WASHINGTON (CN) — A decade after the 2013 government shutdown, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Defense Department employee’s fight to appeal his six-day-long furlough.
Stuart Harrow was working with the Defense Contracting Management Agency when the government shut down in October 2013 during a budget fight in Congress. The Pentagon furloughed Harrow in a department-wide order and a decade later the Supreme Court will decide if a federal court can hear his appeal.
“Federal employees seeking recourse for unlawful employment actions, which Congress afforded them through appeal to the board, proceed through board adjudication with all the solicitude afforded them under the board’s procedures,” Scott Dodson, an attorney at the Center for Litigation & Courts at UC College of Law representing Harrow, wrote in his petition.
He continued, “But then, to ultimately have their case heard in federal court, they confront a filing deadline, no different in wording than any other, that anomalously has been declared jurisdictional by the Federal Circuit.”
Harrow asked to be exempt from the furlough because of a financial hardship. His request was denied, so he appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board. An agency judge held a hearing and affirmed Harrow’s furlough.
A loss of quorum on the board stalled Harrow’s appeal until 2022, after which the board affirmed his furlough. In the years when his appeal was paused, Harrow changed his email address. When the board made its decision and notified Harrow, it sent the order to his old address.
The communication hiccup delayed Harrow’s appeal to the Federal Circuit. This was a problem because the order started a 60-day timer in which Harrow had to appeal. Harrow’s appeal did not come until 128 days after the board’s decision.
The Federal Circuit dismissed Harrow’s appeal as untimely. The Supreme Court will decide if that was the right decision.
“We think the Federal Circuit really got this question wrong and has been getting it wrong for a long time and that has affected a lot of federal employees, just like Mr. Harrow, in adverse ways,” Dodson said in a phone call. “And so we're looking forward to presenting our arguments before the court and hopefully having the federal circuit be corrected.”
Per the court’s custom, the justices did not explain their decision to hear the case. The court will hold oral arguments early next year.
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