Hays v. Postmaster General of the United States

Arthur Hays (plaintiff) was an employee with the United States Postal Service (defendant). In 1985, Hays received a notice of proposed removal from his job. Hays appealed the decision of the proposed removal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and did not make any discrimination claims. Subsequently, Hays filed a formal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint claiming that he was discriminated against based on his race, sex, and physical handicap. Under EEO regulations, an aggrieved person could only file an EEO complaint based on discrimination and nondiscrimination claims, known as a mixed-case complaint, or file a mixed-case appeal with the MSPB, but not both. If an individual filed both a mixed-case EEO complaint and MSPB appeal, the case would proceed in the forum of whichever was filed first. Hays’s complaint proceeded in the MSPB, and the presiding official upheld Hays’s removal. Hays had 30 days to petition the full MSPB for a review of the decision. The Postal Service rejected Hays’s mixed-case EEO complaint because he had filed the MSPB appeal but told Hays to bring the allegations of discrimination to the attention of the MSPB. Hays did not petition for an appeal or bring his discrimination claims to the MSPB. The presiding official’s decision became final. Hays instead petitioned the district court for review of the MSPB’s decision and sought remedies based on a claim that he was discriminated against in violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Postal Service moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or to transfer it to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The district court found that the Federal Circuit had subject-matter jurisdiction of the case but determined the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction and dismissed the complaint. Hays appealed, arguing that the court should have transferred the petition for review to the Federal Circuit.