Court Opinion

ID: 9487975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:32:14.564701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:36.259971
License: Public Domain

PLAGER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I am in full agreement with the opinion of the court, and the result reached.
Link properly invoked the jurisdiction of the Board under the MSPB’s statutory power to review an adverse action — in this case dismissal for unacceptable performance— taken by an agency against an employee. Just as the parties to a dispute cannot by agreement grant a court or statutory board subject-matter jurisdiction over the dispute when it is otherwise lacking, neither can they by agreement take it away when it exists. The last chance agreement did not affect the Board’s jurisdiction; in that respect, the AJ erred when he dismissed Link’s appeal purportedly for lack of jurisdiction.
A last chance agreement is a contract under which an employee waives his statutory right of appeal; this court has held such agreements not to be against public policy. McCall v. United States Postal Serv., 839 F.2d 664 (Fed.Cir.1988). An employee who attempts to appeal to the Board in the face of a valid and enforceable last chance agreement fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, because the employee has waived his right to that relief. This has nothing to do with the subject-matter jurisdiction of the MSPB or of this court. Statements by the government and the Board or its AJs to the effect that last chance agreements go to the jurisdiction of the Board are misleading and legally incorrect. If lawyers for the parties as well as the administrative judges would adhere to correct terminology, the legal analysis would benefit.