Court Opinion

ID: 9488973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:01:12.265547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:13.360515
License: Public Domain

PLAGER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Because the opinion of the court is correct as a matter of law, I join it. A reader unfamiliar with the history of this kind of problem might rightly wonder at the harshness of a rule that says if you comply to the letter with the instructions of your employer’s designated Employee Relations Specialist, you, not the employer, bear the risk that those instructions may be wrong and that you may be harmed as a result. In this case, Ms. Deerinwater did what her agency told her to do, and because the officer whose job it was to advise her correctly gave her wrong advice, she falls outside the time window the statute prescribes.
The explanation for this hard-to-explain result is found in the Supreme Court’s decision in OPM v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 110 S.Ct. 2465, 110 L.Ed.2d 387 (1990). We are without power to decide otherwise. The Richmond rule, however well reasoned as a legal construct, is not only harsh on citizens who reasonably rely on what government agents with apparent authority tell them, but it provides no incentive for the government to ever get it right. If a remedy for this kind of wrong is to be found, it lies with Congress to provide it.