Connors v. United States of America

863 F.3d 158, 2017 WL 2979156
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJuly 13, 2017
DocketDocket 16-1680-cv
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 863 F.3d 158 (Connors v. United States of America) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Connors v. United States of America, 863 F.3d 158, 2017 WL 2979156 (2d Cir. 2017).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

In Conyers v. Rossides, 558 F.3d 137, 148 (2d Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 568 U.S. 933, 133 S.Ct. 329, 184 L.Ed.2d 241 (2012), we held that Section 111(d) of the Aviation Transportation Security Act, 49 U.S.C. § 44935 note (“ATSA”), precluded judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701(a) (“APA”), of a decision by the Transportation Security Administration (“TSA”) not to utilize the Federal Aviation Administration’s personnel management system in deciding whom to employ or appoint as a screening officer. We did not hold as a general matter that APA review was unavailable for all personnel decisions regarding TSA screening officers. See Conyers, 558 F.3d at 148.

The case now before us gives us occasion to extend the holding of Conyers to TSA decisions regarding the termination of screening officers. For the reasons that *160 follow, we hold that the ATSA precludes review under the APA of a TSA decision to-terminate a screening officer. We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of this matter for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

I.Background

The' following facts are taken from the complaint and its attachments, which, on a motion to dismiss, both the district court and this Gourt are obliged to view in the light most'favorable to.the Plaintiff. See id. at 143,

Plaintiff-Appellant Melanie Connors was employed by the TSA as security screening officer, with the title of Expert Behavior Detection Officer, at Newark Liberty International Airport. She was also the recording secretary of the Association of Transportation Security Management and Professionals (“ATSMAP”), a TSA employee association.

In February 2013, several TSA managers received packages containing lists of names, addresses, telephone numbers,'and email addresses of 185 TSA employees, including several federal air marshals. The list appeared to have been compiled from ATSMAP’s membership roster. The TSA considers the identities of federal air marshals’ to' be sensitive security information (“SSI”), and an FBI investigation ensued.

During the course of the investigation, Connors told investigators that it was possible that her personal computer, which contained the ATSMAP membership roster, might have been hacked, or that her husband might have accessed and released the information. The investigation • ultimately determined that neither Connors nor any computer in her home was the source of the released information. Nevertheless, in mid-September 2013, Connors received a Notice of Proposed Removal charging her with “lack of candor” in the investigation and “failure to safeguard SSI.” Two months later, the Deputy Federal Security Director at Newark Liberty International Airport rendered a decision upholding the proposed penalty of removal from federal service, and Connors was fired. She filed an administrative appeal to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Professional Responsibility Appellate Board (“OPR”). The OPR overruled the Deputy Federal Security Director’s decision with respect to the charge of lack, of candor in the investigation, but sustained the decision with respect to the charge of failure to safeguard SSI, and upheld Connors’s termination.

Connors then filed the present action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, seeking judicial review of her termination under the APA.’’ The Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court (Vitaliano, J.) granted the motion. This timely appeal followed.

II. Standard of Review

In reviewing a dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, we examine de novo the district court’s legal conclusions. Conyers, 558 F.3d at 143.

III. Analysis

APA review of an administrative action is presumptively available, but that presumption yields to statutory provisions explicitly precluding judicial review of administrative action or committing administrative action to agency discretion. Id. at 143. When it is argued that such a statutory provision precludes APA review, we examine that provision with great care, reading it to- provide ah exception to APA review only when we are satisfied that it constitutes clear and convincing evidence of congressional intent to do so. Id.

*161 The relevant portion of the ATSA provides:

[Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Under Secretary of Transportation for Security may .employ, appoint, discipline, terminate, and fix the compensation, terms, and conditions of employment of Federal service for such a number of individuals as the Under Secretary determines to be necessary to carry out the screening functions of the Under Secretary under section 44901 of title 49, United States Code. The Under Secretary shall establish levels of compensation and other benefits for individuals so employed.

49 U.S.C. § 44936 note.

In Conyers, 558 F.3d at 144-48, we held that this provision precluded APA review of a claim by an individual who applied for a TSA security screening job and was rejected. There, we considered carefully the text, structure, and legislative history of the ATSA, and we need not repeat ourselves here. See id. at 145-47. We concluded that the statute committed hiring decisions regarding TSA screeners to the agency’s discretion, and thus removed review of such decisions from the scope of the APA. See id. at 146-48.

We limited our holding, however, to the particular employment decision then at issue, and we specifically declined to hold that APA review was unavailable for all personnel decisions involving TSA screen-ers:

We need not decide whether APA review is unavailable with respect to all of the Administrator’s decisions regarding screener employment. We conclude here only that the specific “agency action” complained of by Conyers, namely, the Administrator’s decision not to utilize the FAA’s personnel management system in deciding whom to “employ” or “appoint” as a security screener, “is committed to agency discretion by” ATSA Section 111(d)' and, thus, is not reviewable under the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 701(a).

Id. The matter now before us concerns a firing decision rather than a hiring decision and is thus not strictly controlled by Conyer s.

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863 F.3d 158, 2017 WL 2979156, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/connors-v-united-states-of-america-ca2-2017.