Opinion ID: 867671
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the board’s timeliness order

Text: We turn first to Levine’s challenge to the Army’s decision to remove him from his position as an Intelligence Specialist. In its Timeliness Order, the board concluded that Levine had failed to establish good cause for his fifteen-month delay in filing his petition for review of the initial decision dismissing his appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The board “has broad discretion to control its own docket.” Olivares v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 17 F.3d 386, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Accordingly, “whether the regulatory time limit for an appeal should be waived based upon a showing of good cause is a matter committed to the 6 LAWRENCE LEVINE v. MSPB Board’s discretion and this court will not substitute its own judgment for that of the Board.” Mendoza v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 966 F.2d 650, 653 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (en banc). A petitioner who files a petition for review past the filing deadline bears the burden of establishing that there was “good cause” for his delay. Zamot v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 332 F.3d 1374, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Factors important in determining whether there was good cause for an untimely filing include the length of the delay, whether the petitioner was notified of the time limit, the existence of circumstances beyond the petitioner’s control that affected his ability to comply with the deadline, and whether there was any unavoidable misfortune or other circumstance that may have prevented the timely filing of a petition for review. Id. As the board correctly determined, Levine failed to establish good cause for filing his petition for review fifteen months past the filing deadline. Levine’s filing delay was substantial, and he presented no evidence showing that he acted with due diligence or ordinary prudence in attempting to meet the filing deadline. Before the board, Levine asserted that he had good cause for his untimely filing because he had only recently learned that the Army should have provided him with appeal rights to the Secretary of Defense before terminating him from his position as an Intelligence Specialist. However, he failed to cite any statute or regulation that gave him the right to appeal his termination directly to the Secretary of Defense. See Timeliness Order, 2012 MSPB LEXIS 3400, at -5. On appeal, Levine alleges that he “began to experience harassment from defense contract management” soon after he arrived in Afghanistan, and that when he attempted to use “government-furnished computers to support his mission, he was publically accused of having LAWRENCE LEVINE v. MSPB 7 an ‘entitlement mentality.’” He further asserts that his “confidential medical information” was improperly disclosed to employees of a defense contractor. Levine alleges, moreover, that various individuals took part “in a deliberate campaign to malign [his] integrity, reputation and honor.” These unsupported allegations do not, however, provide any reasonable explanation for why Levine waited fifteen months after the filing deadline to file his petition for review. Because the record contains no evidence demonstrating that circumstances beyond his control prevented Levine from submitting his petition for review in a timely manner, the board did not abuse its discretion in refusing to waive the filing deadline. See Zamot, 332 F.3d at 1377 (explaining that a petitioner bears a “heavy burden” when attempting to show “that the Board abused its discretion in finding that he failed to show good cause for the delay in filing his petition for review”).