Segar v. Mukasey

• Decision Date: 23 November 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-5139.,06-5139.
• Parties: Henry W. SEGAR, et al., Appellees v. Michael MUKASEY, Attorney General of the United States, et al., Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

508 F.3d 16

Henry W. SEGAR, et al., Appellees v. Michael MUKASEY, Attorney General of the United States, et al., Appellants.

No. 06-5139.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued September 14, 2007.

Decided November 23, 2007.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, (No. 77cv00081).

Laurie Weinstein, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellants. With her on the briefs were Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence and John Henault, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Rebecca J.K. Gelfond, argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were David S. Cohen and Steven F. Cherry.

Before: GARLAND and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge:

In 1984, this circuit affirmed a finding by the district court that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had engaged in racially discriminatory employment practices, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To remedy those violations, the parties agreed on a set of stipulated procedures governing the promotion of DEA special agents to positions in the agency's Senior Executive Service (SES). The text of the stipulation requires each candidate for such a position to file an application, provides that an SES selection panel will rate the candidates and develop a list of those who are best qualified, and states that the DEA Administrator "will make his selection ... from the list of candidates provided" or from current members of the SES.

In 2003, the Administrator promoted an agent who was not then a member of the SES, and who had neither filed an application nor been placed on the list of those best qualified for the position. The plaintiffs then sought a temporary restraining order barring the DEA from making promotions without complying with the stipulated procedures and, in particular, from promoting agents who were not on a best-qualified list. Notwithstanding the text of the stipulation, the district court found that a footnote to the document rendered it ambiguous. The court further found that there was no meeting of the parties' minds regarding the meaning of the footnote and that, as a consequence, the stipulation was unenforceable. On that premise, the district court entered an interim injunction, effective "until such time as the parties are able to agree on a binding consent decree or this dispute is otherwise resolved." The injunction bars the DEA from making any off-list promotion without thirty days' notice and approval by the court.

We conclude that the district court erred in its interpretation of the stipulation agreed upon by the parties. The document is not ambiguous, is not invalid, and means what the plaintiffs say it means: the Administrator of the DEA may not promote to an SES position a non-SES agent who is not on the list of best-qualified candidates generated by the stipulated procedures. The Administrator does, however, retain the discretion to decide which candidate to select from that list (or, instead, to choose a current SES employee as a lateral transfer). Because the district court entered the interim injunction on the basis of an erroneous premise, we direct the court to vacate the injunction and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I

In January 1977, African-American DEA agents filed a class action against the DEA under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. The complaint alleged that the agency had engaged in racially discriminatory practices in six areas of employment. In 1981, following a bifurcated trial on the issue of liability, the court found that the DEA had discriminated against African-American special agents with respect to salary, grade at entry, work assignments, supervisory evaluations, discipline, and promotions. Segar v. Civiletti, 508 F.Supp. 690, 712-15 (D.D.C.1981). The court ordered the DEA to "cease such discrimination forthwith" and to "immediately commence validity studies in order to implement effective, non-discriminatory supervisory evaluation, discipline, and promotion systems." Id. at 715. It also ordered the parties to address "what action is necessary to remedy the discrimination in salary and grade at entry and further remedy the discrimination in promotion." Id.

Following its determination that the DEA had violated Title VII, the district court addressed the question of specific relief. Segar v. Smith, No. 77-0081, 1982 WL 214 (D.D.C. Feb.17, 1982). Among other things, the court awarded backpay to class members and established various "promotion goals and timetables" for African-American agents. Id. at *4-8. The court retained jurisdiction over the case until "such time as the Court concludes that the rights of plaintiffs have been accorded and satisfied by defendants." Id. at *10.

On appeal, this circuit affirmed the district court's "liability determination in its entirety." Segar v. Smith, 738 F.2d 1249, 1259 (D.C.Cir.1984). With respect to the district court's remedial order, the circuit's opinion affirmed the use of a class-wide backpay remedy, but it vacated the district court's specific backpay formula as well as "the part of the ... remedy that mandates promotion goals and timetables." Id. The case was remanded to the district court "for further consideration of appropriate remedies." Id. "On remand," this court said, "we encourage the District Court to consider other remedial options to ensure that black agents attain their rightful places at the upper levels of DEA." Id. at 1295.

Thereafter, the parties began negotiating a series of stipulations to resolve the remedial issues remaining before the district court. In March 2002, the parties submitted for the court's approval the stipulation that is the font of this appeal. That stipulation implemented a promotion process for selecting DEA criminal investigators for positions in the DEA's Senior Executive Service (SES).¹ The stipulation states:

The parties submit this Stipulation for the Court to order the implementation of a non-discriminatory selection process for selecting [DEA] Criminal Investigators for positions in the Senior Executive Service.... The attached SES Special Agent Selection Process developed by the DEA, once ordered by the Court, will enact a system developed and constructed to provide DEA with a valid, non-discriminatory mechanism for selecting DEA special agent executives and to provide agency selection officials with the highest quality candidates from which to choose.

Stipulation Implementing a Promotion Process for Selecting DEA Criminal Investigators for Positions in the Senior Executive Service at 1, Segar v. Ashcroft, No. 77-0081 (D.D.C. Mar. 12, 2002) [hereinafter Stipulation].

The attachment referenced in the Stipulation, consisting of an executive summary and seven single-spaced pages, describes an application and selection process for SES special agent positions. See Review of Applications from Staff for SES Special Agent Positions, Segar v. Ashcroft, No. 77-0081 (D.D.C. Mar.12, 2002) [hereinafter Stipulated Procedures]. The text of the document establishes the following procedures: each candidate for promotion to the SES must submit his or her application to the candidate's SES-level supervisor; the supervisor must complete a recommendation and evaluation form for the candidate; the application must be reviewed by an "SES selection panel," which will develop and submit a list of "best qualified" candidates to the DEA's Deputy Administrator; the Deputy Administrator will review the list and may remove candidates based on professional responsibility or disciplinary considerations; and the DEA Administrator will then make his or her selection from the list of candidates provided by the Deputy Administrator, or by lateral transfer of a current SES member. Id. at 1-3. The title of the document includes a footnote, which reads as follows:

These procedures are meant to systematize the process of selecting individuals for Special Agent SES positions. However, nothing in these procedures are meant to reduce the authority of the Administrator in selecting persons to fill DEA positions.

Id. at 1 n. 1.

The Stipulation was signed by counsel for the parties and approved by the district court on March 12, 2002. Stipulation at 2. Thereafter, then-DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson made a number of promotions to the SES, in each case selecting a candidate who had applied and been rated and ranked pursuant to the process described in the text of the Stipulated Procedures. On August 28, 2003, however, Hutchinson's successor, Administrator Karen Tandy, promoted Special Agent Mary Cooper to the SES. It is undisputed that Cooper was not then a member of the SES and "had not submitted an application or been rated and ranked and placed on the list sent to the Administrator." Segar v. Ashcroft, 422 F.Supp.2d 117, 125 (D.D.C. 2006).

On March 12, 2004, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to rescind Cooper's promotion and bar the DEA from promoting to the SES any special agent who had not applied for promotion through the Stipulated Procedures.² The plaintiffs argued that the parties intended those procedures to be the sole method of promotion to the SES. The footnote, plaintiffs said, was intended only to make clear that the Administrator retained the authority to select which specific agent to promote from among those on the best-qualified list produced by the procedures (as opposed to a requirement that the Administrator select the highest-ranked applicant) or, instead, to select an agent who was already a member of the SES as a lateral transfer. By contrast, the DEA argued that the footnote reserved to the Administrator the authority to select a non-SES agent — like Special Agent Cooper — who had neither applied for the position nor...