Opinion ID: 4512195
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Keys Exhausted His Administrative

Text: Remedies for His 2015 Protective Disclosure and Made a Nonfrivolous Allegation Regarding His Reassignment Claim “In addressing whether an employee has exhausted his OSC remedies, we look to his OSC complaint, as well as written correspondence concerning his allegations.” McCarthy v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 809 F.3d 1365, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The employee must “articulate with reasonable clarity and precision [before the OSC] the basis for his request for corrective action under the WPA” such that OSC can “effectively pursue an investigation.” Id. (quoting Miller v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., No. 2015-3054, 626 Fed. Appx. 261, 267 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 6, 2015)). Keys appeals the Board’s finding that Keys did not exhaust his administrative remedies for his protected disclosures. Keys asserts that “all documentation was submitted to OSC” such that OSC had sufficient information to investigate his claims. Appellant Informal Br., Resp. to AJ Harrell’s Analysis and Findings ¶ 9. The Board, however, does not dispute that Keys sufficiently exhausted his OSC remedies based on his first protected disclosure—his allegation in the January 2015 district court brief that agency officials made false statements under oath. The Board now admits that Keys’ disclosure sufficiently allowed OSC to initiate an investigation into his claim. Appellee Resp. Br. 21 (“The MSPB now believes that the petitioner’s statement in his rebuttal to the agency’s motion to dismiss that he did provide the brief to OSC was sufficient to meet his evidentiary burden.”). The Board further concedes that Keys’ disclosure “provided detailed enough information to allow OSC to investigate his claim that he was reassigned for Case: 20-1063 Document: 26 Page: 11 Filed: 03/03/2020 KEYS v. MSPB 11 disclosing [that] Mr. Bregón and other agency officials lied under oath, thereby exhausting that disclosure.” 3 Id. Furthermore, although the Board originally determined that Keys failed to make a nonfrivolous allegation that his disclosure was a contributing factor to his reassignment, the Board now admits that such a finding was erroneous. Appellee Informal Br. 21–22 (“[T]he MSPB now believes the petitioner made a nonfrivolous allegation that Mr. Bregón had knowledge of the disclosure prior to making the decision to reassign the petitioner.”). The Board states that Keys’ statement in the 2015 district court brief “contained sufficient detail about the nature of Mr. Bregón’s position such that, assuming all allegations were true, a reasonable fact finder could properly infer Mr. Bregón was aware of the petitioner’s district court disclosure at the time of the reassignment.” Appellee Informal Br. 22. Accordingly, we conclude that the Board’s findings that Keys failed to exhaust his administrative remedies based on his statement in the January 2015 district court brief and that Keys failed to make a nonfrivolous allegation that 3 The Board maintains, however, that Keys did not sufficiently exhaust his administrative remedies for his second protected disclosure—Keys’ 2018 OSC complaint. We agree. As the AJ’s initial decision noted, there was no evidence that Keys filed subsequent OSC complaints based on his July 2018 complaint. S.A. 26–55, S.A. 66–70, S.A. 116-121. Keys’ failure to exhaust his administrative remedies for his second protected disclosure, however, has no bearing on whether Keys can proceed on his reassignment claim because the Board admits that disclosure of Keys’ 2015 district court brief to OSC was sufficient. Case: 20-1063 Document: 26 Page: 12 Filed: 03/03/2020 12 KEYS v. MSPB his disclosure was a contributing factor to the reassignment are erroneous.