Castillejos v. MSPB

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Decided: January 6, 2026
• Docket: 25-1219
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 25-1219 Document: 31 Page: 1 Filed: 01/06/2026

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

RICARDO R. CASTILLEJOS, Petitioner

v.

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD, Respondent ______________________

2025-1219 ______________________

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection Board in No. SF-0831-21-0145-M-1. ______________________

Decided: January 6, 2026 ______________________

RICARDO R. CASTILLEJOS, Olongapo City, Philippines, pro se.

ELIZABETH W. FLETCHER, Office of the General Coun- sel, United States Merit Systems Protection Board, Wash- ington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by ALLISON JANE BOYLE, KATHERINE MICHELLE SMITH. ______________________

Before DYK, PROST, and REYNA, Circuit Judges. Case: 25-1219 Document: 31 Page: 2 Filed: 01/06/2026

PER CURIAM. Ricardo R. Castillejos petitions for review of a final de- cision of the Merit Systems Protection Board (“Board”) dis- missing his petition as untimely filed. S.A. 1–11. 1 For the following reasons, we dismiss. BACKGROUND This case concerns Mr. Castillejos’s effort to obtain Civil Service Retirement System benefits for his time as a federal employee of the United States Department of the Navy between 1974 and 1992. We previously issued an opinion in this case remanding one of the Board’s decisions because it improperly applied collateral estoppel. See Cas- tillejos v. OPM, No. 22-1036, 2022 WL 2092864, at *2 (Fed. Cir. June 10, 2022). On remand, the administrative judge (“AJ”) issued an initial decision affirming the Office of Personnel Manage- ment’s denial of Mr. Castillejos’s retirement benefits. S.A. 3. Mr. Castillejos petitioned for review of the AJ’s in- itial decision. S.A. 1. The Board dismissed his petition as untimely filed without good cause shown. S.A. 2. Mr. Cas- tillejos then petitioned this court for review. DISCUSSION The Board argues that we should dismiss Mr. Cas- tillejos’s petition for review to this court because it was filed more than sixty days after the Board issued its final decision. See Board’s Informal Br. 5–9. We agree. This court has jurisdiction to review “an appeal from a final order or final decision of the [Board], pursuant to sec- tions 7703(b)(1) and 7703(d) of title 5.” 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9). Under § 7703(b)(1), “any petition for review

1 “S.A.” refers to the supplemental appendix in- cluded with the Board’s informal responsive brief. Case: 25-1219 Document: 31 Page: 3 Filed: 01/06/2026

CASTILLEJOS v. MSPB 3

shall be filed within 60 days after the Board issues notice of the final order or decision of the Board.” 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1)(A) (emphasis added). It also “requires actual receipt by the court, not just timely mailing.” Fedora v. MSPB, 848 F.3d 1013, 1016 (Fed. Cir. 2017); Fed. Cir. R. 25(c)(2). The Board issued its final decision on August 27, 2024. S.A. 1. Under § 7703(b)(1)(A), Mr. Castillejos’s petition for review was due on October 28, 2024. We received his peti- tion on November 18, 2024. ECF No. 1-2 at 1. That is past the sixty-day deadline required by § 7703(b)(1)(A). Although the Board acknowledges that the timing re- quirement of § 7703(b)(1) “is not jurisdictional,” Board’s In- formal Br. 6 (quoting Harrow v. Dep’t of Def., 601 U.S. 480, 482 (2024)), it maintains that the statute does not permit equitable tolling, id. at 6–9. The Supreme Court in Harrow declined to address whether, even if non-jurisdictional, the statute permits equitable tolling. 601 U.S. at 489. We ex- press no opinion on this issue, nor do we need to address it to resolve this case. Here, Mr. Castillejos only argues the merits of his case and fails to mention anything about the timeliness of his petition to this court. Thus, because the petition for review is untimely, and because Mr. Castillejos has supplied no basis for equitable tolling even if the stat- ute permitted as much, we dismiss. CONCLUSION We have considered Mr. Castillejos’s remaining argu- ments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea- sons, we dismiss. DISMISSED COSTS No costs.