Daniels

The question on appeal is whether Shirley Daniels was an “employee” of the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) for purposes of bringing an age discrimination suit against the federal agency under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 633a.

Daniels worked at the EPA as part of the Senior Environmental Employment Program (“SEE”) pursuant to the Older American Community Service Employment Act of 1965 (“Older American Act”), 42 U.S.C. § 3056 , and the Environmental Programs Assistance Act of 1984 (“EPAA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4368a. She sued the EPA under the ADEA, alleging that the EPA paid her less than it paid non-SEE employees for the same or substantially similar work. The district court granted summary judgment for the EPA on the ground of sovereign immunity, and Daniels appeals.

The ADEA waives the Federal Government’s sovereign immunity to allow suits by “employees” of “executive agencies.” The district court granted summary judgment for the EPA because it found that Congress did not intend the ADEA’s waiver of sovereign immunity for executive agency employees to apply to SEE participants. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we…