# Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Hamlet v. United States, 116 S. Ct. 1542 (1996) (No. 95-1173)

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## Record

- **Collection:** Supreme Court brief
- **Document type:** Petition for Writ of Certiorari
- **Published:** January 1, 1996

## Text

Supreme Court, U.S.
PILB BD

WB 117 8 An 22 199%

OFFICE OF SHE CLERK
No.

IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

October Term 1995

LOUISE J. HAMLET,

Petitioner,

THE UNITED STATES,

Respondent.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Alexander W. Bell
715 Court Street
P. O. Box 739
Lynchburg, Virginia 24505
(804) 528-0411
January 19, 1996 Counsel for Petitioner

I

—

QUESTIONS PRESENTED FOR REVIEW

1. Does the Court of Federal Claims have jurisdiction
under the Tucker Act over a contract claim where the
plaintiff's pleadings allege and the uncontradicted evidence in
the record shows both that the plaintiff had a contract of
employment with the government promising her pay for work
and requiring good cause for her dismissal, and that she was
dismissed without good cause, in violation of both her
contract and applicable agency regulations?

rd Is there a hybrid category of federal worker who is an
"appointee" though not an "employee" as defined by the Civil
Service Reform Act, whose discharge from employment is
not subject to review either by the Merit System Protection
Board or the courts?

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Questions Presented for Review

lable of Authorities

Opinions Below

FUTIOGEONIOM 20

Statutes and Regulations Involved

Statement of the Case

Reasons for Granting the Writ

Argument in Support of the Petition for Certiorari

Conclusion .......

Certificate of of Service

lil

~

ill
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

I. CASES

Army and Air Force Exch. Serv. v. Sheehan,
456 US. TAB CISGE? oo 6 bie es 6 10, 13, 14

Flathead Joint Board of Control of the Flathead,
Mission and Jocko Valley Irrigation Districts
v. United States, 30 Fed. Cl. 287 (1993) ..... 10

Hamlet v. United States, 63 F.3d 1097 (Fed Cir. 1995)
(CAFC Hamlet III) .......... 1, 11, 13, 14, 15

Hamlet v. United States, No. 93-5075 (Fed. Cir.,
Nov. 23 1993) (CAFC Hamlet II) ........... 2

Hamlet v. United States, 873 F.2d 1414 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
{Oo eg UE | ee 2, 7, 11, 14, 16

Hamlet v. United States, No. 281-86C (Fed. Cl.
Mar. 23, 1994) (CFC Hamlet Ill) ........... 2

Hamlet v. United States, No. 281-86C (Cl. Ct.
Oct; 2, 1992( (CFC Hamlet I) ............. 2

Hamlet v. United States, 14 Cl. Ct. 62 (1988)
bg OE | Re ae eee ee 9 ae 2

Hopkins v. United States, 206 Ct. Cl. 303,
cee ge |_|. ) SR ee 6,9

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)... 15

1V

Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957) 13

Silverman v. United States, 230 Ct. Cl. 701,
679 F.2d 865 (1982) 10

United States v. Fausto, 484 U.S. 439,
98 L.Ed. 2d 830 (1988) 10. 14

United States v. Hopkins,

427 U.S. 123 (1976) 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16
i] STATUTES
susc S105 (1977 & Supp 1994) 4. ll, 12, 15
28 U.S.C. §1254 (1993) 2
28 U.S.C. §1491 (1994) 2

Federal Courts Administration Act of 1992.
Pub. L. No. 102-572 §902(a), 106 Stat. 4506, 4516 :

i REGULATIONS

22-PM 9445, 446, 455 ;

In The
Supreme Court of the United States

October Term, 1995

LOUISE J. HAMLET
Petitioner.

THE UNITED STATES,

Respondent

Petition for a Writ of Certiorar
to the United States Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Louise J. Hamlet respectfully petitions for a Writ of
Certiorari to review the judgment of the Federal Circuit Court
of Appeals entered in this case on August 17, 1995, for which

7
j

a rehearing was denied on October 27, 1995.
OPINIONS BELOW

[he opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit, whose judgment is sought to be reviewed, is reported
as Hamlet v. United States, 63 F.3d 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1995)

2

(CAFC Hamlet III), and is set out in the separate Appendix
to this Petition at pp. 3 to 22. The prior opinion of the
United States Court of Federal Claims, Hamlet _v. United
States, No. 281-86C (Fed. Cl. Mar. 23, 1994) (CFC Hamlet
Ill) is unpublished, and is reprinted in the separate Appendix
to this Petition at pp. 23 to 30.

Of the two previous opinions of the Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit reversing the earlier Claims Court
dismissals of Mrs. Hamlet’s suit, Hamlet v. United States,
No. 93-5075 (Fed. Cir., Nov. 23, 1993, WL 481140) (CAFC
Hamlet II) and Hamlet v. United States, 873 F.2d 1414 (Fed.
Cir. 1989), (CAFC Hamlet 1), and the first and second
opinions of the United States Claims Court and Court of
Federal Claims, Hamlet v. United States, No. 281-86C (CI.
Ct. Oct. 2, 1992) (CFC Hamlet II) and Hamlet v. United
States, 14 Cl. Ct. 62 (1988) (CFC Hamlet I), only CAFC
Hamlet I, 873 F.2d 1414 (1989) and CFC Hamlet II, No. 93-
5075 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 23, 1993) are reprinted in the separate
Appendix to this petition at pp. 35 and 31, respectively.

JURISDICTION

This Court has jurisdiction to review the judgment of
the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissing the
case for want of jurisdiction under the Tucker Act by writ of
certiorari under 28 U.S.C. §1254(l). The judgment dismissing
the case was entered on August 17, 1995. A rehearing was
denied on October 27, 1995.

STATUTES AND REGULATIONS INVOLVED

The Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. §1491(ay(1) (1988 &
Supp. V 1993) provides in pertinent part:

3

The United States Court of Federal Claims
shall have jurisdiction to render judgment upon
any claim against the United States founded
either upon the Constitution, or any Act of
Congress, or any regulation of an executive
department, or upon any express or implied
contract with the United States, or for
liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases
not sounding in tort.

The United States Department of Agriculture
("USDA") Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service
("ASCS") regulations (the "22-PM Manual") imposing
limitations on the agency’s right to dismiss employees require
in 99445 & 446, that ASCS authorities use "principles of
fairness" in personnel actions, removing employees only if
facts established beyond a "reasonable doubt" are "severe
enough to require removing the employee," rather than some

less drastic alternative such as “counselling,” "improved
supervision" or "a letter of reprimand."

These same regulations provide at 4455 for the award
of backpay to wrongfully discharged employees:

An employee under permanent appointment
who is restored to duty . . . is eligible for
backpay as follows:

(1) Backpay shall be at the rate
that the employee would have
earned had the employee
remained on the rolls.

(a)

[he definition of "employee" for all purposes in the
United States Code is contained in 5 U.S.C. §2105(a), which

4

Pay compensation to employee
for the period of suspension
and separation, minus any
amount earned by the employee
during the period, including
unemployment compensation.

provides in pertinent part:

(a)

For the purpose of this title,

"employee", except as otherwise provided by
this section or when specifically modified,
means an officer and an individual who is --

(1)

appointed in the civil service by one of
the following acting in an official
capacity--

(D) an individual who is an
employee under this section;

subject to the supervision of an
individual named by paragraph (1) of
this subsection while engaged in the
performance of the duties of his
position.

5

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Louise Hamlet was fired from her position as a
program assistant in the United States Department of
Agriculture ("USDA") Agricultural Stabilization and
Conservation Service ("ASCS") office in Charlotte County,
Virginia, on January 11, 1985. The pleadings allege and the
evidence in the record shows that the firing was without good
cause, breached her employment contract with the agency,
and violated agency rules and regulations.’ As a result of
her dismissal she was permanently barred from further
government employment with the ASCS, despite the fact that
during her twenty-eight-and-one-half-year tenure with the
agency prior to her discharge, she had received an unbroken
string of Certificates of Satisfactory Service for her work.

In May 1986 Mrs. Hamlet filed a suit in the United
States Claims Court,’ alleging that her discharge without
good cause violated her employment contract, the applicable
agency regulations and her constitutional rights. Since Mrs.
Hamlet was not and never had been a civil service employee,
even in the "excepted" service, her claim rested in large part

' While the dismissal of the case on jurisdictional grounds makes

the merits of Mrs. Hamlet’s claim essentially irrelevant for the purposes
of this petition, it is notable that the trial court, upon hearing the only
demonstrated ground for Mrs. Hamlet’s dismissal, characterized it as “a
minor thing" and “absurd.” (Transcript of July 13, 1992 hearing at pp. 93,
111).

Effective October 29, 1992, the United States Claims Court
became the United States Court of Federal Claims. Federal Courts
Administration Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-572, §902(a), 106 Stat.
4506, 4516. The trial court will be referred to hereinafter as the “Court
of Federal! Claims.”

'$)

on the holding of this Court in United States v. Hopkins, 427
U.S. 123, 129 (1976) that Tucker Act jurisdiction in the
Court of Federal Claims can be premised on an implied-in-
fact employment contract theory based on a "series of cases
from the private sector of the economy holding that the
typical employee-employer relationship [is] contractual in
nature."”

Over the next nine years, in an extraordinary and
contradictory series of decisions in the Court of Federal
Claims and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Mrs.
Hamlet’s suit was initially dismissed for want of jurisdiction
under the Tucker Act, was reinstated, was tried in the Court
of Federal Claims, was dismissed again and reinstated again
because the Court of Federal Claims made inadequate
findings of fact and conclusions of law, and was ultimately
dismissed for want of jurisdiction under the Tucker Act in a
remarkable Federal Circuit opinion that sua sponte declared
invalid the USDA ASCS regulations which had been
demonstrated to have been violated in Mrs. Hamlet’s
dismissal and which supported her entitlement to backpay on
the agency regulation claim.

The question presented for review in this case is
whether the Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction under
the Tucker Act over a breach of contract case in which the
pleadings allege and the uncontradicted evidence in the record
shows that the plaintiff had a contract of employment with

> In so holding, this Court expressly approved the earlier ruling of

the Court of Federal Claims in that case that "the employment status of
non-federal employees is governed by the same rules of law applicable to
private employer-employee relationships.” Hopkins v. United States, 206
Ct. Cl. 303, 312, 513 F.2d 1360, 1365 (1975).

7

the Government promising her pay for work and requiring
good cause for her dismissal, and that she was dismissed
without good cause, in violation both of her contract and of
agency rules and regulations. The ultimate Federal Circuit
ruling that there is no jurisdiction of such a claim under the
Tucker Act is in direct contravention not only of this Court’s
ruling in United States v. Hopkins, 427 U.S. 123, 129 (1976),
but of the Federal Circuit’s own initial ruling in this case,
CAFC Hamlet I, 873 F.2d 141 (Fed. Cir. 1989).

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit should be reviewed by this Court
because the ruling conflicts with this Court’s ruling in United
States v. Hopkins, 427 U.S. 123 (1976). The Federal Circuit
decision wrongly restricts the jurisdiction of the Court of
Federal Claims under the Tucker Act to entertain breach of
employment contract and violation of agency regulation
claims for the plaintiff and approximately 13,000 ASCS
employees such as the plaintiff who are not and never have
been covered by the civil service laws.

ARGUMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE
PETITION FOR CERTIORARI

[. THE COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS HAS
JURISDICTION UNDER THE TUCKER ACT
OVER A CONTRACT CLAIM WHERE THE
PLAINTIFF’S PLEADINGS ALLEGE AND THE
UNCONTRADICTED EVIDENCE IN THE
RECORD SHOWS BOTH THAT THE PLAINTIFF
HAD A CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT WITH
THE GOVERNMENT PROMISING HER PAY FOR

8

WORK AND REQUIRING GOOD CAUSE FOR
HER DISMISSAL, AND THAT SHE WAS
DISMISSED WITHOUT GOOD CAUSE, IN
VIOLATION OF BOTH HER CONTRACT AND
APPLICABLE AGENCY REGULATIONS.

The linchpin of the Federal Circuit decision to dismiss
Mrs. Hamlet’s breach of contract claim against the
government after nine years of litigation is that the plaintiff's
right to damages for breach of her employment contract
rested solely on the ASCS backpay regulation declared
invalid in the panel’s decision (Opinion at 6, n.3}. This is not
true as a matter of fact or logic.

The trial record showed that the employment contract
sued on arose when Mrs. Hamlet was hired, in 1956, years
before the ASCS regulations were first promulgated sometime
in the 1960s. The Government conceded below that Mrs.
Hamlet was hired in 1956 by the authorities given the
authority by 7 C.F.R. §§7.21-7.25 to "employ" workers in the
ASCS county offices. She was promised pay in exchange for
work and was told she had a job as long as she did a good
job. This duly-authorized promise created both an entitlement
to pay and a “good cause" requirement for dismissal that pre-
dated and exists independently of the ASCS regulations
declared invalid by the panel.

After hearing the evidence introduced both by Mrs.
Hamlet and the Government at the trial on “the issue of
whether a contract between Mrs. Hamlet and the United
States was formed," the trial judge declared:

Now [Mrs. Hamlet] got up on the stand today
and said, This particular individual told me

I

9

one, two and three. And on the strength of
that, I gave up whatever I was doing before
and went to work for the ASCS,’ which
sounds like consideration. It sounds like a
promise and an acceptance. It seems to have
the classic elements of a contract.

(Transcript of February 14, 1992, hearing at p. 152). The
trial court then went on to rule that

[pjlaintiff has made at least a prima facie
showing that she had a contract with the
United States, as defined by the Federal
Circuit opinion which controls this case.

(Order of April 24, 1992).

Both this Court and the Court of Federal Claims have
held that the employment relationship for non-civil service
employees such as Mrs. Hamlet is "inherently contractual."
United States v. Hopkins, 427 U.S. 123, 129, 49 L. Ed. 2d
1361 (1976); Hopkins v. United States, 206 Ct.Cl. 303, 513
F.2d 1360.

The promise of pay for work is the essence of an
employment relationship. Mrs. Hamlet showed that she had
been promised continued employment -- and pay therefor --
when she was hired in 1956. In exchange for this promise,
she gave the Government over twenty-eight years of
satisfactory service. The only evidence in the record is that
she was an "excellent" employee, until she was wrongfully
fired on "absurd" grounds.

10

One need not be the beneficiary of a money-
mandating regulation formally adopted pursuant to the
Administrative Procedure Act in order to hold the United
States to its duly-authorized promise. See, e.g., Flathead Joint
Board of Control of the Flathead, Mission and Jocko Valley
Irrigation Districts v. United States, 30 Fed. Cl. 287 (1993).
Mrs. Hamlet had a contractually-enforceable right to the pay
and benefits she received for twenty-eight-and-one-half years,
regardless of the validity vel non of the agency regulations
declared invalid by the Federal Circuit. See, e.g., Silverman
v. United States, 230 Ct. Cl. 701, 679 F.2d 865, 870 (1982),
where an FTC official made an express promise to pay the
plaintiff for his services. The services were then performed,
and the FTC was thus benefitted. The claims court found
that "[b]y accepting the benefits flowing from the senior FTC
official’s promise of payment, the FTC ratified such promise
and was bound by it."

This Court’s opinion in Army and Air Force Exch.
Serv. v. Sheehan, 456 U.S. 728, 738 (1982) did not overrule
the holding in Hopkins. In Sheehan, unlike this case, there
was no independent evidence adduced as to the plaintiff's
emp!oyment status at the trial. Sheehan, 456 U.S. at 737. In
this case, the evidence at trial showed that the plaintiff had an
employment contract with the United States.

While this Court did rule in United States v. Fausto,
484 U.S. 439, 98 L.Ed. 2d 830 (1988), that employment
contract claims against the government cannot be maintained
by employees who are covered by the Civil Service Reform
Act, employees in Mrs. Hamlet’s position are not and never
were covered by the Civil Service Reform Act. Thus the
ruling in Hopkins controls Mrs. Hamlet’s employment
contract claim, as the Federal Court itself ruled in its initial

1]

decision in this case, CAFC Hamlet I, 873 F.2d 1414 (Fed.
Cir. 1989).

This is a simple breach of contract case, an elementary
breach of the Government’s promise to pay. The substantive
right to compensation required for Tucker Act jurisdiction
flows directly from Mrs. Hamlet’s employment contract with
the United States. If Mrs. Hamlet can prove both the promise
and the breach, as she did in the trial court, she is entitled to
recover: it is as simple as that.

IT. THERE IS NO HYBRID CATEGORY OF
FEDERAL WORKER WHO IS AN "APPOINTEE"
THOUGH NOT AN "EMPLOYEE" AS DEFINED
BY THE CIVIL SERVICE REFORM ACT, WHOSE
DISCHARGE FROM EMPLOYMENT IS NOT
SUBJECT TO REVIEW EITHER BY THE MERIT
SYSTEM PROTECTION BOARD OR ‘THE
COURTS.

Despite the uncontradicted evidence in the record
establishing that Mrs. Hamlet was employed under a contract
of employment with the ASCS, and the Federal Circuit’s own
ruling that Mrs. Hamlet is not an "employee" within the
meaning of 5 U.S.C. §2105(a), the final Federal Circuit
opinion stated that "nothing in the record rebuts the
presumption that a federal employee is employed by
appointment and not by contract or quasi-contract.". CAFC
Hamlet II], 63 F.3d at 1102, Appendix at 9. By resort to this
apparently irrebuttable "presumption," the Federal Circuit
defined out of existence Mrs. Hamlet’s right to employment
contract remedies.

— —— ee

_ et a et em

12

This creation of a hybrid class of federal employees --
"appointees" -- who are entitled neither to backpay under the
Civil Service Reform Act nor to contract remedies under the
Tucker Act rests upon a semantic confusion similar to
conflating the dancer with the dance.

There simply is no separate category of federal
employees known as "appointees" as distinct from
"employees" as defined in 5 U.S.C. §2105(a), which describes
those federal employees covered by the Civil Service Reform
Act with reference to the term "appointee." Since Civil
Service "employees" are “appointed,” courts often refer to
"“employees-covered-by-the-Civil-Service-Act" as
"appointees," but "appointee" has no separate meaning -- and
is certainly not a category of government employee distinct
from the definition of “employee” set out in 5 U.S.C.
§2105(a). And as the Government has conceded and the
Federal Circuit itself has ruled in this case, Mrs. Hamlet is
most definitely not an "employee" within the meaning of 5
U.S.C. §2105(a).

The error of the Federal Circuit opinion ruling is that
it turns an anecdotal shorthand description of the means by
which one obtained one’s job into the kind of employee one
is after the employment relationship is entered into. The
characteristic of the "appointee" class created by the Federal
Circuit opinion in this case is that its members have none of
the rights, duties or obligations accruing to "employees"
within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. §2105(a), nor any of the
employment contract rights to which they would otherwise be
entitled pursuant to this Court’s decision in United States v.
Hopkins, 427 U.S. 123 (1976). Indeed, "appointees"
apparently do not even have the right to insist that an agency
follow its own rules and regulations with respect to

13

termination and discipline, in apparent contravention of this
Court’s ruling in Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957).
"Appointees," as contrasted to "employees," apparently have
no rights at all.

The Assistant Personnel Officer for the ASCS,
William J. Teto, testified at the trial in this case in response
to specific questioning on the subject that he was aware of no
definition of "appointee" of the sort ultimately adopted by the
Federal Circuit. He stated that "appointee" may be defined in
the federal personnel manual applicable to civil service
"employees," but conceded that Mrs. Hamiet was not covered
by those regulations.

One searches in vain for any case cited by the court
below where "appointee" is used in any context other than
that federal "employees" "appointed" within the meaning of
5 U.S.C. §2105(a) are precluded from filing contract claims
against the government.

An examination of the cases upon which the Federal
Circuit opinion rests demonstrates this point. The employee
in Army & Air Force Exchange Service v. Sheehan. supra,
456 U.S. at 738-41, was denied backpay not because he was
an "appointee" but because AAFES employees were
specifically denied the right to backpay benefits as a matter
of demonstrated congressional intent, since employees of the
military exchange services were expressly excluded from
coverage under 5 U.S.C. §2105(c)(1) (1994). In Mrs.
Hamlet’s case, by contrast, even the final Federal Circuit
opinion acknowledges that "ASCS employees are not
explicitly excluded from the definition of "’employee[.]’"
CAFC Hamlet III, 63 F.3d at 1106, Appendix at 20.

14

Sheehan, therefore, has nothing to do with this case. CAFC
Hamlet Ill, 63 F3d at 1107, Appendix at 19, n.7.

Thus it can hardly be said that the reasoning of the
decision below “follows that of the Supreme Court in. . .
Sheehan” CAFC Hamlet III, 63 F3d. at 1106, Appendix at 19.
Congressional silence cannot fairly be said to deny a contract
remedy to Mrs. Hamlet, even if silence means the ASCS
backpay regulations are invalid, because the regulations are
somehow “inconsistent” with something in the “penumbra” of
legislative silence.

Secondly, Mrs. Hamlet, unlike the employee involved
in United States v. Fausto, 484 U.S. 439, 98 L.Ed. 2d 830
(1988), is not an employee who is or ever was covered by the
Civil Service Reform Act, even as an “excepted” employee,
and therefore is not precluded from asserting a claim either
for breach of contract or for a violation of agency regulations
by that Act. To hold otherwise, as the Federal Circuit has
done, is ruling that Fausto overruled Hopkins, which it did
not do. The holding in CAFC Hamlet Ill also sub silentio
overrules CAFC Hamlet |, 873 F.2d 1414 (Fed. Cir. 1989),
Appendix at 35, which correctly held that Mrs. Hamlet's
employment contract claim was cognizable under the Tucker
Act.

The effect of the final Federal Circuit decision is to
deny Mrs. Hamlet the right to sue on her employment
contract, even though she was not and never had been
included -- even negatively, in the “excepted” service -- in the
comprehensive scheme established by the Civil Service
Reform Act. Since employees like Mrs. Hamlet were not
included in the Civil Service Act scheme, it cannot fairly be
said that Congress “intended” to deny these employees

15

"backpay” remedies for violations of their employment
contracts. The court’s decision in CAFC Hamlet II] converts
those 13,000 ASCS employees into “people without a
country" who are employees at will, despite promises of the
sort which the record establishes were made to Mrs. Hamlet:
that they will receive pay for their work and will not be
dismissed except for good cause.

The effect of the Federal Circuit’s opinion, if upheld,
means that when the Government wrongfully discharges an
employee in the newly-minted category of “appointee,” relief
is unavailable either before the Merit System Protection
Board or in the courts. In the final analysis, the Federal
Circuit’s refusal on jurisdictional grounds to allow the Court
of Federal Claims to entertain Mrs. Hamlet’s request for relief
under the Tucker Act constitutes a denial of any opportunity
for review in any forum of the wrongful termination of her
employment. This sort of result has been intolerable under
our judicial system since at least as long ago as Marbury v.
Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 163 (1803), establishing the
principle of judicial review of wrongful executive action on
the premise that [t]he very essence of civil liberty certainly
consists in the right of every individual to claim the
protection of the laws, whenever [s]he receives an injury."

It is respectfully submitted that the Federal Circuit’s
sua sponte creation of an ersatz category of federal
“appointees” who are not "employees" within the meaning of
> U.S.C. §2105(a) and who have no rights whatsoever, either
under their contracts of employment or under the Civil
Service Reform Act, is wrong and should be reversed by this
Court

16
CONCLUSION

By ruling that the Tucker Act confers no jurisdiction
in the Court of Federal Claims over express and implied
employment contract actions such as Mrs. Hamlet’s, the court
below has construed the Tucker Act in a manner contrary to
its express terms. Further, by creating a legal category of
federal employees which does not exist in fact, the Federal
Circuit has denied the plaintiff a contract remedy to which
she is entitled both under United States v. Hopkins, 427 U.S.
123, 129 (1976) and the Federal Circuit’s own earlier
decision in CAFC Hamlet I, 873 F.2d 1414 (Fed. Cir. 1989),
Appendix at pp. 35. Indeed, the Federal Circuit decision has
created an area of unreviewable executive action, an anomaly
under our scheme of government and an unfair result that
cannot in any reasonable sense be attributed to a
Congressional directive. This ruling -- the third by the
Federal Circuit in Mrs. Hamlet’s case -- affects some 13,000
ASCS county employees in the plaintiff's position. The
ruling is wrong and should be reversed.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED
LQUISE J/ HAMLET

Alexander W. Bell | R
715 Court Street

P. O. Box 739

Lynchburg, Virginia 24505-0739
(804) 528-0411

Counsel for Petitioner

17
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

[ hereby certify that I placed in the United States mail.
first class, postage prepaid, on January 19, 1996, three true
copies of the foregoing Petition for Writ of Certiorari and the
separate Appendix filed with the Petition to Domenique
Kirchner, Esquire, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.,
20530, Attn: Classification Unit, 2nd :¥ To ilding.

j ~

LAA
Alexander W. Bell

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40386007_1599%3A1. Public record. Not legal advice.