOURIE, REYNA, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
Case: 24-1068    Document: 23      Page: 2    Filed: 04/02/2024

 2                                             KENCY v. MSPB

     Appellant Erice M. Kency appeals a decision of the
 Merit Systems Protection Board (Board) affirming the dis-
 missal of Mr. Kency’s appeal as untimely. Mr. Kency ar-
 gues that the Board erred in deeming his appeal untimely
 and, alternatively, erred in failing to apply equitable toll-
 ing. Because Mr. Kency failed to properly raise these ar-
 guments before the Board, we affirm.
                               I
     Mr. Kency filed a complaint with the Secretary of La-
 bor (Secretary), alleging that the Department of the Army
 violated the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of
 1998 (VEOA) by failing to appropriately credit his service
 and consider his veterans’ preference points in hiring.
 S.A. 23–24; 1 see also Dow v. Gen. Servs. Admin., 590 F.3d
 1338, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (describing veterans’ preference
 points). The VEOA requires giving qualifying veterans
 preference in employment for certain government posi-
 tions. Dow, 590 F.3d at 1339 (citing 5 U.S.C. § 3330a).
 Such veterans have points added to their score on the civil
 service examination and are listed ahead of other appli-
 cants. Id. (citing 5 U.S.C. § 3309; 5 C.F.R. § 332.401).
     After receiving Mr. Kency’s complaint, the Secretary
 investigated the complaint through the Department of La-
 bor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS),
 found no violation of the VEOA, and sent Mr. Kency a no-
 tice letter to that effect on December 6, 2017. S.A. 23–24.
 The Secretary’s letter stated that any appeal to the Board
 must be made by Mr. Kency within 15 calendar days from
 the date Mr. Kency received the letter and included infor-
 mation on how Mr. Kency could file an appeal with the
 Board. S.A. 23–24. Mr. Kency acknowledges receiving the
 Secretary’s letter on December 6, 2017.

     1   S.A. refers to the supplemental appendix attached
 to the respondent’s informal brief, ECF No. 15.
Case: 24-1068    Document: 23      Page: 3    Filed: 04/02/2024

 KENCY v. MSPB                                              3

     On December 11, 2017, the Secretary sent a corrected
 version of the December 6 letter. S.A. 38–41. Though the
 original December 6 letter was addressed to Mr. Kency, it
 had an incorrect case number, and the December 11 letter
 updated the number to reflect Mr. Kency’s case. Compare
 S.A. 23 (“Case No. GA-2018-003-VPH”), with S.A. 40
 (“Case No. GA-2017-003”) (emphasis added). The content
 of the corrected letter—including the original December 6,
 2017 date on each page of the letter—otherwise remained
 identical. Id. Twenty days after receiving the Board’s De-
 cember 6 letter, Mr. Kency filed an appeal to the Board on
 December 26, 2017. S.A. 2.
      On January 5, 2018, the Administrative Judge (AJ) as-
 signed to Mr. Kency’s appeal issued an order noting that
 the appeal appeared untimely. S.A. 25–28 (Timeliness Or-
 der). In bold text, the Timeliness Order indicated that “[i]t
 appears that the filing period in this case began on Decem-
 ber 6, 2017, and that your appeal was filed by e-file on De-
 cember 26, 2017. It therefore appears that your appeal was
 filed 5 days late.” S.A. 26.
      The Timeliness Order also instructed Mr. Kency on the
 steps he “must take to show that the Board should not dis-
 miss the appeal as untimely,” including a requirement to
 “file evidence and/or argument showing that [his] appeal
 was timely filed or that equitable tolling applies.” S.A. 25,
 27. The order expressly warned Mr. Kency that if his ap-
 peal was deemed untimely, and no basis to excuse the un-
 timeliness was shown, “[his] appeal will be dismissed.”
 S.A. 27. Finally, the order offered additional, individual-
 ized guidance to Mr. Kency if he had “a question regarding
 any of the case processing instructions in this Order.”
 S.A. 25.
     Mr. Kency did not respond to the Timeliness Order and
 did not file arguments or evidence addressing timeliness or
 equitable tolling.    S.A. 3.   Thus, the AJ dismissed
 Mr. Kency’s appeal as untimely. S.A. 1–10. Following the
Case: 24-1068    Document: 23       Page: 4   Filed: 04/02/2024

 4                                             KENCY v. MSPB

 AJ’s dismissal order, Mr. Kency filed a petition for review
 by the Board, which denied his petition, noting that it gen-
 erally would not consider arguments and evidence that
 could have been—yet were not—initially raised to the AJ.
 S.A. 11–12; id. at 13–14 (citing 5 C.F.R. § 1201.115(d)).
 The Board explained that the relevant evidence was in
 Mr. Kency’s possession during proceedings before the AJ,
 and Mr. Kency “has not explained why he failed to make
 this or any other argument in response to the administra-
 tive judge’s timeliness order.” S.A. 13–14.
     Mr. Kency timely appealed. We have jurisdiction un-
 der 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9) and 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1)(A); see
 also Fedora v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 848 F.3d 1013, 1014
 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
                              II
     “The scope of our review in an appeal from a decision
 of the Board is limited.” Barrett v. Soc. Sec. Admin., 309
 F.3d 781, 785 (Fed. Cir. 2002). “We are obligated to affirm
 the Board’s decision unless we find it to be (1) arbitrary,
 capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in ac-
 cordance with law; (2) obtained without procedures re-
 quired by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or
 (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” Id. (citing 5
 U.S.C. § 7703(c)).
                              III
     Mr. Kency makes two arguments on appeal. First, he
 argues that his appeal was timely filed, because the De-
 cember 11 letter indicates that he may file an appeal within
 15 calendar days from the receipt of “this letter.” Since
 “this letter” was received on December 11, Mr. Kency ar-
 gued that his filing on December 26 was timely under the
 relevant regulation, 5 C.F.R. § 1208.22(b), which deems
 timely an appeal filed 15 days from the “Secretary’s notice.”
 Mr. Kency emphasizes that the relevant regulations re-
 quire a “copy of the Secretary’s notice” to be “submitted
Case: 24-1068     Document: 23      Page: 5    Filed: 04/02/2024

 KENCY v. MSPB                                                5

 with the appeal,” see id., and notes that he did not receive
 the relevant copy until December 11. Second, Mr. Kency
 argues that his appeal should have been deemed timely un-
 der equitable tolling principles because the December 11
 letter actively misled him into believing that the relevant
 deadline was December 26. See 5 C.F.R. § 1208.22(c)
 (providing for equitable tolling “[i]n extraordinary circum-
 stances,” such as “cases involving deception”). Mr. Kency
 emphasizes that he is pro se, and asserts that a wooden
 interpretation of § 1208.22(b) and (c) would be especially
 unfair, given that it was clear he was diligently pursuing
 his appeal and the delay was minimal.
     Though we are sympathetic to Mr. Kency’s arguments,
 we are constrained by the fact that Mr. Kency did not raise
 these arguments to the AJ. The AJ’s Timeliness Order ex-
 pressly instructed Mr. Kency on how he could raise these
 arguments and when he needed to do so. S.A. 25–28. It
 also instructed Mr. Kency of the consequences of failing to
 timely submit such evidence: “[his] appeal will be dis-
 missed as untimely.” S.A. 27.
      On appeal before us, Mr. Kency does not explain why
 he did not respond to the AJ’s Timeliness Order or give us
 any other reason to find an abuse of discretion in the deci-
 sion not to address Mr. Kency’s new arguments to the
 Board. See Elmore v. Dep’t of Transp., 421 F.3d 1339, 1342
 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“Where, as here, the Board denied review
 of the administrative judge’s initial decision, this court will
 not consider issues not raised before the administrative
 judge.”); Linn v. OPM, 566 F. App’x 962, 964 (Fed. Cir.
 2014) (“As the Board noted in its decision, [the petitioner]
 had the opportunity to raise this argument in his initial
 appeal to the [AJ] . . . and failed to do so. A litigant who
 fails to properly raise an issue before an administrative
 agency ordinarily is precluded from litigating that issue be-
 fore us.”). Accordingly, we conclude that the Board did not
 abuse its discretion in refusing to consider Mr. Kency’s new
 arguments.
Case: 24-1068    Document: 23      Page: 6   Filed: 04/02/2024

 6                                            KENCY v. MSPB

                             IV
      We have considered Mr. Kency’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
 affirm the decision of the Board dismissing Mr. Kency’s ap-
 peal.
                       AFFIRMED
                           COSTS
 No costs.