Stuck In Kentucky

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the dismissal of claims brought by a lawyer seeking employment with the Administrative Office of the United States Courts

While residing in Kentucky, Malla Pollack applied for a job in Washington, D.C. with the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO), an agency of the federal judiciary. The AO’s job announcement said it would consider an application from any present employee of the federal judiciary, nationwide, and from any non-employee who lived in the Washington metropolitan area, which includes the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland and Virginia. The AO rejected Pollack’s application because she was neither an employee of the federal judiciary nor a resident of the Washington metropolitan area. Pollack then filed this suit against three officials of the AO, in their official capacities, claiming their refusal to consider her application violated her right to travel protected by the Constitution of the United States. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants, which we now affirm.

The court rejected the claim that the applicants’ constitutional rights were violated

 Neither the Supreme Court nor this court has previously considered whether the right to travel is implicated when a federal agency seeking to hire an employee limits the applicant pool to residents of a particular area. We will therefore address both the constitutional provisions invoked by Pollack, viz., the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV and the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as well as her claim of a right inherent in the structure of the Constitution…

We agree with Pollack that it is difficult to comprehend why the AO refused to consider applicants who did not live in the Washington area but were willing to move there if they received an offer of employment. The AO points out that it receives applications from many qualified attorneys and it must limit the total number of applicants for certain positions so that it may focus upon those it is most interested in hiring. It is unclear, however, why the agency would use a geographical limitation to control the size of its applicant pool rather than criteria that are likely to be more closely correlated with job performance. Be that as it may, we hold the AO’s decision to limit its applicant pool to employees of the federal judiciary and individuals who lived in the Washington metropolitan area did not violate Pollack’s right to travel, whether that right is considered under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, or the essential structure of the Constitution. We further conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Pollack’s request for discovery before entering summary judgment for the defendants.

The opinion was authored by Senior Judge Ginsburg.

The court had earlier reversed the dismisal of the case on sovereign immunity grounds. (Mike Frisch)