Court Opinion

ID: 9451351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:14:46.55545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:40.758921
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Judge
(dissenting):
There is no doubt that the charge of falsification made against plaintiff had major security implications, with strong overtones of subversion. She was accused of having lied in 1963 (on a “security investigation data” questionnaire) as to membership in the International Workers Order in 1950-1951. As the court notes, that organization was included in the Attorney General’s list of Communist and subversive groups supplied to the then Loyalty Review Board of the Civil Service Commission. The I WO was also one of the three petitioners in the Supreme Court litigation challenging the Attorney General’s list — the case familiarly known as Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 71 S.Ct. 624, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1951) (see the starred footnote, and International Workers Order, Inc. v. McGrath, 86 U.S.App.D.C. 287, 182 F.2d 368 (1950)). The Superintendent of Insurance of the State of New York, assert*531ing that the Order was Communist-dominated, brought suit to dissolve it. In upholding the liquidation, the New York Court of Appeals referred to the Order’s “continued course of political action, involving as it did financing Communist Party organizers and publications disseminating Party literature, and supporting Communist policies and candidates for public office * * In re People by Bohlinger, Superintendent of Insurance, 305 N.Y. 258, 112 N.E.2d 280 (1953), cert. denied, International Workers Order, Inc. v. People of State of New York, 346 U.S. 857, 74 S.Ct. 68, 98 L.Ed. 371. The history of that period reflects the continued insistence of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government that the I WO was a subversive organization, controlled and infiltrated by the Communist Party. The plaintiff’s attorney understood this at once. His initial communication to the Navy (the letter of July 2nd which the court quotes) read the charge as being the “deliberate falsification, etc., and alleged membership in a subversive organization * * He specifically adverted to “the stigma of a dismissal predicated upon such charges * * * ”
A year ago, in Garrott v. United States, 169 Ct.Cl. 186, 340 F.2d 615 (1965), this court — following Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 79 S.Ct. 1400, 3 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1959) — applied the principle that there are special considerations governing federal administrative proceedings which involve charges of lack of security or of disloyalty. In Garrott the demand was for a trial-type hearing, and the court stated that “an agency of the Federal Government cannot, without permitting cross-examination and confrontation of adverse witnesses, take detrimental action against a person’s substantial interests on loyalty or security grounds— unless, at the least, Congress (or the President, if he is the source of power) has expressly authorized the lesser procedure.” 340 F.2d at 618. To the same effect were Bland v. Connally, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 293 F.2d 852 (1961) and Davis v. Stahr, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 383, 293 F.2d 860 (1961). The basic reasons for this singling out of security and loyalty charges pervade beyond the presumptive requirement for a fuller trial. As the Supreme Court said in Cole v. Young, 351 U.S. 536, 546, 76 S.Ct. 861, 868, 100 L.Ed. 1396 (1956), “in view of the stigma attached to persons dismissed on loyalty [or subversive-security] grounds, the need for procedural safeguards seems even greater than in other cases * * See, also, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 186-191, 73 S.Ct. 215, 97 L.Ed. 216 (1952); Peters v. Hobby, 349 U.S. 331, 347, 75 S.Ct. 790, 99 L.Ed. 1129 (1955); Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers Union, etc. v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 898-899, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961). And there are peculiar difficulties in disproving an accusation of subversive membership or affiliation (particularly when, as here, more than a decade has elapsed) which add to the need for ampler protection; these charges often rest solely on investigative reports founded on summaries of unnamed informants “whose memory might be faulty or who, in fact, might be perjurers or persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy”; many times, the possibility of a mistake in identity is not far-fetched. See Greene v. McElroy, supra, 360 U.S. at 496, 497-499, 79 S.Ct. at 1413; Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 540, 79 S.Ct. 968, 3 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1959); Peters v. Hobby, supra, 349 U.S. at 334-336, 75 S.Ct. 790; Cole v. Young, supra, 351 U.S. at 540, 76 S.Ct. 861. These special factors concern not only the need for confrontation at a trial or hearing; they also influence various other steps in the administrative process. Certainly they have a direct impact upon the formulation of the charge, especially if the individual is not to be granted a hearing but must rest his defense' purely on a written response to the formal complaint against him. See Vitarelli v. Seaton, supra, at 541-546, 79 S.Ct. 968.
As the court points out, the Navy’s general regulations for dismissing a probationary employee “for reasons based on *532conditions that existed before appointment” required the laying out in the charge of “specific and detailed reasons” giving “all the facts needed to enable him to understand the reasons for the proposed action and to join issue with it.” All that plaintiff was told was that she had lied as to membership, over 10 years before, in the IWO, and that she had been a member of a certain local (the situs of which was not given) and held a designated certificate number. Perhaps this sort of summary statement would have been sufficient if she had been accused of lying as to past membership in Phi Beta Kappa (if such an accusation could conceivably be made). I think, however, that, in the light of the greater need for procedural safeguards in security and loyalty cases, more details should have been proffered when an allegedly subversive group like the IWO was so directly implicated, particularly since that organization had been dissolved several years before plaintiff answered the Navy’s security questionnaire in 1963, and since her alleged membership was said to have been in 1950-1951 (about twelve years before). In this context,the content of the phrase “specific and detailed reasons” meant that plaintiff should have received some better statement as to the location of the “local”, the persons or sources said to have provided the information to the Government, any documentary backing for the charge (such as an IWO membership list, a membership card in plaintiff’s writing or name, or a prior admission by her of membership), the nature of her purported membership, or the like. Only in that way would Mrs. Bennett have obtained “all the facts needed to enable * * * [her] to understand the reasons for the proposed action and to join issue with it” —to which, as the Navy regulation declares, she was “entitled” (emphasis added). To “join issue” intelligently with a security-colored indictment of this kind she would have to have something more than the cryptic few lines handed to her.
She knew, of course, that she was accused of lying as to membership for a defined period in a specified local of the IWO, and that she was said to have held a certain membership number. But if we presuppose her innocence — as we must when we pass on the validity of the charge — it is hard to see how she could “join issue” with so general an indictment, except by the futile gesture of offering a wholesale denial, as she did.1 The IWO was a nation-wide organization with units in many places, but she was not told the city or state of the specified local. She was not told whether she was alleged to have been an officer or merely a rank-and-file member. She was not told whether her membership was said to have been active or inactive. She was not given the nature of her activities, if any. Since the IWO had been dissolved some years prior to 1963, there was no reasonable way for her to find out from it any of this information, even the location of Local 517 JA or the named holder of certificate #418008 — assuming that this group, charged with Communist domination, would supply any information to her if it still existed. Since the asserted membership lay far back in 1950-1951, it is highly probable that, in the absence of some fuller indication of the specific reasons for the Navy’s belief that she lied, an innocent accused would, at the best, have extreme difficulty, in 1963, in proving by any independent evidence, outside of her own denial, the negative proposition that she had not been a member of this particular organization. I cannot believe that a summary charge that plaintiff had been a member of such-and-such a “local” of the Communist Party twelve years before would withstand challenge. The accusa*533tion actually made against her was not one whit better. Only the barest minimum was given, not the Navy’s requirement of “specific and detailed reasons” giving “all the facts needed to enable [her] to understand the reasons for the proposed action and to join issue with it.”
Plaintiff adequately raised this point that the charge lacked the required specificity. Her attorney’s request (on July 2, 1963) that “her summary dismissal as of 5 July be rescinded, and held in abeyance pending a Hearing on said charges” —taken together with his reference to “a gross miscarriage of justice” and “the possibility of mistaken names”, as well as his recognition that the charge had a serious subversive-security aspect — was surely enough to put the Navy on notice that further details and more information were sought. It is clear that he felt unable to disprove the charge without some greater specificity. The Civil Service Commission passed on the issue and held that “specific reasons” were given. In this court, the petition claims that “the advance notice and final decision of the agency failed to set forth all the facts, specifically and in detail, needed to enable plaintiff to understand the reasons for the proposed action and the dismissal and to join issue therewith in violation of NCPI 352, Section 4-8c.” Plaintiff’s brief in this court argues, as one of its points, that “the notice of proposed removal did not set forth ‘specific and detailed reasons’ as required under Navy personnel regulations.” Defendant contends that the charge was sufficient but does not urge that the point has been waived (or is not presented).
We should have no difficulty in reading the general phrases of the Navy and Civil Service Commission regulations as calling for more precision in this class of case than perhaps in others. By its very nature the term “specific and detailed reasons” is elastic, its scope dependent on the needs of the individual case or category of charge. We ourselves have said that the “manifest purpose” of this type of “provision is to afford the employee a fair opportunity to oppose his removal, and the charges must be considered with the view of determining whether plaintiff was informed of the basis of the proposed action with sufficient particularity to apprise him of allegations he must refute or acts he must justify. The technical rules of criminal proceedings are not applicable here, and the facts and circumstances of a particular case are regarded as important in such an inquiry.” Engelhardt v. United States, 125 Ct.Cl. 603, 606 (1953) (emphasis added). The courts, moreover, have not hesitated to construe statutes or regulations bearing on security (or loyalty) in the light of the distinctive requirements of that type of litigation. See Peters v. Hobby, Cole v. Young, Greene v. McElroy, Vitarelli v. Seaton, Bland v. Connally, Davis V. Stahr, and Garrott v. United States, all cited supra.
These decisions also show that the principle that there is potentially a greater need for procedural safeguards in subversive-security and loyalty cases is not restricted to (i) persons holding sensitive posts, or (ii) those directly discharged for subversive affiliations (rather than for lying about them, as was plaintiff). Cole v. Young, which explicitly recognized this principle, as well as Peters v. Hobby and Vitarelli v. Sea-ton, concerned employees in non-sensitive positions, as did Bland v. Connally (inactive Navy reservist) and Davis v. Stahr (inactive Army reservist); the plaintiff in Garrott v. United States was a retired federal employee who had been a routine post-office worker; of the group, only Greene v. McElroy involved the holder of sensitive employment. The courts have considered the need for additional protections to be at least as great where the security charge is lodged against a non-sensitive employee (like plaintiff) as when he is an engineer in a defense plant. The problems inherent in the accusation — the' stigma and the difficulties of disproof — -are of the same *534order; on the other hand, the Government’s need to dispense with the employee’s services is less. See Cole v. Young, supra, 351 U.S. at 546-547, 76 S.Ct. 861, 100 L.Ed. 1396. Similarly, Garrott demonstrates that a charge of lying as to subversive connections is as much within the security area as a direct effort to impose sanctions because of such membership; Garrott’s annuity was cut off because it was said that he had lied as to membership in the Communist Party. No one would deny that the criminal proceeding against Alger Hiss was a security case even though the formal charge was perjury. United States v. Hiss, 185 F.2d 822 (C.A.2, 1950), cert. denied, 340 U.S. 948, 71 S.Ct. 532, 95 L.Ed. 683 (1951).
Plaintiff’s probationary status does not remove her from the sphere of the Greene principle. She was not shielded by any Congressional directive, and, if the Civil Service Commission and the Navy had not promulgated their regulations granting rights to probationary employees, she could have been dismissed without any assigned reason. Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers Union etc. v. McElroy, supra, 367 U.S. at 896-897, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230; Batchelor v. United States, 169 Ct.Cl. 180 (1965), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 870, 86 S.Ct. 147, 15 L.Ed.2d 109. But these regulations had been issued and were outstanding; as we have many times held and the court agrees today, she could insist that they be enforced — despite the absence of personnel-removal legislation specifically extending to probationers. See Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 539-540, 545, 79 S.Ct. 968, 3 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1959); Watson v. United States, 162 F.Supp. 755, 142 Ct.Cl. 749 (1958); Daub v. United States, 292 F.2d 895, 897-898, 154 Ct.Cl. 434, 437-438 (1961); Greenway v. United States, 163 Ct.Cl. 72, 75-76 (1963). In applying and interpreting the regulations there is no reason why the factors which have moved the courts in subversive-security cases of the past decade should be disregarded. The stigma and the hazards of a security accusation are the same for ,a probationary employee as for others. True, the novice has not yet acquired an interest in a permanent or established job, but the Executive has acknowledged, through the promulgation of regulations safeguarding the tentative position while it is still tentative, that the employee-on-trial has an existing and a potential interest in federal employment. That gratuitous grant must be recognized “even though.without * * * [the] regulations * * * [the Navy] could have discharged petitioner summarily”, and “even though [the regulations were] generous beyond the requirements that bind such agency.” Vitarelli v. Seaton, supra, 359 U.S. at 540, 547, 79 S.Ct. at 976. The Navy elected to issue the regulations and to proceed against Mrs. Bennett on what were, in effect, security grounds. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter observed, concurring in Vitarelli, “[h]e that takes the procedural sword shall perish with that sword” because “[a]n executive agency must be rigorously held to the standards by which it professes its action to be judged” (id., at 546-547, 79 S.Ct. at 976).
I would hold, therefore, that plaintiff was denied her right under the regulations to “specific and detailed reasons” and that her discharge was unlawful for that reason.2 I need not consider whether she was also entitled to a hearing, on the special ground that the discharge was security-based, although the regulations did not purport to accord her that right (cf. Greene v. McElroy, supra; Garrott v. United States, supra); she has not raised or pressed that claim in this court. She does say that she was entitled to a hearing, but her argument is a general one applicable to all probationary employees charged with any kind of “pre-appointment” delinquency; her conten*535tion has nothing to do with the security aspects of the case. That general claim, rooted in a misconception of a Civil Service Commission directive, the court properly rejects.

. Her answer of June 25th said that she “categorically” denied the charges and that she had told the truth in answer to the question on the security form. In particular-, she “attested” that she had never been a member of the International Workers Order; that she was not a member from February 12, 1950 to March 1951; that she had no knowledge of any Local 517 JA; and no knowledge of certificate of membership #418008.

. On this view, plaintiff is entitled to recover her pay from the date of her removal, less offsets. See Hanifan v. United States, Ct.Cl., decided Dec. 17, 1965, 354 F.2d 358, 363-365; Garrott v. United States, supra. Cf. Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 546, 79 S.Ct. 968, 3 L.Ed. 2d 1012 (1959).