Court Opinion

ID: 9927978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-30 17:01:37.918154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:45.268603
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-2166   Document: 45     Page: 1    Filed: 01/30/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                    CHRIS LANIER,
                      Petitioner

                            v.

         DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE,
                    Respondent
              ______________________

                       2022-2166
                 ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in No. AT-0752-21-0487-I-1.
                 ______________________

                Decided: January 30, 2024
                 ______________________

    MICHELLE SMITH, Michelle Smith Attorney at Law,
 Warner Robins, GA, argued for petitioner.

     JOSHUA MOORE, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
 Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
 ton, DC, argued for respondent. Also represented by BRIAN
 M. BOYNTON, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY, CORINNE ANNE
 NIOSI.
                  ______________________

 Before CUNNINGHAM, BRYSON, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
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 2                                        LANIER v. AIR FORCE

 BRYSON, Circuit Judge.
     Petitioner Chris Lanier was formerly employed as an
 electronics mechanic at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.
 In 2021, he was removed from his position based on a failed
 drug test. Mr. Lanier appealed to the Merit Systems Pro-
 tection Board, which upheld the removal action. He now
 challenges the Board’s decision on several procedural
 grounds. Finding no reversible error by the Board, we af-
 firm.
                               I
     On August 26, 2020, during the course of his employ-
 ment, Mr. Lanier was subjected to routine drug testing. He
 provided a urine sample, which tested positive for metham-
 phetamine, an illicit drug. In November 2020, Mr. Lanier
 was given a notice of proposed removal predicated on the
 positive drug test. S. App. 74–77.
     Mr. Lanier denied having used methamphetamine.
 Asked to explain his positive drug test, he speculated that
 it may have resulted from his use of medicines he had
 taken to combat a respiratory infection. Id. at 49. After
 investigating the issue, the deciding official concluded that
 the medicines Mr. Lanier said he had taken could not have
 produced a positive result given the testing protocol used
 on his sample. Id. at 52–62. After giving Mr. Lanier sev-
 eral opportunities to respond to the notice of proposed re-
 moval, the Air Force issued a decision removing him from
 his position. Id. at 36–38.
     Mr. Lanier appealed from the removal action, and on
 October 20, 2021, a Board administrative judge held a
 hearing on his appeal. Shortly thereafter, the administra-
 tive judge issued an initial decision upholding Mr. Lanier’s
 removal. Id. at 14–34. Mr. Lanier then filed a petition for
 review with the full Board. On June 28, 2022, the full
 Board denied the petition and affirmed the administrative
 judge’s initial decision. Id. at 6–13.
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 LANIER v. AIR FORCE                                         3

                               II
                               A
     Mr. Lanier challenges his removal on several grounds.
 His strongest claim is one that surfaced for the first time
 during the hearing before the administrative judge. Dr.
 Robert Fierro, the lead medical review officer responsible
 for reviewing Mr. Lanier’s test results, testified about the
 process his office follows after a positive drug test. Dr. Fi-
 erro explained that when a particular sample tests posi-
 tive, his office attempts to contact the donor of the sample
 to determine if there is an innocent explanation for the pos-
 itive result. Hearing Recording 2 at 1:29–1:55, 2:45–4:13,
 Lanier v. Dep’t of the Air Force, AT-0752-21-0486-I-1
 (M.S.P.B. Oct. 20, 2021).
     Dr. Fierro testified that after Mr. Lanier’s test results
 came back positive, Dr. Fierro’s staff attempted to contact
 Mr. Lanier multiple times at the phone number Mr. Lanier
 had provided. Those efforts were unsuccessful. According
 to Dr. Fierro, messages were left for Mr. Lanier, and his
 designated employer representative was asked to have Mr.
 Lanier return the call. Id. at 4:15–5:36, 10:13–10:35. Mr.
 Lanier did not return those calls. Id. at 5:28–5:36, 6:47–
 7:00. At the hearing, Mr. Lanier testified that he was un-
 aware of any telephone calls or messages left for him.
 Hearing Recording 3 at 2:15–4:43, Lanier v. Dep’t of the Air
 Force, AT-0752-21-0486-I-1 (M.S.P.B. Oct. 20, 2021).
     Dr. Fierro explained that the reason his office called
 donors when their tests came back positive was to explain
 the results of the test and explore medical reasons why the
 donor would be positive, which would include reviewing
 drugs the donor was taking and “medical conditions that
 the donor might have, such as diabetes, which could cause
 a low pH and thus the donor would be positive.” Hearing
 Record 2 at 3:06–3:42. If the office was unable to determine
 an medical reason why the test would be positive, it would
 report a positive result.
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 4                                         LANIER v. AIR FORCE

     During his cross-examination, Dr. Fierro said that cer-
 tain medical conditions can explain a positive drug test. As
 an example, he said that diabetes “produces a low pH, and
 a low pH gets flagged and comes across my desk, and I talk
 to the donor and we find out that they had diabetes . . .
 and we make the test negative. We actually cancel it.” Id.
 at 8:03–8:28.
     In the course of his direct examination later in the
 hearing, Mr. Lanier testified that in May 2021, he was di-
 agnosed with diabetes. Hearing Recording 3 at 4:46–5:08.
 He did not at that time offer any corroborating evidence of
 his diagnosis, such as medical records. In the initial deci-
 sion, the administrate judge noted that “the appellant pro-
 duced no independent testimony or evidence to support his
 asserted diabetes diagnosis.” S. App. 18–19. The adminis-
 trative judge then explained that “[a]bsent such corrobora-
 tion, I do not find the appellant’s testimony credible or
 persuasive.” Id. at 19.
     Mr. Lanier did not submit medical records corroborat-
 ing his diabetes diagnosis to the administrative judge, ei-
 ther at the hearing or afterwards. Instead, he petitioned
 for review of the initial decision by the full Board. In his
 petition, filed on December 1, 2021, he raised the argument
 that his test results may have been attributable to his dia-
 betes, but he did not attach or refer to any corroborating
 medical evidence. See Petition for Review File, Tab 1, La-
 nier v. Dep’t of the Air Force, AT-0752-21-0486-I-1
 (M.S.P.B. Dec. 1, 2021) (S. App. 5). It was not until his
 representative filed a supplemental petition on January 3,
 2022, that he offered medical evidence that he was in fact
 diagnosed with diabetes as early as May 2021. Petition for
 Review File, Tab 5, at 9–22, Lanier v. Dep’t of the Air Force,
 AT-0752-21-0486-I-1 (M.S.P.B. Jan. 3, 2022) (S. App. 5).
     The full Board upheld the administrative judge’s deci-
 sion. With respect to the diabetes issue, the Board noted
 that the medical records regarding Mr. Lanier’s diagnosis
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 LANIER v. AIR FORCE                                          5

 “were available before the record closed below, and the ap-
 pellant’s explanation as to why he was unable to submit
 them then is not persuasive.” S. App. 7 n.2. The Board
 further explained that it “generally will not consider evi-
 dence submitted for the first time with a petition for review
 absent a showing that it was unavailable before the record
 closed despite the party’s due diligence.” Id.
                               B
      Mr. Lanier’s challenge to the Board’s decision on the
 diabetes issue focuses principally on the Board’s failure to
 take into consideration the medical records that Mr. Lanier
 submitted for the first time to the full Board with his sup-
 plemental petition for review. The Board, however, is not
 required to consider evidence that was not first presented
 to the administrative judge if the evidence could have been
 obtained earlier with the exercise of due diligence. See
 Brenneman v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 439 F.3d 1325, 1328
 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“[A] party submitting new evidence in con-
 nection with a petition for review must satisfy the burden
 of showing that the evidence is material and that it could
 not have been obtained earlier with the exercise of due dil-
 igence.”); Azarkhish v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 915 F.2d 675,
 679 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (explaining that the full Board did not
 abuse its discretion in denying review of the administrative
 judge’s decision despite the submission of the new evidence
 with the petition for review because the petitioner did not
 show that the new evidence was “not available when the
 record closed.”); see generally Bosley v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd.,
 162 F.3d 665, 668 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (“A party in an MSPB
 proceeding must raise an issue before the administrative
 judge if the issue is to be preserved for review in this court.
 Thus, if the party fails to raise an issue in the administra-
 tive proceeding or raises an issue for the first time in a pe-
 tition for review by the full Board, this court will not
 consider the issue.”).
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 6                                         LANIER v. AIR FORCE

      In his brief, Mr. Lanier asserts that his medical records
 “were unavailable at the time of the initial hearing.” Peti-
 tioner’s Br. 3. But that statement is unsupported and is
 contrary to the conclusion of the Board that the “documents
 were available before the record closed before the adminis-
 trative judge.” S. App. 7 n.2. Because the blood tests that
 formed the basis for Mr. Lanier’s diagnosis were conducted
 in May 2021, it is highly unlikely that the test results were
 unavailable as of October 2021 when the hearing before the
 administrative judge was conducted. And even if the testi-
 mony about the effect of diabetes on drug testing came as
 a surprise to Mr. Lanier, he admitted that he was aware of
 his diagnosis as of that time. Mr. Lanier has not shown
 that there was any impediment to his obtaining the medi-
 cal records of his diagnosis and seeking to have them made
 part of the record before the administrative judge.
     Beyond that, the record reflects that Mr. Lanier’s urine
 sample was subjected to two different tests—an immuno-
 assay test and a gas chromatography/mass spectrometry
 (“GC/MS”) test. See Hearing Recording 1 at 6:19–8:14,
 19:16–20:15, Lanier v. Dep’t of the Air Force, AT-0752-21-
 0486-I-1 (M.S.P.B. Oct. 20, 2021); S. App 113. The latter is
 the more robust test. In this case, both tests produced a
 positive result. Id. at 15:34–15:58.
      In his supplemental petition for review and again in his
 brief, Mr. Lanier cited an article describing the susceptibil-
 ity of an immunoassay test to false positive results due to
 its cross-reactivity with other compounds, such as Metfor-
 min, a diabetes medication. See Petitioner’s Br. 3; Petition
 for Review File Tab 5, at 5–6 (citing Alec Saitman et al.,
 False-Positive Interferences of Common Urine Drug Screen-
 ing Immunoassays, 38 J. ANALYTICAL TOXICOLOGY 387
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 LANIER v. AIR FORCE                                           7

 (2014)). 1 Significantly, that article referred only to cross-
 reactivity issues with the immunoassay test, and not with
 the GC/MS test. In fact, the article recommended that the
 “best practice” following a positive immunoassay drug test
 “involves confirmation with the mass spectrometry (MS)
 technique such as gas chromatography—mass spectrome-
 try (GC-MS).” S. App. 250. That was exactly the test used
 to confirm Mr. Lanier’s positive drug test results. Mr. La-
 nier’s reliance on the Saitman article is therefore unper-
 suasive, as it does not account for the fact that his urine
 sample was subjected to both tests, not just the immunoas-
 say test.
      In sum, we conclude that the Board committed no error
 in its disposition of the diabetes issue. It is possible that if
 that issue had been further developed at the hearing or
 shortly thereafter, it would have called for more careful
 scrutiny by the administrative judge. But the issue arose
 at the hearing only incidentally, and it was not pursued to
 the extent necessary to support Mr. Lanier’s current theory
 that his positive drug test was attributable to a later-diag-
 nosed medical condition that had not been identified at the
 time of the drug test. Given the procedural posture of the
 case, it was not error for the Board to hold that the diabetes
 theory did not call for reversal of the decision to remove Mr.
 Lanier from his position.
                               III
     Mr. Lanier raises or alludes to several other procedural
 issues, none of which has merit.

     1   Mr. Lanier submitted this article as an exhibit to
 his supplemental petition for review. See S. App. 7 n.2,
 250-54.
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 8                                          LANIER v. AIR FORCE

                                A
     At several points in his brief, Mr. Lanier contends that
 his drug sample was “overdiluted by the lab” and that the
 overdilution rendered the drug test unreliable. Petitioner’s
 Br. 1, 5, 6. A report from Colonel Lindsay Droz, the decid-
 ing official, noted that Mr. Lanier’s sample was marked
 “overdiluted” in the materials relating to the testing pro-
 cess. S. App. 49, 132. But she added that “after reading
 the description of the procedure . . . it appears that this
 refers to the fact the sample itself was overdiluted, not that
 the lab itself diluted the sample.” Id. at 49. Mr. Lanier
 never developed the “overdilution” theory before the ad-
 ministrative judge, and he has failed to show that the pur-
 ported overdilution of the sample could have produced a
 false positive result on his drug test.
                                B
      Mr. Lanier next contends that there was a gap in the
 chain of custody for the drug sample as it made its way to
 the testing facility. Petitioner’s Br. 1, 2, 5. That argument
 is contrary to the parties’ pre-hearing stipulation that
 “[t]he Appellant’s specimen . . . tested positive for an illicit
 drug, methamphetamines.” S. App. 15. Moreover, even
 apart from the stipulation, the chain of custody issue is in-
 substantial. It is based on the contention that the FedEx
 documentation prepared at the time the sample was picked
 up did not include a reference to the time and date of the
 pickup. There was no suggestion, however, that the pack-
 age sent from the testing facility, which contained the sam-
 ple together with documentation confirming that it was
 Mr. Lanier’s sample, was not the same package that was
 received by the testing lab.
                                C
      At the hearing before the administrative judge, Mr. La-
 nier’s representative raised an issue regarding the scien-
 tists who signed off on the positive report regarding Mr.
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 LANIER v. AIR FORCE                                        9

 Lanier’s drug sample. At the time that report was pre-
 pared, two of the three certifying scientists who reviewed
 the report signed off on it by initialing and dating the re-
 port. At that time, the third certifying scientist who re-
 viewed the report neglected to initial and date the report.
 According to the testimony of Jean Chambers, supervisory
 forensic chemist at the laboratory, that omission was later
 noted, and the third certifying scientist signed off on the
 report at that later date. See S. App. 133–34; Hearing Re-
 cording 1 at 11:16–12:26. The third certifying scientist pre-
 pared a Memorandum for Record explaining the oversight
 and confirming that she reviewed the report and certified
 the test results at the same time as the other scientists who
 signed off on it. S. App. 133; Hearing Recording 1 at 11:32–
 12:26.
     Ms. Chambers agreed that the third scientist’s error in
 not contemporaneously initialing and dating the report did
 not affect the test results. Id. at 12:30–12:38. Moreover,
 she noted that only two scientists were required to sign off
 on the report. Hence the third scientist’s signature was su-
 perfluous in any event. See id. at 11:30–11:55, 32:27–
 32:44.
     The administrative judge found that there was no evi-
 dence that the clerical error “is likely to have caused the
 agency to reach a conclusion different from the one it would
 have reached in the absence or cure of the error.” S. App.
 20. Mr. Lanier provides no reason to reject the administra-
 tive judge’s conclusion on that issue.
                              D
     Another issue alluded to in Mr. Lanier’s brief is his
 claim that he had taken some expired cold medicine con-
 taining pseudoephedrine around the time of his drug test
 and that the cold medicine might have caused his positive
 drug test. Ms. Chambers testified, however, that over-the-
 counter medicines containing pseudoephedrine do not con-
 tain the isomer of pseudoephedrine found in
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 10                                      LANIER v. AIR FORCE

 methamphetamine. For that reason, she explained, the
 GC/MS test used to test Mr. Lanier’s urine sample would
 not have triggered a positive result based on the presence
 of such cold medicines in Mr. Lanier’s system. Hearing Re-
 coding 1 at 18:56–20:18. To the extent Mr. Lanier con-
 tended that the medicines he took were old prescription
 medicines from a previous illness in 2015, the administra-
 tive judge found that Mr. Lanier provided no evidence that
 he had been prescribed medications that might have
 caused the positive test result. S. App. 18. The record con-
 tains substantial evidence supporting the administrative
 judge’s finding on that issue.
                              E
     During the removal process, Mr. Lanier offered a drug
 test that he procured from a private source. S. App. 51.
 That drug test returned a negative result for methamphet-
 amine. Id. Mr. Lanier’s brief mentions that test, but does
 not argue that it was error for the agency to disregard it.
 In any event, the record clearly contains substantial evi-
 dence showing that it was not improper for the agency to
 disregard Mr. Lanier’s private drug test. Ms. Chambers
 testified that methamphetamine has a short half-life in the
 body, with 60% of the drug being excreted within 48 hours
 of drug use. Hearing Recording 1 at 21:00–21:16. For this
 reason, Mr. Lanier’s private drug test, taken four months
 after the agency’s test, was of no probative value regarding
 whether the initial test results were erroneous. See id. at
 20:39–21:36.
     Based on that evidence and corroborating testimony
 from Dr. Fierro, the administrative judge found that Mr.
 Lanier’s privately procured negative test result from De-
 cember 2020 did not disprove the positive test from August
 2020. S. App. 20. That conclusion is plainly supported by
 substantial evidence.
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 LANIER v. AIR FORCE                                         11

                               F
     Finally, Mr. Lanier argues that in light of his clean dis-
 ciplinary record, the Air Force should have considered a
 lesser penalty than removal. The deciding official testified,
 however, that her choice of penalty was based on a consid-
 eration of all the so-called Douglas factors bearing on the
 choice of penalty. See Douglas v. Veterans Admin., 5
 M.S.P.R. 280 (1981). She testified that she chose the pen-
 alty of removal based largely on the nature and seriousness
 of the charge and the highly sensitive nature of Mr. La-
 nier’s work—repairing U.S. Air Force aircraft. Hearing
 Record 2 at 30:00–31:24.
     The administrative judge noted that the deciding offi-
 cial had considered each of the Douglas factors, including
 mitigating factors such as Mr. Lanier’s good job perfor-
 mance and otherwise clean disciplinary record. Reviewing
 the deciding official’s choice of removal as a penalty, the
 administrative judge found that the penalty did not exceed
 the bounds of reasonableness because “the charge of use of
 an illicit drug is especially serious given the duties of the
 appellant’s position.” S. App. at 25.
     When the Board sustains an agency’s penalty choice
 as reasonable, we uphold that penalty determination un-
 less it is “clearly excessive or an abuse of discretion.” Cole-
 man v. U.S. Secret Serv., 749 F.2d 726, 729 (Fed. Cir. 1984);
 see also Mings v. Dep’t of Justice, 813 F.2d 384, 390 (Fed.
 Cir. 1987) (court will uphold the agency’s choice of penalty
 “unless the severity of the agency’s action appears totally
 unwarranted in light of all the factors”); Gonzales v. Def.
 Logistics Agency, 772 F.2d 887, 889 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (pen-
 alty will be upheld unless it is “so harsh and unconsciona-
 bly disproportionate to the offense that it amounts to an
 abuse of discretion”). The penalty imposed by the agency
 in this case does not rise to that level. We therefore reject
 Mr. Lanier’s challenge to the agency’s choice of penalty.
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 12                                     LANIER v. AIR FORCE

                            IV
     Finding no harmful error in the procedures leading to
 Mr. Lanier’s removal and in the Board proceedings sustain-
 ing that removal, we uphold the Board’s decision.
      No costs.
                        AFFIRMED