Opinion ID: 4471463
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: march 2017: seven day suspension

Text: In December 2016, the agency proposed a ten-day suspension, which was mitigated to a seven-day suspension in March 2017. The charges against Ms. Knowles included: (1) failure to safeguard confidential information, (2) negligence causing waste and delay, and (3) disruptive behavior. Charge one was supported by four specifications, all of which detailed instances in which Ms. Knowles mishandled or lost confidential information. Charge two was supported by three specifications all of which relate to the free credit monitoring services the agency had to provide to veterans due to Ms. Knowles’s mishandling of confidential information. Charge three was supported by three specifications, all of which discussed Ms. Knowles’s disruptive behavior during work, including Ms. Knowles’s language and actions in front of veterans. With respect to the first Carr factor, substantial evidence supports the Board’s findings that the agency met its burden of proving charges one and two. J.A. 11–12. For charge one, the record contained a handwritten note from a veteran stating that while he was sitting with Ms. Knowles and she was looking for his patient information, another veteran returned it to him. J.A. 11. Additionally, 6 KNOWLES v. DVA this mishandling of information was also documented in a memorandum from 2016. Id. For charge two, the Board noted that Ms. Knowles did not deny that her actions required the agency to bear the expense of credit monitoring for veterans whose confidential information she had misplaced. J.A. 12. The Board declined to consider charge three, because the agency provided little supporting testimony and evidence. Id. The Board reasonably found the evidence in supporting charges one and two sufficient to sustain those charges and justify the imposed seven-day suspension. Id. With respect to the second Carr factor, the Board properly found no retaliatory motive by the three agency officials involved in recommending, proposing, and deciding Ms. Knowles’s suspension. J.A. 12–14. Ms. Knowles argues that for all three agency officials her “criticisms reflected on both of their capacities as management officials and employees, which is sufficient to establish a substantial retaliatory motive.” The Board is in the best position to assess the credibility of witnesses. Haebe v. DOJ, 288 F.3d 1288, 1300 (Fed. Cir. 2002). We find that the Board appropriately made credibility determinations as to each testifying official and its “find[ing of] no evidence in the record” for retaliatory motivation for these officials supported by substantial evidence. J.A. 13, 14. With respect to the third Carr factor, the Board found “neither party presented meaningful evidence regarding the extent to which the agency may take similar actions against employees who did not engage in protected activity but who are otherwise similarly situated to the appellant.” J.A. 14. Thus, the Board concluded that “there is no relevant comparator evidence.” Id. Ms. Knowles argues that the agency did not take similar actions against a different whistleblower employee, Dr. Roula Baroudi, who was accused of photographing patient records. Dr. Baroudi, however, was not a similarly situated non-whistleblower, but rather an allegedly similarly situated whistleblower. KNOWLES v. DVA 7 Therefore, the Board appropriately did not consider this information. Siler v. Envtl. Prot. Agency, 908 F.3d 1291, 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“Though the agency’s treatment of other whistleblowers may illuminate any motive to retaliate under Carr factor 2, it does not show the agency’s treatment of non-whistleblower employees accused of similar conduct, the precise inquiry considered under Carr factor 3.”). Based on the record, substantial evidence supports the Board’s decision that the agency properly established by clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same personnel action even absent Ms. Knowles’s protected disclosure.