Court Opinion

ID: 9410995
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-25 15:01:58.142468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:02.024786
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1408   Document: 28     Page: 1   Filed: 07/20/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                  ASHLEY B. NEESE,
                      Petitioner

                            v.

      MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,
                    Respondent
              ______________________

                       2023-1408
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. DC-0752-23-0014-I-1.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: July 20, 2023
                 ______________________

     ROSANNA LOPEZ, Lopez & Wu, PLLC, Reston, VA, for
 petitioner.

     ELIZABETH W. FLETCHER, Office of General Counsel,
 United States Merit Systems Protection Board, Washing-
 ton, DC, for respondent. Also represented by ALLISON JANE
 BOYLE, KATHERINE MICHELLE SMITH.
Case: 23-1408     Document: 28    Page: 2    Filed: 07/20/2023

 2                                             NEESE   v. MSPB

                   ______________________

     Before CHEN, STOLL, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
     Ashley B. Neese appeals the decision of the Merit Sys-
 tems Protection Board (Board) which dismissed her appeal
 as untimely. Because we agree that collateral estoppel
 bars Ms. Neese from relitigating the untimeliness of the
 previous appeal she filed with the Board, we affirm.
                        BACKGROUND
     Ms. Neese is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA)
 who was removed from her position in May 2018 in re-
 sponse to allegations that she acted inappropriately during
 an investigation. She initially attempted to appeal her re-
 moval by filing a civil complaint in the Western District of
 Virginia that alleged illegal termination and requested re-
 instatement to her previous position. In August 2020, the
 district court dismissed the complaint, finding that juris-
 diction was exclusive to the Board.
      Several months later, in May 2021, Ms. Neese ap-
 pealed her removal to the Board. The Board dismissed the
 case as untimely. Neese v. Dep’t of Justice, No. DC-0752-
 21-0420-I-1, 2021 WL 2414242 (M.S.P.B. June 8, 2021)
 (Neese I). Although Ms. Neese argued that her failure to
 file within 30 days of the action being appealed should be
 excused due to the agency’s alleged failure to give her no-
 tice of her appeal rights, the Board rejected this argument
 because the district court’s August 2020 dismissal in-
 formed Ms. Neese of her appeal rights. Id. Even consider-
 ing the date of the district court’s decision as the date
 Ms. Neese received her notice of appeal, Ms. Neese did not
 file her appeal to the Board until May 2021—8 months af-
 ter this notice was provided. Id. We affirmed the Board’s
 dismissal. Neese v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 2022 WL 1400294,
 No. 2021-2321, at *2 (Fed. Cir. May 4, 2022).
Case: 23-1408      Document: 28     Page: 3    Filed: 07/20/2023

 NEESE   v. MSPB                                              3

     Ms. Neese filed another appeal with the Board in Octo-
 ber 2022, again alleging that her resignation as an AUSA
 was involuntary. Appx. 32. The Board determined the doc-
 trine of collateral estoppel precluded Ms. Neese from relit-
 igating the issue of timeliness and again dismissed her
 case. Neese v. Dep’t of Justice, No. DC-0752-23-0014-I-1,
 2022 WL 16902097 (M.S.P.B. Nov. 7, 2022) (Neese II). The
 Board disagreed with Ms. Neese’s argument that the is-
 sues raised in the first and second appeals were distinct
 because the first appeal focused solely on timeliness while
 her second appeal focused on the merits of the termination.
 Id. The Board determined that timeliness was a threshold
 issue it was required to address in this second appeal, that
 the issue was actually litigated and was the sole basis for
 the dismissal of Neese I, and that Ms. Neese had full oppor-
 tunity to litigate the issue during the prior litigation. Id.
     Ms. Neese timely appealed. We have jurisdiction un-
 der 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).
                          DISCUSSION
      We only set aside the Board’s decision when it is “(1) ar-
 bitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not
 in accordance with law; (2) obtained without procedures re-
 quired by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or
 (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.”            5 U.S.C.
 § 7703(c); see Bryant v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 878 F.3d 1320,
 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2017). The Board may apply collateral es-
 toppel where: “(i) the issue previously adjudicated is iden-
 tical with that now presented, (ii) that issue was actually
 litigated in the prior case, (iii) the previous determination
 of that issue was necessary for the end-decision then made,
 and (iv) the party precluded was fully represented in the
 prior action.” Morgan v. Dep’t of Energy, 424 F.3d 1271,
 1274–75 (Fed. Cir. 2005). The Board’s application of collat-
 eral estoppel is a question of law reviewed without defer-
 ence. Id. at 1274.
Case: 23-1408    Document: 28      Page: 4    Filed: 07/20/2023

 4                                             NEESE   v. MSPB

     We see no error in the Board’s decision determining
 that Ms. Neese is barred from relitigating the issue of time-
 liness. Here, the issue previously adjudicated—timeli-
 ness—is identical to the issue now presented. Ms. Neese
 argues the issue in Neese II is not timeliness, but whether
 she received proper notice of her appeal rights from the
 agency, and that this issue was not addressed before. Ap-
 pellant’s Br. 9–10. But this argument is simply an attempt
 to relitigate the ultimate issue of timeliness. See id. (“A
 discussion and/or analysis of this issue was necessary to
 determine when the appeal filing deadline clock started
 and whether Ms. Neese was timely in filing her appeal” (em-
 phasis added)). Neese I and Neese II arise out of the same
 events, involving the same agency action removing
 Ms. Neese from her position as an AUSA. Thus, for both
 Neese I and Neese II, the Board had to consider the ante-
 cedent question of whether the appeal was timely filed with
 respect to the agency action. See 5 C.F.R. § 1201.22(b).
 Ms. Neese does not dispute that timeliness was actually lit-
 igated in Neese I, that adjudicating timeliness was neces-
 sary for the Board’s dismissal decision in Neese I, or that
 she was fully represented in the prior action. Thus, the
 Board did not err in its application of collateral estoppel
 and Ms. Neese cannot now relitigate this issue.
      Ms. Neese also argues that the Board erred because it
 did not address whether any exceptions to collateral estop-
 pel apply. Appellant’s Br. 10–14. Ms. Neese, however,
 failed to raise this issue to the Board, so we decline to ad-
 dress the argument on appeal. Bosley v. Merit Sys. Prot.
 Bd., 162 F.3d 665, 668 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (“A party in an
 MSPB proceeding must raise an issue before the adminis-
 trative judge if the issue is to be preserved for review in
 this court.”).
                        CONCLUSION
    We have considered Ms. Neese’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. For the reasons above, we
Case: 23-1408      Document: 28    Page: 5   Filed: 07/20/2023

 NEESE   v. MSPB                                           5

 affirm the Board’s dismissal of Ms. Neese’s appeal as un-
 timely.
                        AFFIRMED
                           COSTS
 No costs.