Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Bd.
The Supreme Court ruled that when the Merit Systems Protection Board dismisses a federal employee's combined civil-service-and-discrimination complaint for lack of jurisdiction, the employee can seek review in an ordinary federal district court rather than being forced into the specialized Federal Circuit.
The decision keeps these mixed cases together in one court instead of splitting them, extending a rule the Court had already applied to dismissals on the merits and on procedural grounds to jurisdictional dismissals as well.
“Perry, we hold, advances the more sensible reading of the statutory prescriptions.”
The Court's core conclusion that mixed cases dismissed on jurisdictional grounds belong in district court.
How it got here: An administrative judge and then the full Board found Perry's retirement voluntary and dismissed for lack of jurisdiction; the D.C. Circuit sent his case to the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court took review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Anthony Perry, a Census Bureau employee, was told he'd be fired for poor attendance. He settled by agreeing to a 30-day suspension and early retirement, and agreed to drop discrimination claims he had filed with the EEOC. After retiring, he appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board, claiming the settlement was coerced and that his treatment involved race, age, and disability discrimination plus retaliation.
The question before the Court
When a federal employee's discrimination and job-related complaint is thrown out by a review board for lack of jurisdiction, should a regular court or a specialized appeals court review that decision?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that a federal employee's district court is the right place to seek review when the Merit Systems Protection Board dismisses a mixed case (one combining a civil-service complaint with a discrimination claim) for lack of jurisdiction, just as it is when the Board dismisses such a case on the merits or on procedural grounds.
The Court reasoned that Perry's allegations — a suspension and forced retirement serious enough to appeal to the Board, combined with claims of discrimination — made this a mixed case regardless of how the Board later characterized its dismissal. Splitting jurisdictional rulings off to a separate specialized court, the Court found, would be impractical and would undermine Congress's goal of resolving related claims together in one forum.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Federal employees who raise both a civil-service claim (like being unfairly suspended or fired) and a discrimination claim no longer have to fight the case in two separate courts when the review board says it lacks jurisdiction. This spares often-unrepresented employees the cost, delay, and confusion of splitting a single dispute between the Federal Circuit and a district court.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts, now understood to belong in federal district court rather than the Federal Circuit, where Perry can pursue his claims that his suspension and retirement were the product of coercion and discrimination. The ruling is a final merits decision that settles the forum question for all similarly situated federal employees whose mixed cases the Board dismisses on jurisdictional grounds.
What this does not decide
The Court decided only which court hears mixed cases dismissed for lack of jurisdiction — not whether Perry's settlement was actually coerced or whether he will ultimately win on the merits of his discrimination and civil-service claims.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Gorsuch
“Mr. Perry’s proposal for us may be seriously atextual and practically unattractive, but perhaps it has one thing going for it, he says.”Gorsuch's objection that the majority's approach departs from the statute's actual text.
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas, argued the majority rewrote the statute rather than applying its text. He contended the CSRA plainly sends civil-service jurisdictional questions to the Federal Circuit and only genuine discrimination claims to district court, regardless of administrative convenience. He warned that judicially patching the statute to avoid split litigation would create unanswerable questions about standards of review and remedies, and that Kloeckner never addressed civil-service jurisdictional issues at all.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court relied on its earlier decision in Kloeckner v. Solis, which held that a 'mixed case' — one where an employee raises both an appealable personnel action and a claim of discrimination — must be reviewed in district court, whether the Board's dismissal rests on the merits or on a procedural misstep like a missed deadline.
- The Court explained that a nonfrivolous allegation of jurisdiction is normally enough to establish jurisdiction at the outset of a case, meaning Perry's claim that he suffered an appealable action combined with his discrimination allegations made his case 'mixed' regardless of how the Board ultimately ruled on appealability.
- The Court rejected the government's proposed line between jurisdictional dismissals (headed to the Federal Circuit) and procedural or merits dismissals (headed to district court), reasoning that Congress never drew such a distinction in the statute's text.
- The Court found the jurisdiction-versus-merits line especially unworkable here because the Board's finding that it lacked jurisdiction rested entirely on whether Perry's settlement was valid — the same question at the heart of the merits of his complaint.
- The Court also noted that the Board sometimes dismisses on multiple or alternate grounds, some jurisdictional and some not, making a rule based solely on how the Board labels its dismissal impractical to apply consistently.
- Concluding that Perry's reading better preserved the CSRA's goal of an integrated, single-track review scheme and avoided splitting closely related claims between two courts, the Court held that district court review applies to jurisdictional dismissals of mixed cases just as it does to procedural and merits dismissals.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Kloeckner v. Solis (568 U. S. 41)
The Court extended Kloeckner's rule sending mixed cases to district court to jurisdictional dismissals, not just procedural ones.
Abrogates Ballentine v. Merit Systems Protection Bd.
The Court disapproved Ballentine's holding that jurisdictional dismissals go to the Federal Circuit.