NOTE: Pursuant to Fed. Cir. R. 47.6, this disposition Is not citable as precedent. It is a public record. 

## United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
05-3073 ROBERT E. PHILLIPS, JR., Petitioner,

v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Respondent.

__________________ _________ DECIDED: July 8, 2005

__________________ _________ Before MAYER, RADER, and PROST, Circuit Judges

. RADER, Circuit Judge

. The Merit Systems Protection Board (Boar d) affirmed the United States Postal Service’s (Agency) thirty-day suspension of Mr. Robert E. Phillips without pay for unauthorized use of a gover nment-owned law enforcem ent vehicle (LEV). Phillips v. United States Postal Serv. , No. CH-0752-04-0660-I-1 (M .S.P.B. Oct. 15, 2004) ( Decision ). Because substantial evidence suppor ts the Board’s decision, this court affirms

. On November 6, 2003, Mr. Phillips admi ts taking a government-owned LEV for the unauthorized purpose of shopping for a per sonal home computer. After a proper investigation regarding the in cident, the Agency suspended Mr. Phillips for thirty days without pay, the minimum penal ty required by 31 U.S.C. § 1349(b) for the chargedoffence. The Board affirmed the charges against Mr. Phillip s and the penalty imposed. Decis i on , slip op. at 6. Mr. Phillip s appeals. By statute, this court’s review of a fi nal decision from the Board is limited. A Board dec ision may not be set aside unless it is: (1) arbitrary or capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwis e not in accordance with law; (2) obtai ned without procedure required by law, rule, or regulation hav ing been followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidenc e. 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c) (2000). On appeal, Mr. Phillips contends that his us e of the LEV was for official use, and thus not unauthorized, because he needed to be able to use the LEV to respond to emergencies should one arise while he was shoppi ng. He also noted that he used his personal c o mputer for business purposes. The Board dismissed these contention s because M r . Phillips did not show why he co uld not hav e shopped for a computer when he was off duty, particularly bec ause he admi tted having a back- up computer at home in addition to the broken computer he was s hopping to replace. Decis i on , s lip op. at 3. The Board also dismissed Mr. Phillips’s c ontention t h at he needed to re place his personal c o mputer for business purposes. Id. The record shows that the Board had good reas on to make these findings. Subs tantial evidenc e supports the Board’s findings that Mr. Phillips’s us e of the LEV was unauthorized. Mr. Phillips also argu es several procedur al errors by the Agenc y. Becaus e he was transferred to a different office shortly after the incident, Mr. Phillips contends that his new superior should have be en the deciding official. Mr. Phillips als o a l leges tha t the Postmaster General should have iss u ed his s u spension, that the Agency failed to produce requested documents, and that his suspension was procedurally defective due

05-3073 2to the laps e of approximately eight months bet ween the time of the incident and the time of the suspension. Ev en assuming the facts underlying these allegati ons in favor of Mr. Phillips, he has not s hown t hat any of these alleged pr ocedural errors would have changed the outcome of the stat utorily mandated minimum of a thirty-day suspension. See 5 C. F.R. § 1201.56(a)(2)(i ii), (b)(1), (c )(3) (2004) (requiring a showing that a procedural error was made that likely caus ed a different result than would have been reached in the absenc e or cure of the error). Consequently, Mr. Phillips’s arguments of procedural error fail. This court has consid ered all of Mr. Phillip s ’s additio nal arguments and finds them unpersuasive. Because s ubstantial evidenc e s upports the Board’s decision and Mr. Phillips does not show that any procedura l errors resulted in an outcome that would have been different absent those errors, the Board’s de cision is affirmed.

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