my name is matthew mails lee and i represent the petitioner david guess or the marriage systems protection board made two fundamental errors in the really what is on appeal this case both of these errors constitute legal conclusions that were made not in accordance with law that was made and and the record factually supports that the process by which mr guess or it was promoted supports the promotion so both there is both legal authority and a factual record that supports the production the issue or an appeal here promotion is the result of a personal process and the process by which he was he was put into that promotion but there is there is a dispute frankly about whether the process that was documented was with legal authority in factually what his supervisor permanent position is contemplated by the regulation and specifically by the o p m guidance that goes with that regulation and european guidance contemplates that a pm f l can be promoted all the way up to a g s thirteen grade and then in that end in that final promotion it as a pm a fellow can then be converted into a permanent position and at the same time promoted to learn a career ladder that allows him to be put into it yes fourteen great upon graduation from the piano program well known in the regular process yes had mr guesswork not been graduating from the payment program then then right there would be no at least under the circumstances that we're talking about there would be no reason he would be accepted for the competitive program but the held before he was promoted out of the program the position was a g s thirteen and so but but there is factual support in the records to show that to show that they were that his supervisors were but that's important to the regulations the regulations say that if there is a if there is an established career ladder upon conversion from the p m s program he may be promoted along that ladder not in competitively and that would be the last exception to the competitive process that was that that's what's at the speed in dispute here was that he was that his supervisors were intending to promote him along that last promotion that is excepted from the competitive process that the regulation specifically in the game guidance on the p m s program specifically contemplates that and indeed says that in an ideal case the career ladder is spelled al but also admits that in a non ideal case the career ladder may not be spelled out and so and so that's that's part of the factual dispute and not what would you guess would benefit from from the board actually looking at the record in this case as showing that that career ladder and either whether there was a intention to put him in a position a conversion from the p m s program to a permanent position and that would be that that is the last two years from now will no one say this as the final promotion out of the piano program might i'm not saying that that's graduates of the p m s program are accepted indefinitely from the competitive process some say the last promotion that that the regulations provide for at least at least don't restrict and don't expect specially exclude and that the o place the fellows in positions that will prepare them for their ultimate placements in the civil service and that's got to be go up how they use their assignment authority and he's proposing that the agency as sign the petitioner assuming that there were even to bail positions that they could have assigned him to other another position that was in a career router and then when he was converted from o t up the career ladder career ladder which he was not if he had been in such a position then he could have been appointed to a fourteen as soon as he was conferred well that's the nature of the career ladder that you're allowed to be non competitively appointed provided he'd been a year in the lower grade which he would have satisfied but they didn't do that it's entirely based on a hypothetical and what the agency hypothetically could have done simply has no bearing on the legality of watched what they did do which was to directly appoint him not not up the career ladder and none competitively to a fourteen and they simply had no authority to do that and that's because once you're converted into the civil service you're subject to the civil service rules under which generally speaking i mention has got to be done on a competitive basis there is a narrow exception in the regulations for career ladder position in the career ladder where a higher rate of position is the first performance of the position and the lower position is one that's viewed as an assignment to preparing for the higher rate and and those circumstances out of the time great you can be promoted up the ladder noncompetitive but in this situation he wasn't in that kind of a position so and her reading however of the exception which lists various categories of the employees how they enter the civil service and says that in the case of these employees an assignment to a position which is intended to prepare them to the last category of the employee's list which is a completely implausible reading of this narrow exception because it would in fact mean that most employees in the civil service could be compared it could be noncompetitive point and that's clearly not what the regulation means it's not what the o p m interpretation of it says the word corrective that in it's in its final decision finding that in fact there had been a noncompetitive a promotion under the regulation always increases it always provides that you would place in the step where you your pay goes up and when you have a great promotion so for that reason the  properly treats that regulation as applying and therefore once it determines that what we have is a cancellation of a promotion that was legally improper was done without any legal authority that's not an  bashan within the board's abstraction jurisdiction and it makes sense because once that's determined unlike other abstractions or nothing left for the board to decide the only remedy is to cancel there's no your letter of a g s fourteen that the issue here is that both the a j and the board made decisions as a matter of law that didn't get into the evidence of record that would support that he was actually put into a g briefs briefing of this court show that his supervisors intended to put him into a g s thirteen position with the career ladder of fourteen that they were trying to follow the same process by which they had promoted a prior p m s fellow and that had followed that process and there was no there's no indication at least in any of the the evidence in the record here that there was any problem with the same the same promotion of this prior to methe fellow there's also evidence of an e mail on the record that the promotion itself what i'm saying we have that the record supports that there are the e mails and the records support that but there was never there was never a hearing by way of sure or there never factual findings made on that particular position because it from the time went to the board it was all