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

Heading: Individual Right of Action

Text: 35 We now turn to the Board's dismissal of Carson's second IRA appeal. Here, Carson faults the Board for focusing on the absence of Agency reprisal rather than on questions of compliance. Carson argues that the Board erred in requiring that he show retaliatory animus in the Agency's failure to retroactively reassign and treat him as an ORO incumbent for the various GS-15 vacancies, all filled several years ago. The proper inquiry, Carson claims, should have considered whether the Agency was required to treat him as an ORO employee as of September 1999 to comply with the AJ's Recommendation and the Board's Final Order on his first petition for enforcement. 36 The government counters that the Board's final — and unappealed — decision in Carson II precludes claims for a right to retroactive reassignment raised in this second IRA appeal. The government points out that the Board ruled in Carson II that the Agency had taken all the steps required by Carson I. Because the Agency had fully remedied the retaliatory acts at issue in Carson I, the AJ correctly required Carson to show new Agency retaliation in this second IRA appeal. 37 We hold that the Board properly dismissed Carson's second IRA for failing to prove Agency retaliation as a contributing factor to the challenged personnel actions. There is a critical difference between a petition for enforcement and an IRA appeal. The first addresses Agency compliance with a final Board order, while the second focuses on alleged Agency retaliation for protected disclosures. The two types of proceedings are not interchangeable. On a petition to enforce, the Agency bears the burden of proving compliance with a final Board order. See Spates v. U.S. Postal Serv., 70 M.S.P.R. 438, 441 (1996). Yet to prevail in an IRA appeal alleging retaliation for protected disclosures under the WPA, the burden falls on the employee to show by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) a protected disclosure was made; and (2) the disclosure was a contributing factor in the adverse personnel action. See 5 U.S.C. § 1221(e)(1) (2005); 5 C.F.R. § 1209.7 (2005); see also Willis v. Dep't of Agric., 141 F.3d 1139, 1143 (Fed.Cir.1998). 38 The AJ found the first element met. Acknowledging that Carson had made protected disclosures between 1991 and 1997, the AJ concluded that the only remaining issues with respect to which the appellant has the burden of proof are to show that his whistleblowing was a contributing factor in the agency's failure to assign him to ORO in the fall of 1999, and its failure to promote him. The AJ thus focused on the second element of Carson's whistleblower claim. After carefully weighing the evidence Carson presented during the hearing on his claim, the AJ found that Carson had failed to show that he was not transferred to ORO retroactively due to Agency retaliation. In fact, Carson had made clear in his August 31, 1999 letter to ORO that he would not accept a permanent transfer to ORO until the legal issues surrounding [his] employment in DOE [were] more resolved, possibly in summer 2000. In view of this communication, the AJ reasoned that the appellant did not have any reason to believe he would be transferred into ORO prior to his March 2000 request. 39 When Carson did, in fact, convey an interest in reassignment to ORO in March 2000, he was informed of ORO's policy of selecting individuals for GS-14 and GS-15 positions solely from within its organization; a criterion for eligibility that was also clearly stated on the vacancy notices for those positions. To this end, ORO's Human Resources Director testified that competition was limited to ORO at the grade 14 and 15 levels due to the limited number of positions at those grades and the fact that ORO employees should be given the first shot at competing for positions at those grade levels. 10 40 In sum, Carson's transfer to ORO in November 2000 rather than September 1999 was self-inflicted; his nonselection, the result of a legitimate ORO policy. Neither was the product of retaliatory animus, as the AJ correctly found. Certainly, substantial evidence supports this finding. Hence, the AJ properly declined to consider Carson's nonselection for ORO vacancies.