Court Opinion

ID: 9473107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:19:19.163146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:19.250477
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s affirmance of the Board’s decision. Placing Mr. Ginnodo in a one-person competitive area, despite the flexibility to enable competition which the statute and regulations provide to the agency, disserves the policy and is contrary to the purpose of the official procedures governing RIFs.
OPINION
In addition to the CFR sections cited by the majority, certain portions of the Federal Personnel Manual (FPM) and the OPM’s internal regulations are relevant. The FPM regulations which implement 5 C.F.R. § 351.402 provide as follows:
a. OPM standard. Each agency establishes competitive areas within which employees compete for retention under the reduction-in-force regulations. The standard for a competitive area is that it include all or that part of an agency in which employees are assigned under a single administrative authority. Described geographically or organizationally, or both, the competitive area outlines the boundaries of reduction-in-force competition. The competitive area should be large enough to permit adequate competition among employees and limited enough to be administratively manageable....
*1065b. Extent of area. ... A competitive area need not be larger than a commuting area. When either a field installation or a departmental headquarters has components in more than one commuting area a separate competitive area may be established for each commuting area. An agency’s different activities, although located side by side, may be separate competitive areas if each is:
(1) under a separate administrative authority;
(2) independent of the others in operation, staff, work functions, and personnel administration; and
(3) separately organized and clearly distinguished from the others.
FPM Ch. 351, subch. 2, 2-2.b, at 351-11 (1981).
OPM’s implementing regulations are consistent with the CFR and FPM provisions:
2-1. Competitive Areas
A competitive area includes all or that part of an agency in which employees are assigned under a single administrative authority. A competitive area at headquarters meets this standard when it covers a primary subdivision of an agency in a local commuting area. A competitive area in the field meets this standard when it covers a field installation in the local commuting area.
Competitive areas include employees in all grades in an organization or geographic area, not employees in only certain areas in an organization or geographic area. A competitive area may not be established on the basis of grade level or occupation. However, the area of competition for a particular action may be extended through granting assignment or bumping rights beyond the limits of the competitive area.
In accordance with the above standard for establishing competitive areas, the following competitive areas are designated for purposes of reduction-in-force in OPM:
a. Central Office
All OPM offices in the Washington Metropolitan Area comprise a competitive area.
b. Field Offices
(1) All OPM organizations in a commuting area together comprise a single competitive area.
OPM Personnel Manual Ch. 351, subch. 2, at 351-5 (1979).
A December 1981 OPM memorandum applied these regulations to central office employees not located in Washington, D.C.; Mr. Ginnodo’s competitive area in Chicago was defined in such a way that he was its sole occupant.
OPM asserts that the rules permit such a result, and that OPM was not obliged to use its discretion in order to avoid such a result. The import of the regulations and the statute, however, is to provide employees subject to a RIF with reasonable and fair opportunity to compete for other jobs within the agency. This is one of the guiding purposes of this procedure, in harmony with the purpose of aiding the agency to effect an orderly RIF.
To this end the statute and regulations give the agency considerable discretion. The CFR provision requires each agency to “establish competitive areas in which employees compete for retention.” 5 C.F.R. § 351.402(a). The FPM regulation directs the agency to establish competitive areas that are “large enough to permit adequate competition among employees.” FPM Ch. 351, subch. 2, 2-2.a, at 351-11. The OPM’s internal regulation provides that “the area of competition for a particular action may be extended through granting assignment or bumping rights beyond the limits of the competitive area”.
In deciding whether an administrative agency has abused its discretion, we “consider whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment”. Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 416, 91 S.Ct. 814, 824, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971) (citations omitted). I discern such error in the agency’s treatment of Mr. Ginnodo. As *1066our predecessor court commented in Smith v. United States, 151 Ct.Cl. 205, 208-09 (1960), concerning a plan that would put an employee “in the absurd position of having only himself to compete with in any future reduction in force”, such an employee “is entitled to different and better treatment”.
In Mr. Ginnodo’s situation, I deem it neither fair nor reasonable for the agency to have established'a competitive structure which both excluded him from competition with field office employees in Chicago because he was affiliated with the central office, and excluded him from competition with central office employees because he was stationed in Chicago. It is my view that the agency made a clear error of judgment in refusing to exercise the discretion entrusted to it by the regulations to define Mr. Ginnodo’s competitive area to ensure “adequate competition”.