Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PROCEDURE—D.C. Cir.: District court improperly transferred employee’s FLSA claim to Court of Federal Claims, (Aug 3, 2026)

By Ronald Miller, J.D.

The district courts and the Court of Federal Claims have concurrent jurisdiction over FLSA damages claims against the United States.

Finding that the FLSA establishes a precise and self-executing remedial scheme that provides the district courts and the Court of Federal Claims with concurrent jurisdiction over FLSA damages claims against the United States, the D.C. Circuit vacated a district court’s sua sponte transfer of an employee’s FLSA claim to the Court of Federal Claims. The appeals court observed that the FLSA waives sovereign immunity in “any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction.” Thus, the appeals court cannot impose the Tucker Act’s sovereign immunity waiver on the FLSA. Consequently, the appeals court vacated the district court’s sua sponte transfer of the employee’s FLSA claim to the Court of Federal Claims. On the other hand, the appeals court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the State Department with respect to the employee’s Title VII and Rehabilitation Act claims (Ruppe v. Rubio, No. 24-5199 (D.C. Cir. July 31, 2026)).

The employee joined the Foreign Service in 1993 and was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service in 2011. In 2014, she began working as a director in the Office of Public Diplomacy. Over the next two years, she tried and failed to obtain a promotion to a deputy chief of mission post in Europe. She also experienced difficulty working with her direct supervisor, whom she accused of discriminatory conduct.

After filing an EEO complaint with the State Department, the employee sued the Department, raising seven discrimination claims: five under Title VII, one under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and one under the FLSA. Her FLSA claim sought more than $10,000 in damages. The district court granted summary judgment for the State Department on her Title VII and Rehabilitation Act claims.

FLSA claim. As to the employee’s FLSA claim, both parties maintained that the district court had jurisdiction because Waters v. Rumsfeld, 320 F.3d 265 (D.C. Cir. 2003), cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Bormes, 568 U.S. 6 (2012). The district court held it was bound by Waters until overruled by the D.C. Circuit and therefore the Court of Federal Claims had exclusive jurisdiction over FLSA damages claims against the United States in excess of $10,000. The employee’s FLSA claim was transferred to the Court of Federal Claims. The employee timely appealed.

The D.C. Circuit first affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the State Department on the employee’s Title VII and Rehabilitation Act claims for substantially the same reasons given by the district court.

Transfer order. Next, the court considered the employee’s challenge to the district court’s sua sponte transfer of her FLSA damages claim to the Court of Federal Claims. Here, the D.C. Circuit concluded that it had appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s transfer order.

Transfer orders are generally not appealable final orders, nor are they generally reviewable under the collateral order doctrine. However, the D.C. Circuit has recognized that when a district court transfers a claim for lack of jurisdiction, the transfer order is appealable if the transferee court has jurisdiction over the underlying claim. When there is a possibility of concurrent jurisdiction between the district court and the Court of Federal Claims, an order transferring a claim from the district court to the Court of Federal Claims would likely evade review unless the D.C. Circuit steps in.

Absent immediate review by the D.C. Circuit, the plaintiff would find herself in the Court of Federal Claims with no effective way to contest the transfer. Because that court has jurisdiction over her claim, it likely would proceed to the merits without entertaining any challenge to the district court’s transfer decision. Nor could the plaintiff seek effective review in the Federal Circuit, which likely would find “any error in transferring the action … harmless” in light of the two trial courts’ concurrent jurisdiction.

In these circumstances, the D.C. Circuit had appellate jurisdiction to review the transfer order because otherwise, the concurrent jurisdiction of the two trial courts might “defeat[] review” entirely.

Motion for transfer. For its part, the State Department maintained that the D.C. Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review the transfer order because the Federal Circuit has exclusive appellate jurisdiction over a district court order … granting or denying a motion to transfer an action to the Court of Federal Claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(d)(4)(A). Thus, the Department contended that appellate review may be sought only in the Federal Circuit.

However, the D.C. Circuit found Section 1292(d)(4)(A) inapplicable in these particular circumstances because the district court ordered a sua sponte transfer, and this provision vests the Federal Circuit with exclusive appellate jurisdiction only over orders granting or denying a transfer motion filed by a party.

The statutory text and context demonstrate the word “motion” in Section 1292(d)(4)(A) refers to a motion filed by one of the parties, observed the D.C. Circuit. Since neither the employee nor the State Department filed a motion to transfer, the district court’s sua sponte transfer did not grant or deny such a motion. Accordingly, Section 1292(d)(4)(A) does not bar the D.C. Circuit’s review.

Remedial scheme. Because the FLSA establishes a precise and self-executing remedial scheme that enables both the district courts and the Court of Federal Claims to adjudicate damages claims against the United States, the D.C. Circuit held that the district court had jurisdiction over the employee’s FLSA claim.

The D.C. Circuit’s decision in Waters, which held the Court of Federal Claims has exclusive jurisdiction over such claims, cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bormes.

Sovereign immunity. The FLSA waives federal sovereign immunity because it “creates a cause of action and authorizes suit against [the] government on that claim.” The waiver of sovereign immunity applies “in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction.” The FLSA’s waiver thus applies to all courts with “an existing source of subject-matter jurisdiction” covering an FLSA claim.

Since the FLSA’s waiver of federal sovereign immunity applies to all courts of competent jurisdiction, and both the district courts and the Court of Federal Claims are such courts, they have concurrent jurisdiction over the employee’s FLSA damages claim against the United States.

Waters had held that the Court of Federal Claims had “exclusive jurisdiction” over FLSA claims against the United States seeking more than $10,000 in damages. Waters relied on the general principle that, under the Tucker Act, the Court of Federal Claims often has exclusive jurisdiction over claims against the federal government for more than $10,000 in damages. But that court’s jurisdiction is exclusive “only to the extent that Congress has not granted any other court authority to hear the [relevant] claims.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bormes compels the conclusion that Waters was wrongly decided because it superimposed the Tucker Act’s waiver on the FLSA, which contains a precise and self-executing remedial scheme. Here, the D.C. Circuit overruled Waters. Because the FLSA creates a precise and self-executing remedial scheme, the appeals court cannot superimpose the Tucker Act’s sovereign immunity waiver on the FLSA.

Because the district courts and the Court of Federal Claims have concurrent jurisdiction to adjudicate FLSA damages claims against the United States, the employee’s claim may proceed in district court.

The case is No. 24-5199.

Judge: Rao, N.

Attorneys: Kevin E. Byrnes (Patriots Law Group of Lyons & Hughes) for Adele E. Ruppe. Sean M. Tepe, U.S. Attorney’s Office, for Marco Rubio, Secretary of State.

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