Court Opinion

ID: 9407448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-07 14:00:52.586051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:38.311903
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1967   Document: 32     Page: 1   Filed: 07/07/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                  JOHN S. EDWARDS,
                      Petitioner

                            v.

      MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                    Respondent
              ______________________

                       2022-1967
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-1221-16-0227-W-1.
                 ______________________

                  Decided: July 7, 2023
                 ______________________

    PETER BROIDA, Arlington, VA, argued for petitioner.

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

  Before PROST, CHEN, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.
 PROST, Circuit Judge.
Case: 22-1967    Document: 32     Page: 2   Filed: 07/07/2023

 2                                          EDWARDS   v. MSPB

     John S. Edwards appeals from a Merit Systems Protec-
 tion Board (“Board”) decision dismissing his individual
 right of action (“IRA”) appeal under the Whistleblower Pro-
 tection Act for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm.
                       BACKGROUND
     Mr. Edwards worked at the Department of Labor
 (“DOL”) as a director in the Office of Information Systems
 and Technology (“OIST”). Mr. Edwards alleged that two
 OIST supervisors were discriminating against Black em-
 ployees. In July 2015, he informed those supervisors of his
 observations. App’x 83. 1 Mr. Edwards then filed, on Octo-
 ber 16, 2015, an informal complaint with DOL’s Equal Em-
 ployment Opportunity (“EEO”) Office detailing his
 allegations of racial discrimination. App’x 34–37. On Oc-
 tober 27, 2015, one of the supervisors Mr. Edwards accused
 of discrimination reassigned him to a position with dimin-
 ished responsibilities. App’x 86. According to Mr. Ed-
 wards, this supervisor stated that she was reassigning him
 “because of [his] EEO complaint.” Id. A few days later, Mr.
 Edwards filed another complaint, this time with the Office
 of Special Counsel (“OSC”). App’x 38–59. This complaint
 repeated Mr. Edwards’s allegations of discrimination in
 OIST and also alleged retaliation against him for “re-
 port[ing those] EEO violations.” App’x 42. The OSC closed
 the investigation after it determined that Mr. Edwards’s
 allegations “are more appropriately resolved” through the
 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”).
 App’x 67, 69.
     Mr. Edwards then filed an IRA appeal with the Board,
 which the Board dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Mr. Ed-
 wards appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
 § 1295(a)(9). See Young v. MSPB, 961 F.3d 1323, 1327–28

     1  “App’x” refers to the appendix attached to Mr. Ed-
 wards’s principal brief.
Case: 22-1967        Document: 32   Page: 3   Filed: 07/07/2023

 EDWARDS   v. MSPB                                           3

 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (holding that IRA appeals do not constitute
 “mixed cases” under Perry v. MSPB, 582 U.S. 420 (2017),
 even where the underlying allegations relate to retaliation
 for exercising a Title VII right).
                           DISCUSSION
     “We review de novo whether the Board has jurisdiction
 over an appeal.” Smolinski v. MSPB, 23 F.4th 1345, 1350
 (Fed. Cir. 2022). For the Board to have jurisdiction over an
 IRA appeal, the appellant must, among other things, make
 nonfrivolous allegations that he made a protected disclo-
 sure under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8) or engaged in a protected
 activity under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(9)(A)(i) or (b)(9)(B)–(D). 5
 U.S.C. § 1221(a); Smolinski, 23 F.4th at 1350. Section
 1221(a)      plainly        excludes     activities     under
 § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii)—“the exercise of any appeal, complaint,
 or grievance right . . . other than with regard to remedying
 a violation of [§ 2302(b)(8)]”—from IRA jurisdiction.
      In this case, the Board determined it lacked jurisdic-
 tion because Mr. Edwards’s alleged protected activity falls
 under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii). The Board reasoned
 that—under Young and Spruill—Mr. Edwards’s allega-
 tions of EEO violations and retaliation for reporting them
 “may not be raised in an IRA appeal[] because IRA appeals
 are limited to alleged violations of whistleblower protection
 statutes” and reporting EEO violations “[is] a nonwhistle-
 blowing” activity. Edwards v. DOL, No. DC-1221-16-0227-
 W-1, 2022 WL 1438663, at *4 (M.S.P.B. May 5, 2022) (first
 citing Spruill v. MSPB, 978 F.2d 679, 680–81, 690–92 (Fed.
 Cir. 1992); then quoting Serrao v. MSPB, 95 F.3d 1569,
 1575 (Fed. Cir. 1996); and then citing Young, 961 F.3d at
 1327–28).
     On appeal, Mr. Edwards argues that Young and
 Spruill are distinguishable or otherwise do not govern the
 outcome of this case. We disagree.
Case: 22-1967     Document: 32      Page: 4    Filed: 07/07/2023

 4                                            EDWARDS   v. MSPB

     As an initial matter, Mr. Edwards agrees that Young
 and Spruill dictate that filing a formal EEO complaint can-
 not supply the Board with IRA jurisdiction because a for-
 mal EEO complaint falls under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii).
 Oral Arg. at 0:27–45, 10:21–29. 2 However, Mr. Edwards
 maintains that this case is different because he filed an in-
 formal EEO complaint. See Pet’r’s Br. 15–16. We are not
 persuaded. Although the appellants in Young and Spruill
 did file formal EEO complaints, we did not elevate the form
 of such complaints over their substance. See Young, 961
 F.3d at 1329–30; Spruill, 978 F.2d at 690–92. As Young
 explains, it’s an appellant’s “exercis[e of] a Title VII right”
 that pushes a case into the realm of § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii) and
 thus deprives the Board of IRA jurisdiction. Young,
 961 F.3d at 1329. And there’s no dispute here that Mr. Ed-
 wards exercised Title VII rights when he filed his informal
 EEO complaint alleging racial discrimination in OIST.
      Mr. Edwards also asserts that his verbal complaints to
 his supervisors permit his allegations of retaliation for re-
 porting racial discrimination to proceed through the Board
 via an IRA appeal. According to Mr. Edwards, even if his
 informal EEO complaint falls under § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii), his
 disclosure of the same allegations to his supervisors falls
 under § 2302(b)(8). Pet’r’s Br. 18–22; see also Oral Arg. at
 8:00–32 (Mr. Edwards’s counsel arguing that “there is
 some duplication”). But Mr. Edwards’s disclosures to his
 supervisors were of the same substance as his EEO com-
 plaint. Per Young, this EEO complaint falls under
 § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii)—i.e., is “other than with regard to rem-
 edying a violation of” § 2302(b)(8). We don’t see how claims
 of retaliation by the same actors for disclosing verbally the
 same alleged violation later memorialized in an EEO com-
 plaint can proceed separately. Spruill reinforces this

     2   No. 22-1967, https://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts
 .gov/default.aspx?fl=22-1967_06092023.mp3.
Case: 22-1967        Document: 32   Page: 5   Filed: 07/07/2023

 EDWARDS   v. MSPB                                           5

 understanding of the interplay between § 2302(b)(8) and
 § 2302(b)(9)(A)(ii). Spruill counsels that appellants cannot
 maintain simultaneous Board and EEOC jurisdiction to re-
 solve the same alleged violations. Otherwise, the Board
 and EEOC would “duplicat[e]” effort to resolve the same
 dispute and thereby waste “governmental resources” and
 potentially generate “conflicting procedures or outcomes.”
 Spruill, 978 F.2d at 691–92.
     Mr. Edwards argues that this court’s recent Smolinski
 decision allows duplicative Board and EEOC proceedings
 to resolve alleged retaliation for disclosing Title VII viola-
 tions. Pet’r’s Br. 16–22. Not so. Smolinski is not instruc-
 tive here because it did not involve the exercise of a Title
 VII right. In Smolinski, Dr. Smolinski, a federal employee,
 alleged retaliation for testifying about another federal em-
 ployee’s sexual harassment of Dr. Smolinski’s wife, who
 was not a federal employee. See Smolinski, 23 F.4th at
 1351. And while sexual harassment is a form of sex dis-
 crimination that Title VII covers, Title VII protection did
 not play a role in Smolinski because the alleged discrimi-
 nation wasn’t of one federal employee against another; it
 was of one federal employee against a non-employee. See
 Oral Arg. at 18:51–20:10; cf. 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(1) (prohib-
 iting employees from discriminating “against any employee
 or applicant for employment” (emphasis added)). Thus, the
 IRA jurisdiction under § 2302(b)(8) in Smolinski was based
 on allegations of “abuses of authority,” not based on allega-
 tions that would have also fallen under Title VII or
 § 2302(b)(1).
      Since Mr. Edwards seeks review of claims of retaliation
 for coming forward with allegations of Title VII violations,
 the Board lacks IRA jurisdiction, and jurisdiction instead
 lies exclusively with the EEOC.
Case: 22-1967   Document: 32      Page: 6   Filed: 07/07/2023

 6                                          EDWARDS   v. MSPB

                      CONCLUSION
     We have considered Mr. Edwards’s remaining argu-
 ments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea-
 sons, we affirm.
                      AFFIRMED
                          COSTS
 No costs.