“VA recruited petitioner from private practice for a Pain Management position providing interventional-pain medicine. The complaint alleges that, before appointment and while petitioner remained a private civilian, VA had already planned to obtain control of that specialty labor and redirect it toward addiction treatment under a different service. The Federal Circuit recast the pleaded property as bonus and assignment expectations and held that the antecedent plan ‘makes no difference’ because petitioner later accepted federal employment.”
“The questions presented are:”
1. “Whether specialized professional labor may constitute ‘private property’ under the Takings Clause when independent law and official acquisition instruments objectively define a bounded labor-use interest, or whether acceptance of a paid federal appointment categorically forecloses that inquiry.”
2. “Whether, as in Snyder v. United States, the timing of an antecedent arrangement may determine the legal character of a later implementing act, such that a court reviewing a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal may not treat the Government’s preappointment plan to acquire and redirect a private specialist’s labor as legally irrelevant merely because the specialist later accepted a federal appointment.”
