Court Opinion

ID: 9498626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:23:01.150055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:57.464365
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My colleagues hold that an employee cannot change her election of the grievance procedure after three days, although the grievance proceedings had not yet begun; indeed, no proceeding had been initiated. Ms. Atanus learned, after she chose the grievance path, that the union would not provide representation throughout the procedure. On receiving this information, she promptly withdrew her request for a grievance proceeding, and filed a timely appeal with the MSPB. My colleagues hold that the statute prohibits such a change. Although the statute is silent, my colleagues hold that the initial election is final and irrevocable, no matter how prompt the revocation, no matter what the circumstances.
There is no allegation of prejudice to the agency, to the union, to the MSPB, or to anyone else. No deadline had passed; her appeal to the MSPB was timely. The statute does not prohibit a modicum of accommodation for mistakes, misinformation, or change of heart, in administration of “the discretion of the aggrieved employee.” The statute, 5 U.S.C. § 7121(e)(1), authorizes the employee to choose either the grievance procedure or an appeal to the MSPB “but not both”:
(1) Matters covered under sections 4303 and 7512 of this title which also fall within the coverage of the negotiated grievance procedure may, in the discretion of the aggrieved employee, be raised either under the appellate procedures of section 7701 of this title or under the negotiated grievance procedure, but not both.
5 U.S.C. § 7121(e)(1). The purpose is to prevent an employee from taking one appellate path and then, if unsuccessful, trying the other. Ms. Atanus elected the grievance procedure on Tuesday, July 22, 2003, designating the union as her representative. She was then informed by the union that it would not assist her “in the entire grievance procedure and that I should acquire- a lawyer.” Ms. Atanus withdrew the grievance request on Saturday, July 26, 2003, and filed a timely appeal with the MSPB.
Neither statute nor precedent prohibits such action. I have found no case where the employee was prohibited from changing the election during the initial period set for choosing the path of review. As the panel majority acknowledges, several Board decisions have held that the initial choice could be changed. When the issue reached the Federal Circuit in Whitaker v. MSPB, 784 F.2d 1109 (Fed.Cir.1986), the petitioner sought to change his election after he was well into the grievance process, thus having implemented his choice. In Rodriguez v. MSPB, 804 F.2d 673 (Fed.Cir.1986), cited by the panel majority, Mr. Rodriguez elected the grievance procedure and prosecuted the grievance through the first two steps; he then was untimely for the third phase, whereupon the arbitrator dismissed the grievance. Rodriguez then attempted to appeal to the MSPB, and asked the MSPB to waive its filing deadline. The court held that he could not start afresh with an appeal to the MSPB, upon having chosen the grievance path; and that since there was no discrimination claim the Board could not review the arbitrator’s decision. These facts are quite different from those at bar, for Ms. Atanus *1329did not prosecute the grievance even to the first step during the three days before she withdrew the grievance, and the deadline for filing an appeal to the Board had not passed. The agency has not alleged any prejudice. The statute requires the employee to elect either grievance or appeal; but contrary to the majority’s view of the statute, it does not prohibit a prompt change, at least upon new information, during the period of election.
Even applying to this administrative action the rigorous standards of judicial proceedings, a plaintiff may withdraw a complaint before response, without prejudice to refiling elsewhere. Ms. Atanus should have the right to change her election when, within three days, she was told that the expected representation would not be available throughout the proceeding. Nothing had begun, and the time for filing the MSPB appeal had not expired. The statute does not require prohibiting such a change of election. In law, as in life, there must be a bit of tolerance in the machinery, lest too tight a fit freeze the apparatus. As things stand, Ms. Atanus is now held bound by her withdrawal of the grievance path, but excluded from her substitution of the appeal path. The statute does not require this result. The resulting inequity is unwarranted and unnecessary.
I doubt that this is a “slippery slope,” in the majority’s words, or that permitting a justified change of direction, as the MSPB has permitted in other cases, will lead to a wave of 3-day changes of election. It would, however, achieve a fairer result in this case, where Ms. Atanus has suffered an “adverse action” in deprivation of her livelihood — surely a serious matter — yet is met with the implacable judicial ruling that she had lost all right of review. If she is barred from the MSPB appeal because of her initial election of the grievance procedure, then at a minimum, she should be allowed to proceed by grievance. Surely the statute does not require that an attempted change in election will bar both statutory paths. This is the “absurd result” described by the Court in Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457, 459, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892):
It is a familiar rule that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit nor within the intention of its makers.... This is not the substitution of the will of the judge for that of the legislator; for frequently words of general meaning are used in a statute, words broad enough to include an act in question, and yet a consideration of the whole legislation, or of the circumstances surrounding its enactment, or of the absurd results which follow from giving such broad meaning to the words, makes it unreasonable to believe that the legislator intended to include the particular act.
Thus I must, respectfully, dissent.