An employee fired after 17 years of federal service argued he was acting in his role as a union official and not as an agency official when being interviewed by the agency’s Office of Internal Affairs. Two specifications supporting one charge of conduct unbecoming were found to be enough to uphold his removal.
A mailroom worker for SSA got caught up in a fraudulent income tax scheme apparently sponsored by a co-worker. While under investigation, the agency promoted the employee who now had access to a database of Social Security numbers. The employee was fired but a federal court sends the case back to the MSPB for a new decision.
Four Transportation Security Administration employees were not able to convince a court that their agency violated the Privacy Act when an agency hard drive with personal information on some 100,000 TSA employees went missing.
A federal employee reached a settlement with the Army under which he resigned and the agency would rescind the removal for cause from his personnel records. He filed another appeal, created a public record, and got a decision that the Army had done what it agreed to do.
An IRS employee was unsuccessful in making a case that the agency’s actions against her amounted to unlawful retaliation for her discrimination complaint.
A divorced spouse of a retired federal employee has been frustrated in her attempts to continue her coverage under his federal health insurance policy even though she had a court order requiring her ex-husband to “continue to pay…the premiums due on the medical” policy.
A recent case demonstrates that when the federal government gets too involved in personnel decisions affecting contract employees, it could open the door to equal employment opportunity complaints just as if the individual is in fact a government employee.
A trial court has rebuffed the government’s attempts to set aside a jury verdict in favor of an unsuccessful applicant for an FBI Special Agent position. The FBI revoked its conditional offer of employment to a Type I insulin-dependent diabetic applicant. The applicant invoked the Rehabilitation Act and sued the agency.
As usual, the attorneys that filed class action lawsuits fared much better than those they are representing in this case involving the Department of Veterans Affairs. Attorneys suing the VA wanted 25% of a $20 million fund, or $5 million. The judge decided they would get only 18% or $3.6 million. Represented veterans got from $75 to $1500.
A Physicist/Scientist with the Naval Surface Warfare Center was not able to persuade the appeals court to overturn an indefinite suspension that lasted 370 days after the Navy pulled his security clearance.
