NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 

2007-3250 

PAMELA J. LONEY, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, 

Respondent. 

Pamela J. Loney, of Woodlawn, Maryland, pro se. 

Michael N. O’Connell, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, 

United States Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, argued for respondent. With 

him on the brief were Peter D. Keisler, Acting Attorney General, Jeanne E. Davidson, 

Director, and Todd M. Hughes, Deputy Director. 

Appealed from: Arbitrator’s Decision 
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 

2007-3250 

PAMELA J. LONEY, 

 Petitioner, 

v. 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, 

Respondent. 

Petition for Review of an Arbitrator’s Decision in BW-2006-R-0034, by Laurence M. 

Evans. 

 ___________________________ 

 DECIDED: January 11, 2008 

 ___________________________ 

Before MICHEL, Chief Judge, DYK, Circuit Judge, and KENNELLY, District Judge.

*

 *

 Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly, District Judge, United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. 

 

PER CURIAM. 

 Appellant Pamela Loney seeks review of an arbitrator’s decision denying her 

grievance and sustaining her removal from her position with the Social Security 

Administration (“SSA”). We affirm. 

BACKGROUND 

 Pamela Loney is a long-term SSA employee having more than twenty-five years 

of federal service. At the time of her removal, Ms. Loney was a GS-9 fiscal 

management analyst who had, prior to the events that led to her dismissal, consistently 

been rated “fully successful” and been awarded numerous agency awards. 
In January 2005, Ms. Kathi Moore, another SSA employee with whom Ms. Loney 

had a previously strained relationship, became Ms. Loney’s first-line supervisor. 

Thereafter, several attempts by Ms. Moore to ascertain the status of Ms. Loney’s work 

projects failed. On multiple occasions, Ms. Loney, claiming to invoke her Weingarten1

rights, refused to respond to any questions at meetings as to the status of Ms. Loney’s 

work projects. 

 On January 6, 2006, in response to her repeated refusals to respond to 

management’s questions concerning the status of her work assignments, Ms. Loney 

was issued a notice of a proposed thirty-day suspension. Subsequent attempts to 

ascertain the status of Ms. Loney’s work projects similarly failed. Between January 11

and February 2, Ms. Loney was alleged to have engaged in several instances of 

inappropriate and unprofessional conduct with respect to multiple email and verbal 

interactions with Ms. Moore. The culmination occurred on February 2, 2006, when Ms. 

Loney was alleged to have thrown a grievance form at Ms. Moore, calling her a “Racist 

Pig.” On February 15, 2006, Debbra Tennessee, Ms. Loney’s second-line supervisor, 

rescinded the proposed suspension and issued a proposal to remove. Ronald Sayers, 

Deputy Associate Commissioner of the Office of Financial Policy and Operations, 

sustained the charges specified in the proposed removal and, after consideration of the 

Douglas2

 factors, found that the removal was necessary to promote the efficiency of the 

service. 

 1

 See NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251 (1975) (holding that an 

employee has a right to union representation during investigatory interviews). 

2

 See Douglas v. Veterans Admin., 5 M.S.P.R. 280 (1981). 

2007-3250 2 
 The American Federation of Government Employees (“Union”) filed a timely 

grievance on Ms. Loney’s behalf. The SSA denied the grievance. The grievance was 

then heard by the arbitrator who conducted a two-day hearing in which both parties 

examined and cross-examined witnesses under oath, presented evidence, and argued 

their positions. There, the Union argued that the decision to remove was excessive, 

and that a lesser penalty would have been more appropriate. The arbitrator rejected 

that position, concluding that the SSA had just cause to remove Ms. Loney and that her 

removal promoted the efficiency of the service. Ms. Loney appeals that decision. 

DISCUSSION 

This court reviews an arbitrator’s decision under the same standard used to 

review appeals from the Merit Systems Protection Board. 5 U.S.C. § 7121(f) (2000); 

Zingg v. Dep’t of the Treasury, IRS, 388 F.3d 839, 842 (Fed. Cir. 2004). We review a 

decision of the Board to determine whether 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). 

On appeal, appellant primarily disputes the arbitrator’s findings of fact. She 

contends that the arbitrator wrongly found credible the testimony of her supervisors, Ms. 

Moore and Ms. Tennessee, while discrediting her testimony as not credible. Moreover, 

she argues that the arbitrator did not fairly consider all the surrounding circumstances of 

her dismissal. Credibility findings are virtually unreviewable, and we conclude that the 

arbitrator’s findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence. 

2007-3250 3 
2007-3250 4 

Appellant also claims that her dismissal was in retaliation for her union activities. 

The arbitrator found that this argument was raised too late, and regardless, he saw “no 

merit in [the claim].” Arb. Op. at 19 n.22. Appellant has not shown that she presented 

any evidence to substantiate such a claim. 

Finally, appellant contends that she could properly refuse to discuss the status of 

her work projects because she was denied her Weingarten rights in connection with 

those meetings. The arbitrator, however, found that Weingarten did not apply to the 

meetings called by management. Those meetings, the arbitrator found, concerned the 

business of the agency and the work of the employee and were not investigatory. 

Therefore, they did not trigger or implicate appellant’s Weingarten rights. We cannot 

say that this finding was in error. 

We have considered appellant’s other contentions and find those to be without 

merit. 

 No costs.