Court Opinion

ID: 9471796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:41:19.440447+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:35.039062
License: Public Domain

NICHOLS, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with most of what is said in the court’s opinion and need not say it again. I differ in one rather fundamental way. I believe the MSPB should itself redetermine the penalty in light of our opinion and not re-remand that issue to “the agency,” i.e., the Army. My reasons for this are as follows.
It is quite clear to me that the denial of union representation to petitioner by the Army, contrary to its contract, was harmful legal error at the first or agency stage. Since the MSPB accords such substantial deference to the position of the agency respecting penalty, a procedural error that directly relates to penalty is by far the most *1087harmful procedural error an agency can commit. If the error related to the factual determination whether the employee committed the offense, it would be far less likely to be harmful for the simple reason that the MSPB remakes this determination de novo. See Davis, Judge, dissenting, in Cheney v. Department of Justice, 720 F.2d 1280 (Fed.Cir.1983). I differed with Judge Davis in that case, not because I considered the above analysis faulty, but because I could not agree with him that the so-called “deciding official,” who would have mitigated Cheney’s penalty, ever had authority to make a determination that would bind the agency. It is perfectly obvious to me that the union representatives, if not wrongly excluded, would have perceived, just as we do, that the excessive penalty was the most vulnerable point in the agency case. If an error is not pereeivably harmless, as it was held to be in Cheney’s case by the majority, it is harmful, i.e., the harmless error doctrine cannot be invoked. It is not enough to speculate it may have been harmless. I cannot understand why the court will not state foursquare that the error was harmful here.
The MSPB has jurisdiction to mitigate agency penalties it finds to be unreasonably harsh. The effect of harmful error in the agency determination of penalty, before the MSPB, must be that the agency determination is entitled to no deference. The only obvious alternative for the MSPB would be to declare the adverse action illegal in its entirety and this would be an instance of overkill that the Civil Service Reform Act did not intend. A de novo determination of penalty by the MSPB is adequate to take the harmfulness out of the error and make it harmless. I therefore believe it was error on the part of the MSPB to accord the usual deference in face of a manifestly harmful agency error. This error can be and should be completely corrected by the MSPB without a re-remand. Of course, the Army can be heard by the MSPB as to what the penalty should be.
A re-remand to the Army is needless, and there is nothing in the court’s opinion to preclude the Army from proposing a penalty only slightly less onerous and having the MSPB accord it the usual deference.
If, however, this court insists on the re-remand to the Army, clearly the Army should redetermine the penalty on perfectly open terms. Its consideration should not be limited, as the court’s “conclusion” does, to matter related in some way (how?) to the previous denial of union representation or the loss of documents. If the union elects to represent petitioner before the agency and she wishes such representation, the union should be perfectly free to make a case for mitigation on any ground, just as it would have been had the agency acted legally the first time, and so should her counsel if she elects representation by a lawyer.