Court Opinion

ID: 9496691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:32:36.648923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:43.875983
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN,
Circuit Judge, dissenting.
The issues on this appeal turn on the arbitrator’s evaluation of the credibility, weight, and probative value of the evidence, upon hearing and observation of live witnesses, and tempered with the discretion and deferential review of the arbitration protocol. It is not for this court to substitute our own findings and preferences, when those of the arbitrator are supported by substantial evidence. See, e.g., Brook v. Corrado, 999 F.2d 523, 526 (Fed.Cir.1993) (“[T]his court may overturn the arbitrator’s ruling only if it is arbitrary, capricious, abusive of discretion, illegal, procedurally deficient, or unsupported by substantial evidence. 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c)”).
The arbitrator, upon hearing, consideration, and reconsideration, concluded that Mr. Dale should not have been removed from employment for “fraternizing with a known or suspected law violator,” when Mr. Dale chose not to evict from his family home an eighteen-year old girl who was a friend of Mrs. Dale’s sister (who also lived with the Dale family). The girl had left her mother’s home after an argument, and had been taken into the Dale home. The arbitrator held that Mr. Dale could have reasonably believed the girl to be innocent of the cocaine charge of which her mother accused her. The arbitrator heard the undisputed testimony — including that of the girl’s divorced father — that the mother was quite capable of “framing” her daughter by telling the police that she found a cocaine-dipped straw in the girl’s purse.
These complex relationships were described by the witnesses, whose testimony and the arbitrator’s conclusions raised considerations of credibility and weight and judgment. It is not for this court to reweigh the evidence or to reject an arbitrator’s findings for which there was eviden-tiary support. The arbitrator first applied the standard of the employee’s reasonable belief, see Horton v. Department of the Navy, 66 F.3d 279, 283 (Fed.Cir.1995) (reviewing the evidence “from the viewpoint of [the employee’s] reasonable belief’), and on reconsideration the arbitrator further applied an objective standard, finding that a reasonable person could conclude that “there was insufficient evidence to suspect Miss Rohr of being a narcotics law violator.” See Lachance v. White, 174 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed.Cir.1999) (finding what “a disinterested observer with knowledge of the essential facts known to and readily ascertainable by the employee” would have believed). The court appears to have missed that the arbitrator, at OPM’s behest, applied an objective standard to the found facts. Indeed, an arbitrator has greater flexibility than other administra*1381tive decisionmakers in evaluating close questions and seeking fair resolution on the particular facts of the case.
My colleagues find their own facts and reach their own conclusions, and rule that after the girl was indicted on the mother’s information,1 Mr. Dale was obliged to evict her from the family home on pain of loss of his job, whether or not he believed in her innocence. However, deference is due to the arbitrator’s weighing of the evidence in the circumstances. The question is whether a reasonable arbitrator could have concluded that loss of Mr. Dale’s job was not warranted in response to his action in not throwing this girl out. See Rogers v. Department of Defense Dependents Schools, 814 F.2d 1549, 1552 (Fed.Cir.1987) (“[T]he arbitrator’s award must be sustained unless it is found to be: (1) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; (2) obtained without procedure required by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.”)
When these criteria are applied to the fact-driven, credibility-laden and indeed humanitarian issues presented, the arbitrator’s decision must be affirmed. From the court’s contrary ruling, I respectfully dissent.

. Although the majority opinion refers to "two arrests,” there was only one event, the asserted cocaine-dipped straw that the mother said she found.