Court Opinion

ID: 9386109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-11 15:01:09.502186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:47.425603
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-2075   Document: 47     Page: 1   Filed: 04/11/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                GEORGE D. SKRETTAS,
                     Petitioner

                            v.

      DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS,
                   Respondent
             ______________________

                       2022-2075
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. CH-1221-20-0549-W-1.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: April 11, 2023
                 ______________________

    GEORGE DIMITRIOS SKRETTAS, Ann Arbor, MI, pro se.

     PATRICK ANGULO, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
 Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
 ton, DC, for respondent. Also represented by BRIAN M.
 BOYNTON, ELIZABETH MARIE HOSFORD, PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY.
                  ______________________

      Before DYK, SCHALL, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-2075    Document: 47      Page: 2    Filed: 04/11/2023

 2                                           SKRETTAS   v. DVA

 PER CURIAM.
     George D. Skrettas, formerly a Department of Veterans
 Affairs (“VA”) employee, seeks review of a decision of the
 Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”) denying relief in
 relevant part for alleged retaliation in response to whistle-
 blowing. We affirm.
                        BACKGROUND
     Mr. Skrettas began work as a registered respiratory
 therapist at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in
 2015. He submitted two whistleblower complaints rele-
 vant here, one to VA management in July 2017 and an-
 other to the VA Inspector General in July 2018. Both
 complaints alleged, among other things, that the respira-
 tory department lacked adequate policies and procedures.
 In response, the Office of the Medical Inspector toured the
 Dingell facility in November 2018, and in a later report
 partially substantiated Mr. Skrettas’ complaints. See
 Dep’t of Veterans Affs., OSC File Number DI-18-5155, Re-
 port to the Office of Special Counsel (2019) (“Report”),
 https://osc.gov/Documents/Public%20Files/FY20/DI-18-51
 55/DI-18-5155%20-%20Agency%20Report_Redacted.pdf.
     In January 2019, Mr. Skrettas filed a complaint with
 the Office of Special Counsel, alleging that the VA had re-
 taliated against him for his whistleblowing. He continued
 to supplement his complaint with allegations that subse-
 quent personnel actions were retaliatory. In June 2020,
 the Office informed Mr. Skrettas that it was closing his
 whistleblowing retaliation case. Mr. Skrettas then ap-
 pealed the VA’s actions to the MSPB.
     At the MSPB, Mr. Skrettas alleged that the VA had re-
 taliated against him by taking three personnel actions rel-
 evant here. First, on June 15, 2018, the agency suspended
 Mr. Skrettas for 10 days in response to allegations that he
 had behaved inappropriately, including on two occasions
 by refusing to assist a patient in respiratory distress. On
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 SKRETTAS   v. DVA                                          3

 one of those occasions, Mr. Skrettas was alleged to have
 declined to assist a patient by performing an arterial blood
 gas draw in order to test for oxygen and carbon dioxide lev-
 els. Second, on June 25, 2018, the VA removed Mr. Skret-
 tas from providing clinical care, and later detailed him to
 the social work unit, in response to allegations that shortly
 before his suspension he had endangered a patient by tam-
 pering with a ventilator. Finally, on July 26, 2019, the VA
 again removed Mr. Skrettas from clinical work and as-
 signed him to the social work unit after he was accused of
 creating a hostile work environment.
     An administrative judge (“AJ”) found that, as relevant
 here, Mr. Skrettas’ whistleblowing complaints were pro-
 tected disclosures. And she found that Mr. Skrettas had
 made a prima facie case that his whistleblowing was a con-
 tributing factor to the three personnel actions discussed
 above. But she concluded that the VA had shown by clear
 and convincing evidence that it would have taken these
 steps against Mr. Skrettas independent of any motivation
 to retaliate. 1
     Mr. Skrettas petitioned the full Board for review. The
 Board denied the petition but modified the AJ’s decision in
 one respect not relevant here. Mr. Skrettas petitions for

     1   Mr. Skrettas also alleged that his supervisor had
 retaliated against him by giving him an “unacceptable”
 performance review for the 2018 fiscal year. The AJ agreed
 and was not persuaded that the agency would have given
 him that rating absent his whistleblowing. She directed
 the VA to rescind its unfavorable rating and to indicate
 that Mr. Skrettas performed adequately in 2018. That is-
 sue is not part of the review proceedings here.
Case: 22-2075      Document: 47    Page: 4    Filed: 04/11/2023

 4                                           SKRETTAS   v. DVA

 review here.      We have jurisdiction.     See 28 U.S.C.
 § 1295(a)(9). 2
                         DISCUSSION
                               I
     The scope of our review of MSPB decisions is limited.
 We shall “hold unlawful and set aside any agency action,
 findings, or conclusions” only if found to be “(1) arbitrary,
 capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in ac-
 cordance with law; (2) obtained without procedures re-
 quired by law, rule, or regulation having been followed; or
 (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.”          5 U.S.C.
 § 7703(c).
     Agencies of the United States are prohibited from re-
 taliating against their employees for whistleblowing. See
 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8). “An employee who believes he has
 been subjected to illegal retaliation must prove by a pre-
 ponderance of the evidence that he made a protected dis-
 closure that contributed to the agency’s action against
 him.” Smith v. GSA., 930 F.3d 1359, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2019).
 Once an employee has made a prima facie case that he or
 she made a protected disclosure, and the disclosure contrib-
 uted to the agency’s adverse action, the agency bears the
 burden of persuasion “to show by clear and convincing

     2   Although Mr. Skrettas avers that he is not aban-
 doning his discrimination claims here, see ECF No. 3, the
 case below originated via an Individual Right of Action
 (“IRA”) filing, in which “[d]iscrimination claims may not be
 raised,” Young v. MSPB, 961 F.3d 1323, 1327 (Fed. Cir.
 2020). Thus, although we lack jurisdiction over so-called
 “mixed cases” involving claims that a personnel decision
 was based in whole or in part on prohibited discrimination,
 see Perry v. MSPB, 137 S. Ct. 1975, 1979 (2017), IRA ap-
 peals are by definition not mixed cases and are subject to
 our review. See Young, 961 F.3d at 1327–28.
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 SKRETTAS   v. DVA                                           5

 evidence that it would have taken the same personnel ac-
 tion in the absence of such disclosure.” Rickel v. Dep’t of
 the Navy, 31 F.4th 1358, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (internal
 quotation marks and citation omitted).
     In determining whether the agency has met its burden
 to show that it would have taken the same action absent
 whistleblowing, the MSPB generally considers three non-
 exclusive factors laid out in Carr v. Social Security Admin-
 istration:
     [1] the strength of the agency’s evidence in support
     of its personnel action; [2] the existence and
     strength of any motive to retaliate on the part of
     the agency officials who were involved in the deci-
     sion; and [3] any evidence that the agency takes
     similar actions against employees who are not
     whistleblowers but who are otherwise similarly sit-
     uated.
 185 F.3d 1318, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
                               II
     Mr. Skrettas’ main argument on appeal is that the
 MSPB’s decision is not supported by substantial evidence.
 See Pet’r’s Informal Br. 2–3. He asserts that several of the
 government’s witnesses lied at the MSPB hearing and
 lacked credibility. We conclude that the MSPB’s thorough
 opinion properly considered the applicable Carr factors for
 each of the personnel actions at issue and was supported
 by substantial evidence. See Gov’t’s Suppl. App. (“S.A.”) 7–
 8, 30–37, 41–44.
     First, in what Mr. Skrettas characterizes as the “main
 contradiction” in the case, Pet’r’s Informal Br. 2, he asserts
 that several witnesses for the VA lacked credibility because
 they contradicted evidence that the respiratory depart-
 ment lacked adequate policies and procedures. There was
 no contradiction. For example, one of Mr. Skrettas’ super-
 visors, Belinda Brown-Tezera, testified that the Medical
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 6                                            SKRETTAS   v. DVA

 Inspector had determined that the respiratory department
 had some policies and procedures that needed to be up-
 dated. That testimony is consistent with the Medical In-
 spector’s report of how the respiratory department’s
 policies and procedures were inadequate. See Report at ii–
 iii, 3–7.
     Second, Mr. Skrettas argues that Ms. Brown-Tezera
 lacked credibility because she falsely asserted, among
 other things, that he was still under investigation for tam-
 pering with a patient ventilator. But Mr. Skrettas has not
 pointed to evidence contradicting this testimony, nor oth-
 erwise established that the Board erred in concluding that
 Ms. Brown-Tezera’s relevant testimony was credible. See
 S.A. 42. In reply, Mr. Skrettas also contends that the alle-
 gation that he had tampered with a ventilator was based
 on hearsay. But there is nothing that generally forbids an
 agency from relying on reliable hearsay, including to disci-
 pline employees based on misconduct reports relayed to su-
 pervisors. See Charles H. Koch, 2 Administrative Law and
 Practice § 5:52[4] (3d ed. 2023).
     Third, Mr. Skrettas argues that two of his supervisors,
 Anthony Hilu and Tonia Allen, lied in the MSPB proceed-
 ings. Mr. Skrettas contends that Mr. Hilu falsely asserted
 that he had not written a letter proposing that Mr. Skret-
 tas be fired. And Mr. Skrettas argues that Ms. Allen falsely
 denied complaining of Mr. Skrettas’ conduct toward a ther-
 apist formerly employed in the department. There is noth-
 ing to either charge. As to the first, Mr. Hilu did not deny
 writing a letter proposing that Mr. Skrettas be terminated,
 but instead said he did not remember writing such a letter.
 As to the second, the MSPB found Ms. Allen’s testimony
 that is relevant here to be credible, and Mr. Skrettas has
 not established error in that finding. See, e.g., S.A. 33, 35.
    Apart from the arguments concerning witness testi-
 mony, Mr. Skrettas appears to argue that the VA has not
 shown it would have suspended him for 10 days in June
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 SKRETTAS    v. DVA                                           7

 2018 absent his whistleblowing. Implicitly invoking the
 third Carr factor, Mr. Skrettas argues that the agency did
 not discipline another therapist for refusing to perform the
 same blood draw procedure for a patient that Mr. Skrettas
 had refused to perform, a refusal that in part resulted in
 his 10-day suspension. But the MSPB found that this fel-
 low therapist was differently situated than Mr. Skrettas,
 in part because she was not a registered therapist. That
 finding was supported by substantial evidence. Any differ-
 ential treatment between Mr. Skrettas and this other ther-
 apist therefore does not undermine the MSPB’s conclusion.
     Mr. Skrettas contends that his due process rights were
 violated and that the MSPB should have applied other stat-
 utes to his case. He has not explained those assertions, so
 we do not consider them.
    We have considered Mr. Skrettas’ other arguments,
 and do not find them persuasive.
                           AFFIRMED
                              COSTS
 No costs.