United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

JASON LAMBRO, INDIVIDUALLY AND ON BEHALF OF SIMILARLY SITUATED INDIVIDUALS, Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee ______________________

2022-2249 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in No. 1:21-cv-01447-ZNS, Judge Zachary N. Somers. ______________________

Decided: January 22, 2024 ______________________

JOSEPH ANTHONY WHITCOMB, Whitcomb, Selinsky, PC, Denver, CO, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also repre- sented by TIMOTHY TURNER.

MATTHEW JUDE CARHART, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus- tice, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY. ______________________ Case: 22-2249 Document: 42 Page: 2 Filed: 01/22/2024

2 LAMBRO v. US

Before TARANTO, CHEN, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges. TARANTO, Circuit Judge. Jason Lambro brought this action against the United States, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. (FLSA). He alleged that the federal agency for which he had long done work under a series of contracts, Voice of America (VOA), had denied him benefits such as overtime pay guaranteed to employees under the FLSA. His key contention is that, although he was concededly not a fed- eral employee under Title 5 of the United States Code or other non-FLSA law, he was a federal employee for FLSA purposes under the applicable definitions of “employee” and “employ” contained in the FLSA itself. The Court of Federal Claims (Claims Court)—which received the case by unopposed transfer from a district court in which it was originally filed—dismissed the action for failure to state a claim, holding that the FLSA’s definitions, even if his cir- cumstances would bring Mr. Lambro within their terms, were simply inapplicable to federal employees. See Lambro v. United States, 162 Fed. Cl. 344, 351, 353–55 (2022). We reject the Claims Court’s conclusion that the FLSA does not cover a person asserting coverage as a federal gov- ernment employee unless a congressional authorization outside the FLSA creates the asserted employment rela- tionship with the federal government, a condition that Mr. Lambro concededly does not meet. We hold that the FLSA itself, through its definitional provisions, provides the ap- plicable standard for recognizing an employment relation- ship for FLSA purposes, so the Claims Court must evaluate whether Mr. Lambro was employed by VOA under the FLSA’s own standard for being employed. We therefore va- cate the Claims Court’s dismissal and remand the case for further proceedings. Case: 22-2249 Document: 42 Page: 3 Filed: 01/22/2024

LAMBRO v. US 3

I In the operative complaint, Mr. Lambro alleged that he had worked since 2002 as a studio technician for VOA, a division of what is now called the United States Agency for Global Media. Mr. Lambro performed that work under a series of purchase order agreements, renewed repeatedly, which stated that “no employer-employee relationship ex- ist[ed]” between Mr. Lambro and VOA. 1 J.A. 18, 36. Mr. Lambro alleged, however, that VOA “significantly con- trolled and continues to control” his work. J.A. 18 ¶ 28. For example, he noted that he was unable to subcontract or to set his own schedule; VOA provided all his equipment; and he was expected to perform non-contracted-for tasks. J.