5 U.S.C. § 5106
Section 5106 · Basis for classifying positions
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case Albert v. United States (1971)
Most recently applied in Hinkel v. England (November 2003)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Each position shall be placed in its appropriate class. The basis for determining the appropriate class is the duties and responsibilities of the position and the qualifications required by the duties and responsibilities.
(b) Each class shall be placed in its appropriate grade. The basis for determining the appropriate grade is the level of difficulty, responsibility, and qualification requirements of the work of the class.
(c) Appropriated funds may not be used to pay an employee who places a supervisory position in a class and grade solely on the basis of the size of the organization unit or the number of subordinates supervised. These factors may be given effect only to the extent warranted by the work load of the organization unit and then only in combination with other factors, such as the kind, difficulty, and complexity of work supervised, the degree and scope of responsibility delegated to the supervisor, and the kind, degree, and character of the supervision exercised.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
In subsection (c), the prohibition is restated in positive form. The words “to pay” are substituted for the words “to pay the compensation of”. The words “the group, section, bureau” are omitted as included in the words “the organization unit”. The word “actually” in the phrase “of the supervision exercised” is omitted as unnecessary.
Standard changes are made to conform with the definitions applicable and the style of this title as outlined in the preface to the report.