Trent Senter v. Department of Energy

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
TRENT SENTER,
Petitioner
v.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY,
Respondent
______________________
2025-1304
______________________
Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
Board in No. DA-0752-20-0434-I-1.
______________________
Decided: November 21, 2025
______________________
TRENT SENTER , Clemmons, NC, pro se.
ALEXANDER BREWER , Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by ALBERT S.
IAROSSI, P ATRICIA M. M CCARTHY, Y AAKOV ROTH .
______________________
Before TARANTO , SCHALL, and STARK , Circuit Judges.
PER C URIAM.
Case: 25-1304 Document: 23 Page: 1 Filed: 11/21/2025

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SENTER v. ENERGY 2
Trent Senter was employed by the Department of En-
ergy (“DOE”) as a Nuclear Material Courier (“NMC”) until
his removal on June 10, 2020, for failure to meet a condi-
tion of employment. S’Appx 9-10.1 NMCs are required by
DOE to pass semi-annual physical fitness examinations.
S’Appx 9. Mr. Senter failed such an examination, as well
as a subsequent re-examination, and was therefore re-
moved from his position. S’Appx 9-10. Mr. Senter appealed
his removal to the Merit Systems Protection Board
(“Board”), which ultimately affirmed the removal and re-
jected Mr. Senter’s affirmative defenses. S’Appx 2, 8. Mr.
Senter now appeals to us. For the following reasons, we
affirm.
I
The facts of this case are undisputed. S’Appx 9. At the
time of Mr. Senter’s removal, NMCs at DOE were required,
as a condition of their employment, to meet “physical fit-
ness qualifications and . . . pass a semi-annual physical fit-
ness qualification test[].” Id. The semi-annual test
included a one-mile run, which had to be completed within
8 minutes and 30 seconds, followed within one hour by a
40-yard prone-to-running dash, which had to be completed
within 8.0 seconds. On March 3, 2020, Mr. Senter failed
one such test by running a mile in a time of 8 minutes and
41 seconds. In a retest a month later, on April 2, 2020, he
again failed, running a mile in 8 minutes and 38 seconds.
On April 29, 2020, Mr. Senter received a Notice of Pro-
posed Removal, charging that he had failed to maintain a
condition of employment, “namely, the maintenance of es-
tablished physical fitness qualifications and the successful
completion of semi-annual physical fitness qualification
testing.” S’Appx 9. Mr. Senter responded to the notice by
1 “S’Appx” refers to the government’s Informal Supple-
mental Appendix, ECF No. 14.
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SENTER v. ENERGY 3
alleging that DOE was required by Office of Personnel
Management (‘OPM’) regulation to waive the timed one-
mile run component of the physical fitness qualification
testing. S’Appx 10. DOE disagreed, and on June 10, 2020
Mr. Senter was removed from his position.
On July 10, 2020, Mr. Senter filed an Individual Right
of Action (“IRA”) appeal seeking reversal of his removal.
Mr. Senter contended reversal was required because DOE:
(i) discriminated against him on the basis of a physical dis-
ability by denying him the reasonable accommodation of
waiving the physical fitness requirement for the one-mile
run; (ii) violated 5 C.F.R. § 339.204(a) by not waiving the
physical fitness requirements; and (iii) further violated 5
C.F.R. § 339.204 by not conducting an “actual comparison”
between the requirements of an NMC and Mr. Senter’s
ability to perform the role. S’Appx 10-11, 13-14, 16.
An Administrative Judge (“AJ”) determined that DOE
proved by preponderant evidence that Mr. Senter failed to
maintain a condition of employment and that his removal
was reasonable and promoted the efficiency of service. The
AJ further found Mr. Senter failed to show DOE did not
accommodate a disability or that its decision regarding his
waiver request was not in accordance with law or was oth-
erwise procedurally flawed. The AJ therefore sustained
Mr. Senter’s removal.
Mr. Senter appealed to the Board, which denied his pe-
tition. The initial decision of the AJ therefore became the
Board’s final decision on October 16, 2024. Mr. Senter
timely appealed.
II
In front of the Board, Mr. Senter’s allegations included
a claim of discrimination on the basis of disability, which
makes his case a “mixed” case. See Williams v. Dept. of
Army, 715 F.2d 1485, 1488 (Fed. Cir. 1983); see also S’Appx
41-44. This court is “not empowered to decide
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SENTER v. ENERGY 4
discrimination claims in mixed cases.” Austin v. Merit Sys.
Prot. Bd., 136 F.3d 782, 784 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (citing 5 U.S.C.
§ 7703(b)). “If an individual wishes to appeal to this court
from an unfavorable decision in a mixed case, he must
abandon his discrimination claim and proceed before us
solely with respect to the adverse personnel action.” Id.
Mr. Senter filed a Form 10 Statement Concerning Dis-
crimination on December 27, 2024 (“Form 10”). On this
Form 10, he mistakenly indicated that he had not argued
at the Board that the “adverse employment action” he is
challenging was attributable to discrimination on the basis
of “race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, or handi-
capping condition.” ECF No. 5. Because, in fact, Mr.
Senter had argued discrimination at the Board, see, e.g.,
S’Appx 42 (alleging “it is a form of discrimination to fail to
provide a reasonable accommodation unless [the] covered
entity can demonstrate that an accommodation would im-
pose an undue hardship”) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted); S’Appx 10 (Board recognizing “also at issue is whether
the agency’s action was the result [of] . . . disability discrim-
ination”), and he had not clearly indicated on his Form 10
whether he wished to abandon those discrimination claims,
we ordered him to submit an amended form. He did so on
October 30, 2025.
In his amended Form 10, Mr. Senter clearly indicated
his intent to waive any discrimination claim he may have
pursued at the Board, by stating the following in an adden-
dum to the form: “Trent Senter, states that to the extent
the Court concludes that he did in fact argue discrimina-
tion before the Board, Mr. Senter wishes to abandon those
discrimination claims and only pursue civil-service claims
in the Federal Circuit rather than pursuing discrimination
claims and civil-service claims together in district court.”
ECF No. 21 at 4.
Therefore, we have jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C.
§ 7703(b)(1)(A) and 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9) to hear Mr.
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SENTER v. ENERGY 5
Senter’s civil-service claims. We thus consider only Mr.
Senter’s allegations that DOE erred in reviewing his
waiver request, that this error constituted “harmful error,”
and that DOE’s ultimate rejection of his waiver request
was “not in accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C. §§ 7701(c)(2)(A),
(c)(2)(C). We address each argument in turn.
III
“We review the Board’s interpretation of a statute de
novo . . . and the Board’s factual determinations for sub-
stantial evidence.” Sistek. v. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, 955
F.3d 948, 953 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (internal citation omitted).
We must affirm the Board unless its decision was “(1) arbi-
trary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not
in accordance with law; (2) obtained without procedures re-
quired by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or
(3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” 5 U.S.C. §
7703(c).
Mr. Senter first argues that the Board erred in failing
to rule that the waiver provisions of 5 C.F.R. § 339.204
were applicable to DOE’s physical fitness requirements for
NMCs. As to this issue, however, Mr. Senter cannot claim
harmful error because the AJ explicitly determined that,
even assuming the waiver provision did apply to the phys-
ical fitness requirements, the DOE did not err in its appli-
cation of the waiver provision to Mr. Senter. See S’Appx 15
(“However, assuming the waiver provision applies to the
fitness requirement at issue here, I find the appellant has
not shown by preponderant evidence the agency erred in
its application.”); see also Ward v. United States Postal
Serv., 634 F.3d 1274, 1282 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“The focus of a
harmless error analysis, however, is the agency and
whether the agency is likely to have reached a different
conclusion in the absence of procedural error.”) (emphasis
in original).
The AJ based this decision on her finding that Mr.
Senter failed to provide sufficient evidence establishing
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SENTER v. ENERGY 6
that he could perform the essential duties of his position
without endangering the health and safety of himself or
others, which is a requirement in order to obtain a waiver
under § 339.204. This determination is supported by sub-
stantial evidence, namely, the analysis of the removing of-
ficial, Director Trinidad Sanchez, that an “NMC that is not
physically ready and able to complete the mission is a lia-
bility to the mission” and “[i]ndividuals that are not physi-
cally fit cannot perform the essential duties of the position
in a manner that assures the safety and security of our nu-
clear assets and personnel.” S’Appx 17. In disputing this
finding, Mr. Senter provides “successful performance ap-
praisals for 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.” S’Appx 15. How-
ever, as the AJ found, those “appraisals do not shed light
on whether [Mr. Senter] can safely perform the full range
of the essential duties of his position without satisfying
minimum fitness requirements.” Id. Substantial evidence
thus supports the Board’s finding that Mr. Senter failed to
prove he was entitled to waiver of the physical fitness re-
quirement under 5 C.F.R. § 339.204.
Nor can Mr. Senter show that DOE’s rejection of his
waiver request was not in accordance with the law. DOE
considered Mr. Senter’s waiver request and found it was
“not applicable in this circumstance” given his failure to
show entitlement to a waiver. S’Appx 16-17 (discussing
particularities of the NMC role and why failure to maintain
physical fitness results in inability to perform that role).
There is nothing unlawful in either this analysis or conclu-
sion.
Finally, even assuming Mr. Senter is correct that the
waiver provision applies to the NMC physical fitness re-
quirements and that DOE erred in not making an “actual
comparison” between the NMC role requirements and his
ability to perform those requirements, Mr. Senter cannot
establish harmful error. He has failed to show that DOE,
even if it proceeded exactly as he requests, was “likely to
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SENTER v. ENERGY 7
have reached a different conclusion” regarding his entitle-
ment to a waiver. Ward, 634 F.3d at 1282
IV
We have considered Mr. Senter’s remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive. Accordingly, we affirm the
judgment of the Board.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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