WASHINGTON, Circuit Judge.
This is a veterans' preference case, relating to reassignment rights ("bumping rights") of the nature considered in Fass v. Gray, 90 U.S.App.D.C. ___, 197 F.2d 587. Appellant, after being released from the Department of Agriculture in a reduction in force, successfully appealed to the Civil Service Commission. The Department reinstated him, but in a position of lesser salary and responsibility than his former one, which had been abolished. He again appealed to the Civil Service Commission, which held, after investigation, that there was no higher position available for appellant. This suit followed, in which appellant sought a declaration of his rights and an order restoring him to his former job. Thereupon the Commission investigated once more, and again ruled unfavorably to appellant. A hearing was then held in the District Court. The court entered judgment for the defendants (appellees here), concluding that "plaintiff has been accorded all procedural and substantive rights to which he was entitled under the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944, 5 U.S. C.A. § 851 et seq. and Civil Service Commission regulations promulgated pursuant thereto."
We think it well to reiterate that in civil service cases the task of the courts is a limited one. Certainly they cannot undertake to pass on a plaintiff's qualifications for any given post, or to compare them with those of an incumbent. It is not within their province to weigh the merits of a person's claim to a Federal job.
The pertinent provision of Civil Service Regulation 20.9(d), applied by the Commission in this case, required that a veteran of appellant's status be placed in a position "which he could fill without undue interruption to the activity involved. * * *"
The judgment of the District Court will accordingly be
Affirmed.
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