A supervisor with 44 years of service who failed to follow agency policy when a mail carrier was bitten while on duty ends up losing her job based on this and several other misjudgments in carrying out her supervisory responsibilities.

According to the appeals court, “somewhat boorish” actions of supervisors at Merit Systems Protection Board were the “ordinary tribulations of the workplace,” and did not add up to an actionable hostile work environment.

A fired Navy employee who tried to avoid relocation to D.C. by volunteering to serve on a grand jury has lost in her third round before the appeals court.

This is yet another case where a retired employee’s failure to designate his wife-in this case his fifth-to receive a survivor’s annuity means she gets nothing.

A balky website for filing appeals with the MSPB is turned aside as an excuse for missing the filing deadline by both the Board and the appeals court. The employee is therefore out of luck in trying to challenge her removal.

A VA employee is fired for verbal and physical abuse toward an elderly patient.

The first time around the agency mitigated a proposed removal to a 2-week suspension. This time it mitigated a proposed removal to a demotion. The employee unsuccessfully argued double punishment, but the MSPB and the appeals court say “not.”

A Customs employee took his removal to arbitration and got it mitigated to a reprimand. The arbitrator refused, however, to grant attorney fees and the appeals court has now upheld that refusal.

One can almost detect the appeals court’s exasperation with the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Personnel Management as it sorts out this tangled mess involving one deceased Forest Service employee, two surviving spouses, lengthy state court litigation, and an effort by OPM to make one of the women reimburse annuity payments she received erroneously-even though she had already paid them over to the other spouse.