Read summaries of court cases and decisions that impact federal employees and retirees.
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.
The recent buzz about David Letterman’s affair with a staffer has brought issues of workplace sexual harassment back into the limelight. For federal employees, a recent court decision makes it important for employees to report harassment promptly.
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.
The important question for the federal employee who files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS is: What happens if the Office of Personnel Management denies my application? Is that the end of my chances?
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.
A district court has ruled that a small number of unsuccessful applicants for the DOJ Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program who claim their applications were excluded by agency political appointees during the Bush years for failure to pass a partisan litmus test may maintain a Privacy Act lawsuit against the department.
