Court Opinion

ID: 9477132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:15:06.826191+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:42.906269
License: Public Domain

STARR, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The statutory provision in question, 5 U.S.C. § 7114(a)(2)(B) (1982), was designed to accord federal employees the right recognized by the Supreme Court in National Labor Relations Board v. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251, 95 S.Ct. 959, 43 L.Ed.2d 171 (1975). In my view, the events giving rise to this case do not implicate the concerns informing Weingarten; the FLRA was therefore entirely correct in concluding that the hospital had no obligation to grant the physician-employee’s request for union representation. In reading the statute (and Weingarten) to the contrary, the court today not only loosens Weingarten from its moorings but in the process does damage to bedrock principles governing the delicate *501relationship between court and agency in the interpretation of statutes.
I
The parties (and my colleagues) are in accord that the underlying purpose of section 7114(a)(2)(B) is to protect the right of a federal employee to have a union representative present at an investigatory confrontation with the employer. A review of the facts in Weingarten illustrates the nature of such right-triggering confrontations. Id. at 254-56, 95 S.Ct. at 962-63. In that case, an employee, suspected of stealing from her employer, was summoned to an interview with the store manager and a company security officer. Although the security officer had surreptitiously observed the employee for two days and detected nothing amiss, another employee reported seeing the suspect undercharge herself for a purchase. Based on this report, the security officer questioned the employee about the incident while the store manager looked on. The employee repeatedly asked that a union representative be called to assist her in the interview, but each time her request was denied. After the employee provided an explanation of her actions, the security official left to verify her story. The officer returned, informed the still-detained employee that her story had checked out, and told her that the matter was closed.
The interview, however, did not in fact conclude. Bursting into tears, the employee blurted out that she had never taken anything from the store without paying for it, save for the free lunches to which she was entitled under company policy. At that point, the store manager and security officer, believing Weingarten’s “free lunch” policy to be inapplicable to this particular store, resumed the interrogation. Once again, the employee requested union representation, but once again the request was denied. Based on the employee’s responses, the security officer prepared a written statement, which included his computation of the money owed by the employee for her supposedly “free” lunches. The employee refused to sign the statement. Only when the security officer learned by telephone communication with Weingar-ten’s headquarters that it was uncertain whether free lunches were permitted at that particular store did the officer terminate the interview.
II
Needless to say, the situation that gave us the Weingarten rule is far removed from the circumstances presented by Dr. Hanna’s relationships with his fellow physicians at Noble Army Hospital. In contrast to the informal, involuntary interview in Weingarten, the hearing at issue in this case was a structured, formal proceeding complete with written findings and a record. In the present case, Dr. Hanna received advance notice of the hearing, to be conducted by his professional colleagues. The notice included both the specific areas of inquiry and the names of witnesses who would testify. Critically, Dr. Hanna was neither required to attend the hearing nor, if he chose to attend, to participate in the proceeding,1 *502Electing both to attend and participate actively at the hearing, Dr. Hanna was not, like the tearful employee in Weingarten, left to fend for himself. To the contrary, hospital procedures afforded Dr. Hanna the right to consult with an attorney throughout the proceeding, an opportunity of which he availed himself. It seems clear beyond cavil that any protections afforded by a union representative to a besieged employee in an investigative interview were more than adequately provided by a lawyer of Dr. Hanna’s own choosing.
Paralleling the striking procedural dissimilarity of the Weingarten setting and that involved here is the complete difference in the nature of the proceedings. The committee hearing in this case involved a professional performance review conducted by Dr. Hanna’s peers, including, as required, a member of his medical specialty. The hearing was designed to examine and evaluate the report prepared by one of Dr. Hanna’s fellow ophthalmologists in order to determine whether Dr. Hanna’s medical techniques were acceptable. The panel was not convened to uncover facts, much less elicit a confession. Indeed, since attendance by Dr. Hanna at the hearing was voluntary, the committee of physicians could scarcely have anticipated relying on him as a source of information.
Viewed through the prism of Weingar-ten,2 Congress’ use in the statute of the pivotal word “examination” comes more clearly into focus. The natural meaning of “examination” is an employer’s specifically interrogating an employee. That is to say, an “examination” occurs when the employer directs inquiries at an identifiable employee in a setting aimed at ferreting out facts of possible wrongdoing. Indeed, as this court reiterated just the other day in interpreting section 7114(a)(2)(B), “ ‘[examination’ involves questioning to secure information.” National Treasury Employees Union v. FLRA, 835 F.2d 1446, 1450 (D.C.Cir.1987). That is manifestly not what happened here.
What is more, the term “examination” does not stand alone. The statute refers to an “examination ... in connection with an investigation.” The employer, in the midst of an inquiry, zeroes in on a particular employee. These terms, taken together, conjure up in the objective reader’s mind an employment analogue to custodial interrogation in the criminal justice setting. Again, that is a far cry from Dr. Hanna’s circumstances.
Ill
It may well be that there exists a middle category of situations that implicate Wein-garten concerns, but nonetheless fail to partake of the specific attributes of a custodial-type interrogation by an employer. My views should not be taken to suggest any prejudgment on my part as to situations that might fit within that conceivable (and possibly broad) category. But Dr. Hanna’s situation at Noble Army Hospital strikes me as the polar opposite on the Weingarten spectrum. Indeed, it is as far removed from Weingarten and the values that the Court was seeking there to vindicate as any case we are likely to encounter. Today’s holding, therefore, dramatically expands the reach of an important procedural safeguard far beyond anything which Congress intended.
In consequence, today’s result does violence not only to Congress’ intent, but to the Supreme Court’s teachings that the judiciary is not to impose its own views on the agency which Congress has seen fit to create and charge with the administration of a statute. See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 842-44, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-83, *50381 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984); INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 1207, 94 L.Ed.2d 434 (1987). Indeed, the appropriate role of the courts in the interpretation of statutes was reiterated only the other day by Justice Brennan, writing for a unanimous Court in NLRB v. United Food & Commercial Workers, — U.S. -, - -, 108 S.Ct. 413, 421-22, 98 L.Ed.2d 429 (1987); see also id. at -, 108 S.Ct. at 426 (Scalia, J., concurring) (specifically disapproving two recent holdings of this court as erroneous under Chevron). Since my colleagues depart from what I believe to be controlling principles of law, I am constrained respectfully to register my dissent.

. It will not do to suggest that Dr. Hanna had, as a practical matter, no choice but to appear and participate in the hearing. Weingarten was addressed to the type of situation where the employee became duty bound to participate in and respond to the employer’s investigation. Failure by a Weingarten-type employee to respond could obviously be viewed, and reasonably so, by an employer as an act of insubordination. Here, in contrast, it could not be clearer that Dr. Hanna would in no wise be committing an act of insubordination if he had availed himself of his right not to participate at all. Indeed, nothing has been suggested to indicate that Dr. Hanna could not have made his views known to his reviewing colleagues in writing had he so desired and thus avoided the unpleasantness of a hearing about his own competence.
On a related point, any notion that employees have the right to attend investigatory hearings is simply incorrect. It is entirely permissible for a federal employer to present an employee with the unhappy choice of attending an interview without a union representative or not being interviewed at all. See United States Air Force, 2750th Air Base Wing Headquarters, Air Force Logistics Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 10 F.L.R.A. 97 (1982) (employer permissibly terminated interview upon request by employee for union representative to be present); United States Air Force, 2750th Air Force Base

. Lest there be any confusion, I am by no means suggesting that section 7114(a)(2)(B) is limited to Weingarten's facts. I am simply attempting to discern from Weingarten the type of situation Congress intended to encompass in creating what Congress itself envisioned as Weingarten -typ e rights. As I see it, Weingarten circumstances involve an employee, confronted by his employer with charges of misconduct, who is questioned without a reasonable opportunity to have advice and support.