Court Opinion

ID: 9478451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:49:06.82285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:25.913720
License: Public Domain

D.H. GINSRURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with the court that NTEU’s proposal that no outside contracts be awarded prior to exhaustion of all grievance procedures is non-negotiable. I do not agree, however, that our decision in EEOC v. FLRA, 744 F.2d 842 (D.C.Cir.1984), cert. granted, 472 U.S. 1026, 105 S.Ct. 3497, 87 L.Ed.2d 629 (1985), cert. vacated, 476 U.S. 19, 106 S.Ct. 1678, 90 L.Ed.2d 19 (1986), “govern[s]” this case so as to preclude our reaching the merits of the IRS’s arguments that, because the Circular was neither an “applicable law” under 5 U.S.C. § 7106(a)(2)(B) nor a “law, rule, or regulation” under 5 U.S.C. § 7108(a)(9)(C)®, NTEU’s proposal to make contracting-out decisions subject to grievance procedures is non-negotiable as well.
As the court points out, in EEOC we were “assuming, without considering or deciding, that the Circular was either an ‘applicable law’ ... or ... a ‘law, rule, or regulation.’” Opinion at 882 (emphasis added); EEOC, 744 F.2d at 848, 850. As the court candidly states, the question of the Circular’s legal status was “never [argued] before either the FLRA or this court.” Opinion at 882. Indeed, the Supreme Court, noting the agency’s failure “to raise [these claims] at any point in the Court of Appeals,” EEOC v. FLRA, 476 U.S. 19, 106 S.Ct. 1678, 1681, 90 L.Ed.2d 19 (1986), concluded that this court was “without jurisdiction to consider” the issue. Id., 106 S.Ct. at 1680.
Nevertheless, the court today holds that our previous decision resolved this issue, foreclosing us from considering it now. Granted that “new arguments are merely that,” Opinion at 882; they are also arguments on which this court has not yet ruled. Thus, the court errs today insofar as it interprets the IRS to be arguing “that EEOC v. FLRA is distinguishable, or was wrongly decided.” Id. The IRS makes no such argument. Because the earlier case did not decide the issue, there is no need for us to distinguish it, much less to overrule it; the prior case is simply irrelevant to the argument being made to us today.
If what the court does today, in merely a few strokes of the pen, were incorporated into our system of stare decisis, then the words, “We assume without deciding” and “We need not reach the question” would have no meaning. Whenever this court assumed a proposition for the purposes of argument, it would actually be deciding the issue it purported to reserve, and absent rehearing en banc, subsequent panels would be bound by its “decision.”
Furthermore, whenever a party to any proceeding before this court failed to raise before the agency or the district court any argument that it could have raised there, that argument would be unavailable not only to the party before this court, as it should be, but also to any later litigant, the issue having already been “decided.” This is obviously not the law of issue preclusion as we know it.
*884In my view, therefore, we have no choice but to reach the merits of the IRS’s claim. We need not tarry long over it, however; the pros and cons have already been fully and ably spread upon the pages of the Federal Reporter by the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. FLRA, 844 F.2d 1087 (4th Cir.1988) (HHS). See also Defense Language Institute v. FLRA, 767 F.2d 1398 (9th Cir.1985). I am persuaded by Judge Wilkinson’s detailed and thoughtful opinion for the court in HHS and would rule, consistent therewith, that the Circular is neither an “applicable law” nor a “law, rule, or regulation” and that NTEU’s proposal to subject contracting-out decisions to grievance procedures is therefore non-negotiable.
Accordingly, I concur in part and dissent in part.
Before: WALD, Chief Judge, ROBINSON, MIKVA, EDWARDS, RUTH B. GINSBURG, STARR, SILBERMAN, BUCKLEY, WILLIAMS, D.H. GINSBURG and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges.
ORDER
Petitioner’s suggestion for rehearing en banc has been circulated to the full court. The taking of a vote was requested. Thereafter, a majority of the judges of the court in regular active service did not vote in favor of the suggestion. Upon consideration of the foregoing it is
ORDERED, by the Court en banc, that the suggestion is denied.