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Adolph Kizas, et al. v. William H. Webster, et al.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
707 F.2d 524 (1983)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Federal employees do not possess a compensable property interest under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause in internal agency career advancement policies or preferences, even if long-standing, unless those benefits are explicitly defined as compensation by statute or regulation. A legitimate expectation of a government benefit sufficient to trigger procedural due process protections does not create a vested right that is compensable when the underlying policy is rescinded.


Facts:

  • For many years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintained a 'special preference' policy for its clerical and support employees seeking to become Special Agents (SAs).
  • The preference allowed employees to use their clerical work to satisfy the professional experience requirement and placed them on a non-competitive, chronological list for SA consideration once they passed qualifying exams.
  • Adolph Kizas and other college-educated individuals accepted lower-level clerical positions at the FBI, relying on this special preference as a path to an SA position.
  • In 1976, an internal FBI task force concluded the preference system was not appointing the best candidates and was causing morale problems.
  • In April 1977, the FBI implemented the 'New Special Agent Selection System' (NSASS), which eliminated the non-competitive and chronological aspects of the preference, requiring all applicants to compete against each other.
  • The FBI rejected requests from employees who had qualified under the old system to be 'grandfathered' and allowed to retain their preferential status.
  • Concurrently with the NSASS, the FBI also instituted an affirmative hiring program for women and minorities, which included lower qualifying test scores for those applicants.

Procedural Posture:

  • Adolph Kizas and a class of FBI employees sued FBI Director Webster and others in U.S. District Court (the court of first instance).
  • The complaint alleged the elimination of a career advancement preference constituted a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
  • The employees filed an amended complaint adding a count alleging that the FBI's new affirmative action program violated Title VII and the Fifth Amendment's equal protection component.
  • On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court found for the employees on the takings claim, holding they had 'vested contractual rights' in the preference.
  • The district court initially dismissed the discrimination count as duplicative, then later on the merits, holding that Title VII was the exclusive remedy and the employees had failed to exhaust administrative remedies.
  • The district court later held the Tucker Act was the sole jurisdictional basis for the takings claim and transferred all individual claims over $10,000 to the U.S. Court of Claims.
  • The FBI (Webster et al.) appealed the district court's judgment on the takings claim to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The employees (Kizas et al.) cross-appealed the dismissal of their discrimination claim.

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Issue:

Does a long-standing internal agency policy providing a preferential path for advancement constitute a compensable property interest under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause for federal employees who accepted employment in reliance on that policy?


Opinions:

Majority - Bazelon (Parts I-II) and Ginsburg (Part III)

No. A long-standing internal agency policy for advancement does not create a compensable property interest. Federal employment is a matter of legal status, not contract, and employee rights to compensation and benefits must be explicitly granted by statute or regulation. The court also held that Title VII is the exclusive remedy for federal employment discrimination claims, and such claims are barred if the employee fails to exhaust administrative remedies. The court's reasoning was twofold. First, regarding the takings claim, the court held that federal workers' rights are determined by statutes and regulations, not by ordinary contract principles like estoppel or implied contracts. The special preference was an internal policy, not a form of deferred compensation defined by law under Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The court distinguished the broad definition of 'property' for procedural due process purposes, which protects a 'legitimate claim of entitlement' from arbitrary individual deprivation, from the stricter definition of 'property' under the Takings Clause, which requires a vested, indefeasible right. While an employee might have a due process right to a hearing if arbitrarily denied an existing benefit, the government retains the sovereign power to eliminate the underlying benefit program itself without owing compensation. Second, regarding the discrimination claim, the court, citing Brown v. GSA, affirmed that Title VII is the exclusive judicial remedy for discrimination claims by covered federal employees, precluding direct constitutional claims. Because none of the employees had filed the required administrative charge with the FBI before suing, their Title VII claim was properly dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.



Analysis:

This decision firmly reinforces the principle that federal employment is a matter of status, not contract, significantly limiting the ability of government employees to claim vested rights based on agency promises or long-standing practices. The case creates a critical distinction between 'property' for procedural due process and 'property' for the Takings Clause, clarifying that the government can substantively change or eliminate personnel programs without owing compensation, even if those changes upset employee expectations. This holding protects the government's flexibility to reform its workforce policies and insulates it from takings liability for changes to benefits not explicitly codified as compensation by Congress.

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