Court Opinion

ID: 9483187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:13:57.109059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:29.105767
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
I join the portion of the majority opinion which holds that Ms. Bobula’s remedy must be found, if at all, within the Civil Service Reform Act, or perhaps within the Justice Department’s internal grievance procedures, and that direct judicial enforcement of her settlement agreement is not available.
However, this question was of first impression. In my view, the answer to the jurisdictional question was not of such clarity that it “borders on the frivolous” to have followed the path she chose in invoking Tucker Act, mandamus, and/or federal question jurisdiction in the district court. The government stated at oral argument that it did not know whether Ms. Bobula had any administrative remedy. A litigant does not risk sanctionable behavior in seeking the aid of the courts, particularly on a question of first impression. Indeed, I do not readily accept the possibility that no remedy may be available to a person whose settlement agreement with her employer has been breached, when the employer is the United States.
The jurisdictional boundaries are not bright, and Ms. Bobula’s plea for judicial intervention was not so farfetched as to approach frivolousness. There is no allegation that her attempt to bring this federal contract to federal court derived from bad faith, misrepresentation, or false pleading. Thus I do not join the portion of the court’s opinion headed “Frivolity”.