Joseph C. Payne v. United States

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
JOSEPH C. PAYNE,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2025-1437
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:24-cv-01315-PSH, Judge Philip S. Hadji.
______________________
Decided: March 3, 2026
______________________
J OSEPH C. P AYNE, Millsboro, DE, pro se.
VIJAYA SURAMPUDI, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by
T ARA K. HOGAN, P ATRICIA M. M CCARTHY , BRETT SHUMATE.
______________________
Before D YK, BRYSON, and STOLL , Circuit Judges.
Case: 25-1437 Document: 88 Page: 1 Filed: 03/03/2026

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PAYNE v. US 2
P ER CURIAM .
Joseph C. Payne appeals a judgment of the United
States Court of Federal Claims (the “Claims Court”) dis-
missing his complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdic-
tion. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Payne alleged that he worked at the United States
Postal Service from 1980 to 2015. In 2021, he filed an ap-
peal at the Merit Systems Protection Board (the “Board”)
arguing that in 2008, the Postal Service failed to promote
him to a vehicle operations and maintenance assistant po-
sition. He asserted two claims, one under the Veterans
Employment Opportunity Act (the “VEOA”) and the other
under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemploy-
ment Rights Act (the “USERRA”). The Board dismissed
the VEOA claim as untimely, as the relevant statute re-
quires that VEOA claims must be filed within 60 days of
the alleged violation. See 5 U.S.C. §§ 3330a(a)(1)(A),
(a)(2)(A). The Board also dismissed the USERRA claim un-
der the doctrine of laches. Mr. Payne appealed the dismis-
sal of his USERRA claim, but not the VEOA claim, and we
affirmed. Payne v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., No. 2023-2204,
2024 WL 3423018 at *2–3 & *2 n.2 (Fed. Cir. July 16,
2024). In July 2024, Mr. Payne filed a petition for writ of
certiorari challenging our decision. See Petition, No. 24-
5296 (U.S. July 27, 2024). The Supreme Court has since
closed the docket for Mr. Payne’s petition for a writ of cer-
tiorari after Mr. Payne failed to pay the required docketing
fee.
In August 2024, before the Supreme Court acted on the
certiorari petition, Mr. Payne filed a complaint in the
Claims Court alleging that errors with the Postal Service
job posting for a vehicle assistant position did not comply
with the VEOA or USERRA, apparently in reference to the
same promotion dispute he had appealed to the Board in
2021. Complaint at 1–2, Payne v. United States, No. 1:24-
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PAYNE v. US 3
cv-1315 (Fed. Cl. Aug. 26, 2024). The Claims Court dis-
missed the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdic-
tion. Mr. Payne appeals. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
D ISCUSSION
We review de novo the Claims Court’s grant of a motion
to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Roman
v. United States, 61 F.4th 1366, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2023). For
the purpose of this review, we accept all factual allegations
in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences
in favor of the plaintiff. Meidinger v. United States,
989 F.3d 1353, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (quoting Henke
v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 797 (Fed. Cir. 1995)). Alt-
hough “[w]e give pro se plaintiffs more latitude in their
pleadings than a party represented by counsel,” Roman,
61 F.4th at 1370 (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106
(1976)), this lenience will not enable a litigant to overcome
a jurisdictional requirement, see Kelley v. Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t
of Lab., 812 F.2d 1378, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
The Claims Court construed Mr. Payne’s complaint as
a collateral attack on our prior decision affirming the
Board’s dismissal of Mr. Payne’s appeal. It accordingly dis-
missed the complaint because challenges to a decision of
the Federal Circuit must be pursued only at the Supreme
Court and may not be brought through an action at the
Claims Court. 28 U.S.C. § 1254; see also Shinnecock In-
dian Nation v. United States, 782 F.3d 1345, 1353
(Fed. Cir. 2015) (“Permitting parties aggrieved by the deci-
sions of Article III tribunals to challenge the merits of those
decisions in the Court of Federal Claims would circumvent
the statutorily defined appellate process and severely un-
dercut the orderly resolution of claims.”); 5 U.S.C.
§ 7703(b)(1)(A) (requiring challenges to the Board’s deci-
sions to be filed in this court). In his informal brief,
Mr. Payne continues to argue the merits of his prior peti-
tion for review. Because Mr. Payne’s complaint sought to
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PAYNE v. US 4
revisit our prior decision concerning the failure to promote
him to the vehicle assistant position, the Claims Court did
not err in dismissing it for lack of jurisdiction.
We have considered Mr. Payne’s other arguments and
find them unpersuasive in light of this jurisdictional issue.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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