Opinion ID: 1899037
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Severity of the Penalty Imposed.

Text: Next, Hutchinson contends that the deciding official, Fire Chief Alfred, impermissibly imposed a greater penalty than that recommended by the disinterested designee, Deputy Fire Chief Quander. Hutchinson contends that any discipline should have been limited to the ninety-day suspension recommended by Quander. This argument turns on the proper interpretation of the following regulation: The deciding official shall either sustain the penalty proposed, reduce it, or dismiss the action with or without prejudice, but shall not increase the penalty. D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1614.4, 34 D.C.Reg. 1845, 1858 (1987). Hutchinson maintains that the terms penalty proposed and penalty refer to the penalty recommended by the disinterested designee, Quander, which in this case was the ninety-day suspension. The OEA administrative judge, however, interpreted penalty proposed and penalty as references to the initial penalty proposed by the proposing official, Matthews, which in this case was removal. This decision became the final decision of the OEA after the full OEA denied Hutchinson's petition for review. See OEA R. 636.3, 39 D.C.Reg. 7404, 7425 (1992). This court will defer to an agency's interpretation of the statute it administers, unless the interpretation conflicts with the plain meaning of the statute or its legislative history. Indeed, we must sustain the agency's interpretation even if a petitioner advances another reasonable interpretation of the statute or if we might have been persuaded by the alternate interpretation had we been construing the statute in the first instance. Powers v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 566 A.2d 1068, 1069 (D.C. 1989) (quoting Smith v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 548 A.2d 95, 97 (D.C.1988)); see also District of Columbia v. Davis, 685 A.2d 389, 393 (D.C.1996); cf. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984) (We have long recognized that considerable weight should be accorded to an executive department's construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer....). The purpose of the OEA is to review certain personnel decisions of other District of Columbia agencies, see D.C.Code § 1-606.3(a) (1992), and, in fulfilling that purpose, the OEA has developed an expertise in administering and enforcing the District of Columbia Personnel Regulations. A regulation has the force and effect of law, much like a statute. See Dankman v. District of Columbia Bd. of Elections & Ethics, 443 A.2d 507, 513 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). Accordingly, we defer to the OEA's interpretation of the personnel regulations to the same extent that we would defer to any agency's interpretation of the statute it administers. We conclude that the OEA's interpretation of the regulation is consistent with its plain meaning and legislative history, and that D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1614.4 prevents the deciding official from increasing only the penalty proposed by the proposing official. At one time, the regulations appear to have limited the deciding official to imposing a penalty no greater than that recommended by the disinterested designee. See D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1604.21, 30 D.C.Reg. 5874, 5887 (1983) (the deciding official may impose or reduce the penalty recommended by the disinterested designee). Those older regulations, however, were expressly superseded in 1987, see 34 D.C.Reg. at 1845, and the newer version replaced the phrase penalty recommended by the disinterested designee with the phrase penalty proposed. The newer phrase appears to be a term of art referring to what is proposed by the proposing official. The regulations consistently refer to the notice issued by the proposing official as the proposed penalty, whereas the report of the disinterested designee is described as the recommendation. See D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1601.1, 34 D.C.Reg. at 1848 (defining proposing official as the one who advances a proposed corrective or adverse action, but defining disinterested designee as the one who reviews the proposed action and makes recommendations); D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1609.5, 34 D.C.Reg. at 1854 (under the heading Duties and Responsibilities of Proposing Official, requires that the proposed penalty be consistent with the range of penalties established elsewhere in the regulations); D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1613.3(a), (d), 34 D.C.Reg. at 1857 (identifying disinterested designee's responsibilities as reviewing the proposed action and making his or her own recommendation). Under the prevailing interpretation of the regulations, the deciding official acted within his authority by firing Hutchinson. The proposing official, Matthews, proposed removal, and the deciding official, Alfred, imposed that proposed penalty. This procedure was consistent with D.C. Personnel Regs. § 1614.4. There is nothing in the current regulations to prevent a deciding official from imposing a penalty greater than what was recommended by the disinterested designee, provided, of course, that the penalty not exceed what was proposed by the proposing official.