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Washington, D.C.—A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court today vacated a decision by a federal court of appeals that limited federal employees’ access to the courts, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees said. “This is a very positive, welcome development,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

The Supreme Court decision sets aside a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which held that federal employees who are covered by a negotiated procedure allowing them to grieve violations of law are precluded from seeking a remedy in federal court for violations of important statutory and constitutional rights. NTEU filed a friend-of-the-court brief on this important issue, in support of the federal employee petitioner.

“NTEU strongly believes that employees should have complete access to all options for remedying violations of the law and the Constitution,” Kelley said. “This decision is a major step toward keeping the courthouse doors open to federal employees.”

The case, Whitman v. U.S. Department of Transportation (No. 04-1131), involved a claim that a Federal Aviation Administration drug-testing program violated a federal employee’s constitutional and statutory rights. The Ninth Circuit ruled that because the plaintiff might have been able to file a contractual grievance to challenge the program, he could not file a lawsuit in federal court to enjoin its implementation.

The case turned in significant part on a provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, which was amended in 1994—at NTEU’s urging—to ensure that the existence of a negotiated grievance procedure would not deprive an employee of his or her individual right to turn to the federal courts to vindicate constitutional and other important rights.

In its decision, the Supreme Court adopted a central argument advanced by NTEU: that the Ninth Circuit had applied the wrong legal analysis to this case when it required the employee to prove that Congress had granted the federal courts jurisdiction to hear his claims when it passed the Civil Service Reform Act.

The proper question actually was the reverse of that, NTEU argued—namely, whether Congress, in enacting the Civil Service Reform Act, intended to deprive the courts of the jurisdiction they already possess under other statutes to hear federal employees’ claims against the government.

While individual NTEU-represented employees have access to negotiated grievance and arbitration procedures to challenge illegal and unfair personnel actions taken against them, NTEU has often and successfully turned to the federal courts to vindicate broader employee rights that arise under statutes and under the federal Constitution. President Kelley pointed to ongoing, and thus far successful, NTEU-led federal court litigation against regressive personnel rules impacting employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Kelley said NTEU will “continue to participate” in the Whitman case, which has been remanded to the Ninth Circuit, to urge the court of appeals “not to interpose additional obstacles to federal court review” of employee claims. “It’s clear that the nation is best served when the courts are kept open to hear cases involving the violations of employee rights,” the NTEU leader said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments.