Vassallo v. Dept. of Defense, No. 15-3101 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseThe Defense Contract Management Agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) employed Vassallo as a computer engineer in 2012. That summer, it announced a vacancy for the position of Lead Interdisciplinary Engineer, stating that only certain individuals could apply: “[c]urrent [DCMA]” employees or “[c]urrent [DOD] [e]mployee[s] with the Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics . . . [w]orkforce who are outside of the Military Components.” Vassallo, a veteran, applied, but DCMA rejected his application. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) determined that DOD was not required to afford him veterans employment preferences under the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA), 112 Stat. 3182. OPM defines the word “agency” in 5 U.S.C. 3304(f)(1) to mean “Executive agency” as defined in 5 U.S.C. 105 and concluded that DCMA was not required to give Vassallo an opportunity to compete under 5 U.S.C. 3304(f)(1) because the DOD— the agency making the announcement—did not accept applications from outside its own workforce. Vassallo sought corrective action from the Merit Systems Protection Board, which concluded that OPM’s regulation permissibly fills a gap in the governing statute. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the OPM regulation contradicts the plain terms of the statute and unreasonably undermines the purpose of the VEOA.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.