A federal appeals court has reaffirmed that a resignation counts as legally involuntary only when the agency effectively imposed it, the employee had no realistic alternative, and the agency acted improperly — and in the case before it, the former employee failed that three-part test.

The ruling matters directly for federal HR practice. As FEDweek noted, the involuntariness issue has surfaced in two live contexts: deferred resignation offers and relocations caused by office moves. Agencies pressing employees to leave — or moving their jobs — now have a clearer appellate roadmap for defending those separations against later legal challenge.

What does the ruling change?

Strictly speaking, nothing new. The court restated settled doctrine, but did so in a form agencies and HR practitioners can cite when an employee later claims constructive removal. The opinion lays out the Fruhauf test, which requires an employee to show:

• the agency effectively imposed the terms of the resignation or retirement;
• the employee had no realistic alternative but to resign or retire; and
• the resignation or retirement was the result of improper acts by the agency.

All three elements are evaluated through an objective lens: "the totality of the circumstances," from the perspective of "a reasonable employee confronted with the same circumstances," who "would feel coerced into resigning."

Freedom of choice sits at the center of that analysis. The court emphasized that its case law "has emphasized that freedom of choice is a central issue" to the objective test.

Why did the employee lose?

The court drew on its predecessor court's holding in Christrie, cited via Garcia, where an employee argued she had no viable option but to resign in the face of a proposed discharge for cause. The prior court rejected that logic:

"[W]hile it is possible plaintiff, herself, perceived no viable alternative but to tender her resignation, the record evidence supports [the agency's] finding that plaintiff chose to resign and accept discontinued service retirement rather than challenge the validity of her proposed discharge for cause. The fact remains, plaintiff had a choice. She could stand pat and fight. She chose not to."

That reasoning carries a blunt message for employees: declining to contest an adverse action, then resigning, does not convert the resignation into a constructive removal.

How does this apply to relocations and deferred resignations?

The opinion addresses the exact scenario agencies now face with office moves and deferred resignation programs. Coercive involuntariness does not apply, the court said, when an employee resigns because "he does not want to accept a new assignment, a transfer, or other measures that the agency is authorized to adopt, even if those measures make continuation in the job so unpleasant for the employee that he feels that he has no realistic option but to leave."

The court added that facing "an unpleasant situation or that his choice is limited to two unattractive options does not make the employee's decision any less voluntary."

For HR leaders at federal agencies, that language suggests separations following authorized transfers or voluntary deferred-resignation offers will be hard to unwind in court — provided the underlying agency action was within its authority.

What is the practical bar?

The court closed with a caution against overreading the doctrine. Its cases "recognize that most resignations and retirements are not constructive removals, and that 'the doctrine of coercive involuntariness is a narrow one' requiring that the employee 'satisfy a demanding legal standard.'"

That sets a high evidentiary bar for plaintiffs and, conversely, a measure of protection for agencies — but only where the agency's own conduct was proper. The third Fruhauf element leaves the door open where duress, coercion or misinformation from the agency drove the decision.

The full opinion, including citations to the prior cases condensed here, is available through FEDweek. As deferred resignation offers and office relocations continue to reshape the federal workforce, expect this three-part test to frame the litigation that follows them.