Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01341/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01341-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Department of Transportation
Intervenor
Merit Systems Protection Board
Respondent
Omilana Thomas
Petitioner

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

OMILANA THOMAS,

Petitioner

v.

MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD,

Respondent

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,

Intervenor

______________________ 

2016-1341

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. NY-0752-15-0111-I-1.

______________________ 

Decided: September 22, 2016

______________________ 

 OMILANA THOMAS, Rockville Centre, NY, pro se.

 KATHERINE MICHELLE SMITH, Office of the General 

Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, 

DC, for respondent. Also represented by BRYAN G.

POLISUK. 

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2 THOMAS v. MSPB

 ROBERT C. BIGLER, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, for intervenor. Also represented by 

FRANKLIN E. WHITE, JR., ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR.,

BENJAMIN C. MIZER. 

______________________ 

Before NEWMAN, LOURIE, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Omilana Thomas appeals the final judgment of the 

Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) dismissing her 

involuntary retirement appeal.1 The Board held that Ms. 

Thomas failed to establish that her retirement from the 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was involuntary, 

and dismissed the appeal. We affirm the decision of the 

Board.

BACKGROUND

Ms. Thomas was employed as a Human Resources 

Specialist in the Queens, New York office of the FAA. On 

April 22, 2014, Ms. Thomas was informed that she would 

be reassigned to a Benefits Operation Center (BOC) in 

Kansas City, Missouri, as part of a consolidation of regional benefits specialists into the centralized BOC. Ms. 

Thomas was informed that she would hold the same 

position at the BOC, be eligible for relocation expenses, 

and maintain the same base pay and grade.2 The reassignment notification letter included a conditional elec-

 

1 Thomas v. Dep’t of Transp., No. NY-0752-15-0111-

I-1, 2015 WL 7199674 (MSPB, Nov. 16, 2015) (Final 

Decision).

2 Ms. Thomas’ gross pay would have been reduced

to accommodate the lower Kansas City locality adjustment rate.

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THOMAS v. MSPB 3

tion form; Ms. Thomas was informed that electing reassignment was for planning purposes only.

On April 28, 2014, Ms. Thomas was also informed

that she was eligible for special consideration for vacancies at her current duty location in Queens. The FAA

explained that hiring officials would consider her application before other candidates if she qualified for a particular vacancy, but did not guarantee selection. The letter 

also stated that if Ms. Thomas applied for and accepted a 

lower grade position, the demotion would be considered 

an “involuntary-management action” for pay retention 

purposes. On June 20, 2014, Ms. Thomas returned the 

conditional election form, indicating that she accepted the 

administrative reassignment. On August 15, 2014, Ms. 

Thomas’ manager corrected the pay retention information 

and informed Ms. Thomas that under the terms of the 

reassignment, pay retention was unavailable.

In August 2014, Ms. Thomas applied for a Labor Relations Assistant opening. Ms. Thomas was interviewed, 

but was not hired for the position. Ms. Thomas did not 

report for duty, as scheduled, in Kansas City on January 

12, 2015, but instead applied for discontinued service 

retirement and retired at a reduced annuity, effective 

January 10, 2015.

Ms. Thomas filed an appeal with the MSPB, asserting

that she retired from the FAA involuntarily. She stated

that the reassignment was the result of coercion because 

the administrative reassignment was not a valid exercise 

of agency authority. She also stated that she was provided insufficient and misleading information regarding the 

reassignment and special consideration, and that she was 

placed on sick leave restriction as an intimidation tactic. 

She explained that she could not accept reassignment due 

to financial and family obligations.

The AJ determined that that although Ms. Thomas 

non-frivolously alleged that her retirement was involunCase: 16-1341 Document: 22-2 Page: 3 Filed: 09/22/2016
4 THOMAS v. MSPB

tary, she did not establish by a preponderance of the 

evidence that her retirement was involuntary. The AJ 

found that the FAA established a bona fide management 

reason for reassigning Ms. Thomas to the Kansas City 

office. Further, the AJ determined that Ms. Thomas had 

not demonstrated that the agency provided her with 

inadequate or misleading information. The AJ recognized 

that personal and financial issues impacted Ms. Thomas’ 

ability to relocate, but that those factors did not make her 

retirement involuntary. The AJ dismissed Ms. Thomas’ 

case for lack of jurisdiction, on the basis that the retirement was voluntary.

The full Board affirmed, holding that the difficult nature of Ms. Thomas’ decision did not render the retirement involuntary. Final Decision ¶ 12. The Board 

further found that Ms. Thomas had not shown that she 

based her retirement decision on misinformation from the 

FAA. Final Decision ¶¶ 9–11.

This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

The issue is whether Ms. Thomas’ retirement was 

voluntary, an issue whose determination is within the 

Board’s jurisdiction. Ms. Thomas bears the burden of 

establishing non-voluntariness by a preponderance of the 

evidence. 5 C.F.R. § 1201.56(b)(2)(A).

A 

An involuntary retirement is deemed equivalent to 

forced removal. Staats v. U.S. Postal Serv., 99 F.3d 1120, 

1123-24 (Fed. Cir. 1996). An employee’s resignation or

retirement is presumed to be voluntary, placing the 

burden of demonstrating involuntariness on the employee. Id. at 1124. Ms. Thomas contends that the actions of 

the FAA led her to retire involuntarily and that the 

agency’s reassignment plan amounted to an improper 

removal action.

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THOMAS v. MSPB 5

There are two principal grounds on which a retired 

employee may overcome the presumption of voluntariness: (1) the retirement was the product of misinformation or deception by the agency; or (2) the retirement 

was the product of coercion by the agency. Id. at 1124. 

To establish that the agency coerced her into retiring, 

Ms. Thomas must show “that the agency effectively 

imposed the terms of [her] resignation or retirement, that 

[she] had no realistic alternative but to resign or retire, 

and that [her] resignation or retirement was the result of 

improper acts by the agency.” Id. Involuntariness “does 

not apply to a case in which an employee decides to resign 

or retire because he does not want to accept a new assignment, a transfer, or other measures that the agency is

authorized to adopt, even if those measures make continuation in the job so unpleasant for the employee that he 

feels that he has no realistic option but to leave.” Id.

Ms. Thomas first asserts that her retirement was coerced by an improper reassignment. For a directed reassignment to be coercive, it must be based on neither a 

legitimate nor a bona fide management reason, that is, a 

reason that has no solid or substantial basis in personnel 

practice or principle. Rayfield v. Dep’t of Agricul., 26 

M.S.P.R. 244, 246 (1985). However, if the agency establishes that a reassignment is legitimate, the Board does 

not review the management considerations that underlie 

the exercise of agency discretion. Frey v. Dep’t of Labor, 

359 F.3d 1355, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

Ms. Thomas argues that the reassignment was not 

bona fide and was not based on legitimate management 

considerations because the benefits specialists in the 

FAA’s Washington, D.C. headquarters were not required 

to relocate to Kansas City. She also argues that the 

reassignment was sudden and was inconsistent with the 

policy of the prior leadership team; that the relocation 

was unnecessary because her work performance was 

Case: 16-1341 Document: 22-2 Page: 5 Filed: 09/22/2016
6 THOMAS v. MSPB

effective at her regional duty station; and that the centralized BOC has not achieved greater efficiency or more 

consistent service. She states that the leadership responsible for the Kansas City consolidation has left the agency.

The FAA submitted declarations establishing that the 

headquarters benefits specialists perform different functions, and that the FAA decided to fully consolidate 

operations in Kansas City after partial centralization 

failed to realize the desired efficiency gains. The Board 

found that the reassignment was a legitimate exercise of 

FAA authority, and declined to consider the underlying 

reasons for the centralization plan. The success or failure 

of an agency’s legitimate reorganization plan is not relevant to whether the employee’s reassignment was bona 

fide. 

Ms. Thomas also states that she was threatened with 

sick leave restriction, affecting her caretaking responsibilities and personal health issues. The Board concluded 

that the requirement for documentation from a doctor for 

sick leave did not render Ms. Thomas’ working conditions 

so intolerable that a reasonable employee would have felt 

compelled to retire.

Ms. Thomas asserts that she was faced with choosing 

between retiring and relocating to Kansas City, rendering 

her retirement involuntary. The relocation presented Ms. 

Thomas with difficult familial, health, and financial 

situations; however, precedent establishes that such a 

dilemma does not make the choice to retire involuntary. 

“The fact that an employee is faced with an unpleasant 

situation or that [her] choice is limited to two unattractive 

options does not make the employee’s decision any less 

voluntary.” Staats, 99 F.3d at 1124; see also Covington v. 

Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 750 F.2d 937, 942 (Fed. 

Cir. 1984). The Board’s decision was in accordance with 

the law in ruling that her retirement was not coerced.

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THOMAS v. MSPB 7

B 

Ms. Thomas also states that the FAA provided her 

with misleading information, on which she relied in 

deciding to retire. For example, Ms. Thomas states that 

agency officials were unprepared for or cancelled meetings; that they provided conflicting, piecemeal, or disingenuous information about relocation; and delayed 

providing information on voluntary early retirement 

options and incentives (VERA/VSIP). Ms. Thomas also 

states that the offer of priority consideration in applying 

for other positions was misleading because she did not 

receive special consideration. She states that the agency 

did not assist her in finding a new placement without 

relocation, and that she was given inaccurate information 

about the availability of pay retention for positions at 

lower grade.

The FAA submitted declarations from the hiring official explaining that Ms. Thomas received special consideration and was interviewed in accordance with the 

special consideration letter. The FAA also provided 

information to Ms. Thomas about the VERA and VSIP 

programs approximately eight months before she retired 

on January 10, 2015. The FAA conceded that it had 

misstated pay retention in the initial letter, and stated 

that it had corrected its error by email five months before 

Ms. Thomas’ retirement.

The Board found that the FAA provided Ms. Thomas 

with sufficient information and time to decide whether to 

resign, retire, or relocate. The Board found that the 

agency did not act improperly, and that Ms. Thomas had 

not established that her retirement was due to agency 

misinformation, coercion, or other misfeasance. These 

findings were supported by substantial evidence.

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8 THOMAS v. MSPB

CONCLUSION

We affirm the Board’s dismissal of Ms. Thomas’ appeal.

AFFIRMED

No Costs.

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