Nationwide Building Maintenance, Inc. Ohio Building Service and Maintenance, Inc. William W. Johnson v. Robert B. Reich, Secretary of Labor

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal raises the question of whether a federal agency’s extended delay in implementing one part of its own published regulations can ultimately prevent it from enforcing other aspects of those regulations. The Secretary of Labor published a regulation stating that she “shall establish a Board of Service Contract Appeals,” but she did not form that board for more than eight years. During that interim period, the Deputy Secretary of Labor, pursuant to the regulation, continued to hear all service-contract appeals. The district court found that, because the Secretary…