Opinion ID: 212045
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Carson's First Action to Enforce Carson I (Carson II)

Text: 12 On March 2, 2000, Carson wrote to ORO management requesting reassignment to a GS-14 (or higher) position there, and threatening to petition for enforcement of the Board's decision in Carson I if his request was denied. Carson made good on his threat the very same day by filing a petition to enforce, alleging that his second reassignment from Oak Ridge to Germantown constituted noncompliance with the relief ordered in Carson I. 13 In an October 4, 2000 Recommendation, the AJ granted Carson's petition, stating: 14 Because the agency has failed to prove that it could not have placed the appellant in a position at his grade level within the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, commuting area, I find that the agency is not in compliance with the Board's Final Order. Since more than half of the similarly situated employees were placed within their commuting area, and the record reflects that there were vacant GS-14 positions to which the appellant might have been assigned, I find that directing the appellant's reassignment to Germantown, Maryland, is not placing him as nearly as possible in the position he would have been in but for the unlawful retaliation. 15 The AJ thus ordered the Agency to identify all GS-14 positions in the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, commuting area which are currently vacant or which were vacant and filled on or after the date that the EH Resident program was abolished, and to assign Carson to the position that most closely complied with the Board's order in Carson I. Accepting the AJ's Recommendation, the Agency reassigned Carson to the position of Technical Facility Representative, GS-14, in a newly-formed organization within ORO. The reassignment became effective as of November 2000. 16 On April 26, 2001, the full Board determined the Agency had satisfied the AJ's Recommendation. Carson II, 88 M.S.P.R. at 260. The Board explained that its prior decision in Carson I 17 directed the agency to place the appellant in a position with the full range of duties and work assignments consistent with his position description and past assignments. While [ Carson I ] does not specifically require the appellant's placement in his former position, it does contemplate placement in a position with the same duties and assignments as those of his former position of EH Site Resident.... We find that the agency has demonstrated that overriding circumstances precluded it from placing the appellant in the same type of position that he had previously occupied because the entire EH Site Resident Program was abolished. 18 Id. at ¶ 6 (internal citation omitted). Finding the range of duties and work assignments in Carson's new position at ORO similar, though not precisely the same, as his former responsibilities and assignments, id. at ¶ 8, the Board concluded that the Agency had complied with Carson I and dismissed Carson's petition for enforcement as moot. 19 The Board also rejected Carson's additional claim of noncompliance based on his rejection for three GS-15 positions at ORO as not appropriately before the Board in this compliance proceeding. Id. at ¶ 11. The appellant himself stated that he filed an Individual Right of Action appeal with regard to three rejected applications for GS-15 positions. Accordingly, we will not consider the matter here. Id. 20