Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-03132/USCOURTS-ca13-15-03132-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Raymond Charles Collica
Petitioner
Department of the Army
Respondent

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

RAYMOND CHARLES COLLICA,

Petitioner

v.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY,

Respondent

______________________ 

2015-3132

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. DC-0752-12-0618-I-2.

______________________ 

Decided: June 8, 2016

______________________ 

RAYMOND CHARLES COLLICA, Tampa, FL, pro se.

COURTNEY D. ENLOW, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by 

BENJAMIN C. MIZER, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR.,

ELIZABETH M. HOSFORD; REBECCA AUSPRUNG, Civilian 

Personnel Branch, United States Army Litigation Division, Fort Belvoir, VA.

______________________ 

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2 COLLICA v. ARMY

Before TARANTO, BRYSON, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

Raymond Collica was employed by the Department of 

the Army as an attorney-advisor. He was stationed in 

Europe for several years. In May 2012, the Army removed him from his position for refusing a reassignment

to the United States ordered by Army management. He 

appealed the removal to the Merit Systems Protection 

Board, which found the removal proper and not in retaliation for Mr. Collica’s whistleblower activity. See Collica v.

Dep’t of the Army, No. DC-0752-12-0618-I-2, 2015 WL 

779691 (MSPB Feb. 25, 2015) (Final Order); Collica v. 

Dep’t of the Army, No. DC-0752-12-0618-I-2, 2013 WL 

6631195 (MSPB July 10, 2013) (Initial Decision). We 

affirm.

BACKGROUND

Before his 2012 removal, Mr. Collica served as an 

attorney-advisor in the Army’s Warrior Transition Battalion in Wiesbaden, Germany. In that position, he provided 

legal counsel to soldiers who were going through the 

Army’s process for determining their fitness for continued 

service and eligibility for disability compensation; specifically, he advised soldiers during the phase of that process 

in which their medical condition was assessed to decide if 

they would continue to meet the Army’s medical standards for retention. In September 2011, an Army-wide 

directive implementing the Integrated Disabilities Evaluation System moved processing, including the phase

handled by Mr. Collica, to the continental United States.

Because processing would no longer take place in 

Europe, Mr. Collica’s supervisor, Colonel Joyce Hamel, 

notified him on December 16, 2011, that he had until 

March 31, 2012, to resolve pending cases. The colonel’s 

memorandum also offered to reassign Mr. Collica to a 

different attorney position—with the same basic salary 

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COLLICA v. ARMY 3

plus an increase for locality pay—at Walter Reed National 

Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Mr. 

Collica refused the reassignment. He asserted that he 

was being reassigned as reprisal for whistleblower disclosures he had made in June 2010 about a plan to send 

attorneys from Washington, DC, to Germany for two

months, a plan he considered mismanagement and a 

waste of funds. In response, Colonel Hamel’s supervisor,

Colonel Jonathan Kent, wrote to Mr. Collica that the 

reason for reassignment was that “there is no longer a 

requirement for soldiers’ counsel to remain in Europe,” 

that he saw no merit in the claim that the reassignment 

was in reprisal for the identified disclosures, and that the 

mismanagement/waste charge would be further investigated. S.A. 102–03. In the resulting investigation, the 

investigating lieutenant rejected Mr. Collica’s charge, 

including its reprisal aspect. 

On March 1, 2012, Colonel Hamel issued a new memorandum directing Mr. Collica’s reassignment to the 

previously offered position at Walter Reed and explaining

that failure to accept could result in his removal. The 

memorandum reiterated that there was no longer a need 

for Mr. Collica’s attorney-adviser position in Europe and 

stated that the need for attorneys in the United States 

had increased. But Mr. Collica again declined the reassignment and provided reasons for doing so. Colonel Kent 

reviewed all of Mr. Collica’s arguments for staying in 

Europe and decided that the management-directed reassignment would proceed. When Mr. Collica failed to 

accept the reassignment, Colonel Kent removed him from 

federal service on May 25, 2012.

Mr. Collica filed an appeal with the Merit Systems 

Protection Board in November 2012, challenging the 

removal and asserting, as an affirmative defense, retaliation for whistleblower activity. After an evidentiary 

hearing, the administrative judge upheld the agency’s 

removal. She found that the agency’s decision to reassign 

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4 COLLICA v. ARMY

Mr. Collica from Europe was a valid, non-arbitrary exercise of managerial discretion where an Army directive 

mandated relocation of all relevant processing to the 

United States. She also rejected the retaliation defense. 

She found that the disclosures at issue were protected by 

the Whistleblower Protection Act and were a contributing 

factor in the removal (under a test keyed to timing of the 

decision and the decision-maker’s knowledge of the disclosures), but she found that the Army showed by clear and 

convincing evidence that it would have taken the same 

action even if the disclosures had not been made. Finally, 

the administrative judge agreed with the Army that Mr. 

Collica’s failure to accept the directed reassignment 

impaired the efficiency of the service and that removal 

was an appropriate remedy.

Mr. Collica’s petition for review, filed with the Board 

in October 2013, asserted errors in the administrative 

judge’s substantive findings and procedural rulings. The 

Board modified the initial decision by adding an analysis

of the agency’s authority to reassign and remove Mr. 

Collica: although he raised that argument for the first 

time in his petition for review, relevant evidence—

specifically, an August 2012 email—was among 1,800 

emails provided to him by the Army just six days before 

the hearing with the administrative judge. Taking into 

account the August 2012 email, the Board determined 

that Colonel Kent had the authority to direct Mr. Collica’s 

reassignment. See Collica, 2015 WL 779691, ¶¶ 6–11. 

And the Board found no other reversible error: it rejected 

Mr. Collica’s procedural objections and agreed that the

Army met its burden to defeat his whistleblower defense. 

See id. ¶¶ 12–23.

Mr. Collica appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).

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DISCUSSION

We must affirm the Board’s decision unless it is “(1) 

arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise 

not in accordance with law; (2) obtained without procedures required by law, rule, or regulation having been 

followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” 5 

U.S.C. § 7703(c); see Terban v. Dep’t of Energy, 216 F.3d 

1021, 1024 (Fed. Cir. 2000). We see no basis for disturbing the Board’s decision.

There was substantial evidence to support the finding 

that the Army had legitimate management reasons to 

direct Mr. Collica’s reassignment—and, consequently, 

that he could be removed for refusing the reassignment. 

See Cobert v. Miller, 800 F.3d 1340, 1349, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 

2015); Frey v. Dep’t of Labor, 359 F.3d 1355, 1360 (Fed. 

Cir. 2004). The Army-wide restructuring directive required that the soldier processing at issue, specifically the 

phase handled by Mr. Collica, would thereafter take place 

in the United States. Even the small number of soldiers 

granted exceptions to stay in Europe would return to the 

United States temporarily for processing. It therefore 

made sense, and the administrative judge credited Colonel Hamel’s and Kent’s testimony, that these changes 

made it important for counsel to be in the United States, 

not in Europe. Moreover, reliance on this reason for Mr. 

Collica’s reassignment was no afterthought: all of the 

communications between Mr. Collica and his supervisors 

explicitly refer to the restructuring directive as the reason 

for the at-first-voluntary, then-mandatory reassignment, 

while giving him both an opportunity to respond and 

notice of the consequences for failure to accept. And the 

evidence that the Army saw the need for some paralegals 

to continue working in Germany does not render illegitimate the decision that attorneys performing Mr. Collica’s 

advising function were no longer needed in Germany.

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We further discern no legal or factual error in the 

Board’s determination that Colonel Kent had the authority to direct Mr. Collica’s reassignment. Mr. Collica argues 

otherwise based on an email sent to Colonel Kent in 

August 2012—after Mr. Collica’s removal in May 2012—

suggesting that the Army could not move Mr. Collica’s 

position to the United States on an organizational chart 

without the approval of the Vice Chief of Staff. But, as 

the Board correctly recognized, the pertinent issue here is 

not who had authority to effect an internal alteration of 

where an existing position would sit in an organizational 

hierarchy. The only authority question here concerns 

authority to move Mr. Collica to a different, alreadyexisting vacant position in the United States that would 

perform related tasks. As the Board succinctly put it, 

“[t]he movement of positions and the movement of personnel between positions are not synonymous.” S.A. 17. 

Mr. Collica has no valid claim that Colonel Kent did not 

have the authority to reassign him. 

Mr. Collica suggests that the reassignment was procedurally defective, pointing to Army Regulation 690-200, 

chapter 213, section 4-13, which provides that the responsible qualifying attorney, here the judge advocate general, 

must “[b]e notified before action is taken to involuntarily 

reassign . . . a civilian attorney.” But the Board made 

sufficient findings that the procedure used here complied 

with that regulation’s terms. The Board concluded that, 

even if the judge advocate general’s approval was necessary for Mr. Collica’s reassignment, Colonel Kent had 

obtained such approval and had supervisory authority 

over Mr. Collica. It relied on evidence that Mr. Collica 

emailed both Colonel Kent and the judge advocate general 

about his reassignment and that Colonel Kent responded 

on behalf of the judge advocate general. More generally, 

evidence shows that Colonel Kent coordinated with the 

judge advocate general, who knew about the reassignment and expressed no objections to it. The evidence here 

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COLLICA v. ARMY 7

suffices for us to uphold the Board’s authority determination, apart from any question about whether Mr. Collica 

waived this point or whether the reassignment could be 

affirmed in the absence of the judge advocate general’s 

approval. 

Regarding Mr. Collica’s whistleblower claim, the Army does not object to the Board’s conclusion that Mr. 

Collica made a prima facie case of whistleblower reprisal

by showing that his disclosures were protected under 5 

U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8) and that they were a contributing 

factor in his removal under the knowledge-timing approach to that issue. It relies, instead, on the statutory 

basis for rejecting the claim where the agency “demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that it would 

have taken the same personnel action in the absence of 

such disclosure[s].” 5 U.S.C. § 1221(e)(2). To determine 

whether the Army has done so here, the administrative 

judge and the Board properly examined the three factors 

identified in Carr v. Social Security Administration, 185 

F.3d 1318, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 1999). Substantial evidence 

supports the findings on each of those factors.

As to the first factor, i.e., the strength of the agency’s 

evidence supporting its personnel action, the administrative judge found the evidence to be very strong because 

the Army proved that processing would take place exclusively in the United States and there was no need for an 

attorney in Europe. Indeed, the attorney position in 

Europe has remained vacant, while the attorney position 

in Bethesda, Maryland, has since been filled. As to the 

second factor, i.e., the deciding official’s motive to retaliate, the administrative judge determined that Colonel 

Kent had a reasonable explanation for directing Mr. 

Collica’s reassignment, was not affected by Mr. Collica’s 

disclosures, and had no improper motive to retaliate. 

Although Mr. Collica’s direct supervisor, Colonel Hamel, 

had reasons to retaliate and exhibited a dislike of Mr. 

Collica in numerous emails, it was Colonel Kent, not 

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8 COLLICA v. ARMY

Colonel Hamel, who made the reassignment decision. 

And, contrary to Mr. Collica’s contentions, the judge 

considered and rejected his argument that Colonel Hamel

participated in or had influence on the decision, relying in

part on Colonel Kent’s testimony that he did not recall 

discussing the reassignment with Colonel Hamel and that 

he made the decision. We see no basis for overturning the 

Board’s findings in this regard, which rely on credibility 

determinations that warrant particular deference. See 

Frey, 359 F.3d at 1360–61. As to the final factor, i.e., the 

treatment of similarly situated non-whistleblower employees, the Board reasonably found nothing to detract 

from the other evidence because no other employee was 

situated similarly to Mr. Collica. 

Mr. Collica’s other contentions do not undermine the

Board’s findings or ultimate conclusion. He says that the 

investigation Colonel Kent commissioned on his whistleblower claim involved a conflict of interest, but he identifies only a tenuous connection between the investigating 

lieutenant and Colonel Hamel (who was not the deciding 

official in any event). And he says that the Board failed to 

consider evidence of other prohibited personnel practices, 

but he does not adequately link the alleged error to one of 

the Carr factors or explain why consideration of those 

practices was necessary when the Board concluded that

he had already established a prima facie case of whistleblower reprisal. Sufficient evidence supports the Board’s

finding that the Army showed that it would have taken 

the same action in the absence of Mr. Collica’s disclosures.

Finally, Mr. Collica contends that many of the administrative judge’s evidentiary and discovery rulings were 

incorrect. Such procedural matters fall within the discretion of the Board and generally call for a showing of 

prejudice before the Board determination is overturned. 

See Whitmore v. Dep’t of Labor, 680 F.3d 1353, 1368 (Fed. 

Cir. 2012). Here, Mr. Collica has not shown that he 

suffered any harm that affected his case. His main conCase: 15-3132 Document: 28-2 Page: 8 Filed: 06/08/2016
COLLICA v. ARMY 9

tention is that the administrative judge should have given 

him more time to review the emails produced by the Army 

in discovery six days before the hearing. The Board

remedied that restrictive timing in one respect: it allowed 

him to present an argument about the August 2012 email 

that would otherwise have been late. But he has offered 

no other reason why having more time would have mattered to his case. His other objections, including that he 

was prevented from putting on or adequately examining 

certain witnesses and that the Army did not provide 

requested evidence, are similarly unaccompanied by any

concrete indication of a reason to think the record would 

have been materially different from what it actually was. 

We therefore reject Mr. Collica’s procedural arguments.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of 

the Merit Systems Protection Board.

AFFIRMED

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