Opinion ID: 2194712
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Invalidity of Sims's Appointment to the Excepted Service

Text: Sims's main argument is that even if the Mayor had the authority to appoint him to the Excepted Service and invoked the proper law in doing so, the failure to honor the procedural requirements of the law as relating to the appointmenta conference regarding the diminution of rights and benefits, a written waiver of acceptance, and a publication of appointment within 45 days as required in converting from a career DS-13 to an Excepted Service DS-14renders the appointment invalid. Before reviewing these contentions, we reiterate our function in the OEA review process, which we have previously described as follows: Although this case comes to us via the Superior Court, the scope of our review is the same as if it had come to us directly from the agency. Thus, in the final analysis, confining ourselves strictly to the administrative record, we review the OEA's decision, not the Superior Court's, and we must affirm the OEA's decision so long as it is supported by substantial evidence in the record and otherwise in accordance with law. Settlemire v. District of Columbia Office of Employee Apps., 898 A.2d 902, 905 n. 4 (D.C.2006) (emphasis added). [9] While Sims provides numerous grounds for his argument that his appointment to the Excepted Service was invalid, [10] we need not examine these because the OEA agreed that it was invalid. Specifically, it ruled: Apparently, [the District] neglected to have Employee waive Career Service rights as required by the applicable personnel regulations and, as a result, Agency's action appointing Employee to the Excepted Service was rendered ineffective. The District, moreover, does not argue that the agency's conclusion lacked substantial evidence in the record. Indeed, it effectively concedes that Sims did not provide a written waiver and represents: It was undisputed below . . . that appellant did not waive his Career Service rights in writing when he accepted this Excepted Service position. The District also does not argue that the agency's decision in this respect was contrary to the law. Rather, the District's position is that this court need not resolve this conflict because appellant received everything to which he could have been entitled under the CMPA when he was terminated from the Excepted Service position and returned to the Career Service at DS-13 and step 7. Although the agency did not cite authority for its decision that the lack of a waiver of Career Service rights rendered Sims's appointment invalid, this conclusion is supported by the regulations of the D.C. Office of Personnel governing changes to positions with lesser rights: Any internal placement of a Career Service appointee to a position with less rights and benefits shall not be effective unless the employee has waived the rights and benefits in writing; and the waiver shall be made a permanent part of the employee's Official Personnel Folder. 6 DCMR § 833.2 (1985) (emphasis supplied). Here, the OAH found that following [Sims's] conversion to the Career Service, the District offered [him] a position in the Excepted Service as the Executive Director at grade DS-14. As an Excepted Service employee, Sims obviously had less rights and benefits with respect to job retention than he did in the Career Service. Moreover, the OEA found that [the District] neglected to have Employee waive his Career Service rights. . . . Id. These are the very rights that Sims would have surrendered by accepting placement in the Excepted Service. Based upon these findings, the OEA then concluded that as a result, Agency's action appointing Employee to the Excepted Service was rendered ineffective. Id. Given the plain wording of 6 DCMR § 833.2 (1985) and mindful of the deference we normally accord an agency's interpretation of its own regulations, see, e.g., Dorchester House Assoc. Ltd. P'ship v. District of Columbia Rental Hous. Comm'n, 913 A.2d 1260, 1263 (D.C. 2006), we cannot find the OEA's interpretation of the regulation to be unreasonable, nor its conclusion to be either clearly erroneous as a matter of law or one that did not flow rationally from its findings. Raphael v. Okyiri, 740 A.2d 935, 945 (D.C. 1999). Yet while Sims agrees that the reclassification from the Career Service to the Excepted Service was a nullity, he nonetheless insists that he obtained a vested right in the DS-14 pay grade that accompanied his appointment, and that the District therefore could not deprive him of that right except through strict compliance with civil service procedures. As authority for this proposition, Sims cites Coffin v. District of Columbia, 320 A.2d 301 (D.C. 1974), which he reads to stand for the proposition that [i]f the contract is divisible, such that part is valid, but another part is ultra vires, the invalidity does not ordinarily affect the parts of the contract which are not dependent upon the invalid part. Therefore, according to Sims, the valid part may be enforced while that which is invalid may be rejected. In disposing of this point, the OEA began by stating that the District's failure to obtain a waiver does not entitle an employee to remain a DS-14. It explained that because [Sims] no longer serves as the Executive Director and his appeal to this Office does not seek reinstatement to that position, he cannot continue to claim any of the emoluments associated with that position. Thus, the OEA concluded, the District has no obligation to pay Employee anything other than the wage associated with his present position as Utility Program Manager. The OEA therefore rejected Sims's Solomonic attempt to split his appointment as the EILC's Executive Director into two constituent parts and found that because the appointment to the EILC was invalid, the promotion to a Grade 14 was also necessarily invalid. The OEA concluded that the appointment as the Executive Director, at a DS-14 level, was not cancelled, but rather, as a matter of law, it was never legally effectuated in the first place. The OEA's position, in essence, is that the waiver required by 6 DCMR § 833.2 (1985) is a prerequisite to the executive's exercise of the legal authority to make Excepted Service appointments for positions deemed by the Mayor to be key without limiting his or her flexibility to remove such person from that position at will. The waiver also ensures that District employees who are selected to move from the Career Service to the Excepted Service are adequately informed of the protections that they lose as a result of that move. Thus, according to the OEA's reasoning, since Sims's appointment to the Executive Director position was invalid because he never signed the necessary waiver, he cannot now use the DS-14 grade he achieved solely by virtue of the invalid appointment to an Excepted Service position as the basis to seek damages. Simply put, without a signed waiver, the Mayor or his designee did not have the legal authority under 6 DCMR § 833.2 (1985) to effect the appointment to the Excepted Service. Stated differently, the OEA's reasoning is that although the District violated 6 DC MR § 833.2 (1985) by offering Sims an appointment to the Excepted Service without satisfying the necessary prerequisites, Sims cannot obtain damages resulting from this violation because he was not in any way injured by it. On the contrary, Sims was able to take advantage of an opportunity which the District had no legal obligation to extend to him, that is, the chance to be paid at the DS-14 level for a period of six years. When that opportunity was over, Sims was no worse off for having had it. Rather, he had benefited by being paid at the DS-14 level while in the position, and simultaneously retaining his Career Service rights at the DS-13 level. Indeed, when transferred to the DPW, he received all of the step increases commensurate with his total time in service, including the time he served as the Executive Director of the EILC. Although we express no opinion, this case might be different if Sims had actually suffered harm from the violation of 6 DCMR § 833.2 (1985), for example, by being unwittingly lulled into the Excepted Service by the promise of a higher pay grade and then terminated outright or by being returned to the Career Service at a lower grade and/or step than he otherwise would have achieved in the same amount of time. He might well then have standing to raise the violation [11] because under the OEA's reasoning, the waiver requirement of 6 DCMR § 833.2 (1985) is a shield that can be wielded by either the employer or the employee, depending on the circumstances. On the one hand, it protects the employer by rendering ineffective an appointment to the Excepted Service of an employee who retains Career Service rights, thereby preserving the Mayor's right to exercise maximum discretion over the limited number of Excepted Service positions; on the other hand, it protects the employee by allowing him or her to make an informed choice about whether or not to leave the security of the Career Service to pursue an opportunity in the Excepted Service. Simply stated, without the requisite waiver, the appointment of a Career Service employee to the Excepted Service has no legal effect. This interpretation of the regulation, moreover, is consistent with its wording and the general purposes of the system, which are to ensure that applicants for positions in government service are hired and promoted based on meritnot patronageand to protect incumbents from arbitrary, capricious, or politically-motivated employment actions. See Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 71, 94 S.Ct. 937, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974) (a primary purpose of that system was to remove large sectors of Government employment from the political `spoils system' which had previously played a large part in the selection and discharge of Government employees); Crete v. City of Lowell, 418 F.3d 54, 59 (1st Cir.2005) (listing [b]asic merit principles [that] should guide all decisions in the civil service system). Based on the foregoing analysis, we conclude that the OEA's decision denying Sims's claim for damages is supported by substantial evidence in the record and is otherwise in accordance with law. Accordingly, we Affirm.