Congress Questions Why Agencies Keep Settling Federal Employee Cases
The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether federal agencies rely too heavily on settlements in employee disputes instead of pursuing litigation.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said that settlements are the “dominant resolution mechanism across the federal administrative adjudication landscape” and may result in increased costs to taxpayers and limited transparency into how workplace disputes are resolved.
Rep. Comer noted that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) paid out $202 million in settlements in 2023. He also pointed to Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) settlement figures, which he said totaled $11 million under the Biden administration compared to $3.6 million during the first Trump administration.
“Agencies are frequently and inexplicably settling cases with taxpayer dollars that they would otherwise win,” Rep. Comer wrote in a letter addressed to Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor. “This raises the question of whether cases are being settled despite a high likelihood of government success on the merits, and, if so, whether systemic incentives are driving outcomes that prioritize short-term expediency over long-term accountability and savings for taxpayers.”
Data Demands
In the letter, Rep. Comer noted that comprehensive data on settlement frequency, cost, and distribution across agencies is not presently available.
But he noted that MSPB data from fiscal years (FY) 2005 to 2015 showed that 68 percent of federal employee cases reached settlements during that time and that the agency prevailed in more than 80 percent of cases that were litigated.
The letter asks for data from federal employment cases heard before the EEOC, MSPB, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) from 2020 to the present, to be turned over to the committee by May 25, 2026.
Way to Save Costs and Resources
For its part, MSPB has previously suggested that settlements save costs and resources for federal agencies.
The EEOC also has an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) program that seeks to move cases toward settlements and avoid full litigation. According to the EEOC website, ADR helps “avoid the cost, delay and unpredictability of the traditional adjudicatory processes while at the same time improving workplace communication and morale.”
