DECISION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
On February 3, 2004, Hearing Officer, on a motion to dismiss, issued the attached Order dismissing the Complaint against Respondent on jurisdictional grounds; that is, as a matter of law the Respondent could not constitute an employing office under the Congressional Accountability Act, 2 U.S.C. §1301(9): in essence holding that even if the Complainant’s factual allegations were taken as true, jurisdiction would still be lacking over the Respondent. The Complainant timely filed a petition for review of that Order, and a supporting brief. The Respondent timely filed its opposition brief to the petition for review.
While we acknowledge that an individual must be employed by one of the nine employers listed in Section 101(3)(A)-(I) [2 U.S.C. §1301(3)(A)-(I))] of the Act in order to be considered a “covered employee”, we do not construe Section 101(3) of the Act as precluding a covered employee from bringing a claim against more than one respondent under a joint-employer or single-employer theory. The ruling in Moore v. Capitol Guide Board, 982 F. Supp. 35 (D.D.C. 1997) does not require us to hold otherwise. Similarly, in light of the general rule of statutory construction that “[i]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise – words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things; words importing the plural include the singular . . .” 1 U.S.C. §1, we do not construe Section 405(a) (2 U.S.C. §1405) as precluding a covered employee from naming more than one employing office as a respondent in a complaint filed with the Office of Compliance under the Act.
