Berlin v. Dep't of Labor, No. 14-3031 (Fed. Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseUnder 5 U.S.C. 7521, an agency may furlough an administrative law judge (ALJ) for 30 days or less “only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board” in a formal adjudication. The Board determined that the Department of Labor had good cause to furlough its ALJs for a particular length of time in 2013. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The challenged furlough, part of a program of furloughs throughout the Department and throughout the federal government, was the result of a neutral, reasonable, statute-based determination about how to implement a government-wide budget sequester. The spending limits were imposed under the Budget Control Act of 2011, 125 Stat. 240, 241–46, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, 126 Stat. 2313, 2370, which amended the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, 2 U.S.C. 901.
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