A Bureau of Prisons senior officer specialist was deployed to Iraq after his Marine Corps unit was activated. He was court-martialed for dereliction of duty and assault as a result of his interaction with Iraqi prisoners. After he returned to work, the agency removed him and the case went to court.
A patent examiner has lost in her bid to persuade the MSPB and a federal court that her resignation was involuntary. The issue is not the employee’s subjective beliefs but whether a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign.
Taping a cell phone call can lead to interesting consequences. In this case, a couple taped a call made on a cell phone from an Ohio Congressman. Another Congressman released the contents of the tape to the media. The Ohio Congressman has now been awarded $60,000 in damages and fees from the Congressman who released the tape to the New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
There is a process for a federal employee to use when injured on the job. What happens with the “federal employee” in question is a Member of Congress. One Congressman wanted to be treated differently and went to court to avoid waiting in line.
Ten air traffic controllers got left out when the agency and union negotiated an agreement to transfer controllers from the GS schedule to the new controller pay system. A federal court says that both the agency and union should have anticipated the problem but federal law does not provide a remedy. The controllers who got left of the arrangement out are out of luck.
A GSA employee convinces a federal court that being barred from the workplace was a constructive suspension and the court told the MSPB that the employee deserved a hearing. “The danger of prematurely weighing evidence is illustrated here by the strength lent to (the employee’s) allegation by new evidence that he discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request.”
A federal court found that a GS-15 federal employee was seeking judicial review of a personnel decision to suspend him by using the Privacy Act as an end-run around Civil Service Reform Act procedures. The case took three years.
An employee supported by AFGE tried to expand the emergency crime provision by arguing that in addition to giving him thirty-days notice of its proposed action, the agency also was required to determine that there was reasonable cause to believe he had committed a crime. The court did not agree.
A civilian police officer working for the Navy was removed in 2004 for charges including AWOL and inappropriate conduct. He filed various appeals but a federal appeals court upholds the MSPB’s conclusion that his removal was appropriate based on the credibility determinations made by the Board’s administrative judge.
A federal court found a problem with an agency’s deciding official talking with other managers about their views of an employee who had received a removal notice. And, while the employee being fired apparently liked to watch “Oprah” on her computer, the court suggested the MSPB review the record showing that other federal employees also watched television in the office during the workday.
