Court Opinion

ID: 9469111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:32:26.044596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:13.493631
License: Public Domain

HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This case involves a career civil servant, with a long and outstanding record of government service, who was fired when he “blew the whistle” on corrupt agency supervisors. By an equally divided vote, this court has denied appellant’s request for a rehearing en banc. The court thus places its imprimatur on a miscarriage of justice that I fear may have invidious consequences extending beyond the unlawful discharge of Donald Jolly.
My view of the errors in the majority’s legal analysis has been set forth in detail in a dissent to the panel’s opinion. Nevertheless, I feel it necessary to write again at this juncture because of what I perceive to be a gross injustice caused by the result in this case. Even more importantly, however, because I find the panel majority opinion at odds with any meaningful scheme of appellate review, I believe it necessary to add a note about the nature and purpose of judicial review of agency personnel actions.
The record in this case makes clear that Jolly was fired for “blowing the whistle” on corrupt agency supervisors. The circumstances surrounding Jolly’s dismissal indicate the retaliatory nature of the agency’s actions. Jolly’s employment record with the agency was virtually unblemished prior to his resignation from a management program and his public report of corrupt activities by agency officials shortly thereafter. Moreover, the two agency officials who were principally responsible for Jolly’s termination were the same two officials he had accused of corrupt activities. The proceedings they instituted against Jolly were a sham from the outset. Unable to articulate legitimate reasons for Jolly’s dismissal, the agency changed the charges against him no less than four times during the *1312course of the administrative proceedings and the ensuing litigation. Indeed, after significantly reducing the charges against Jolly, and after having been instructed by a panel of this court to reconsider “the propriety of Jolly’s dismissal in light of the reduced charges,” 1 the agency relied instead on new charges to defend its actions. These fluctuating charges by the agency accent, rather than hide, the fact that Jolly’s termination was really based on his accusations of corruption within the agency.
The majority opinion, however, blindly accepts the most recent version of the charges offered by the Government without ever addressing Jolly’s claim that he was the subject of a retaliatory discharge. The majority’s decision stands in stark and disturbing contrast to two Fifth Circuit opinions concerning disciplinary actions by the same agency against one of Jolly’s co-workers who protested Jolly’s discharge. See Porter v. Schweiker, 648 F.2d 310 (5th Cir. 1981); Porter v. Califano, 592 F.2d 770 (5th Cir. 1979). The following anomaly, inexplicable I am sure to government agencies and employees alike, now exists: The Fifth Circuit has ruled that it is unlawful for the government to discipline an employee who protests the discharge of a “whistle-blower,” while the D.C. Circuit has upheld the retaliatory discharge of the “whistle-blower” himself.
Finally, the majority opinion is inconsistent with a prior memorandum decision in this case issued by a different panel of this court in December 1979. In remanding the case for reconsideration of the propriety of Jolly’s discharge, the first panel opinion correctly noted that the agency’s regulations required the agency to attempt to reassign an employee to an alternative suitable position if his performance was alleged to be unacceptable.2 Although the agency had— in scores of prior cases 3 — routinely followed this requirement by reassigning employees (in lieu of dismissing them), it made no such effort in this case. The majority nonetheless refuses to enforce the fundamental principle expressed by this court in Doe v. Hampton, 566 F.2d 265, 280 (D.C.Cir.1977), that “an agency must abide by its own regulations in effecting the removal of one of its employees.”
In short, the decision in this case is a travesty because it reflects a callous disregard of the rights of a government employee, totally ignores claims of wrong-doing that were apparent to both the Fifth Circuit and a previous panel of this court, and produces a grossly unjust result.
At least as disturbing as the outcome in this case is the nature of the review provided by the majority. The majority opinion emphasizes the administrative proceedings already provided to Jolly below, the importance of deferring to agency discretion in personnel decisions like this one, and the limited nature of judicial review of such decisions. In doing so, the majority mistakenly equates process with justice and fairness, as if to suggest that the former always subsumes the latter. The majority also appears to equate a deferential standard of judicial review with no review at all.
The availability of procedures for challenging an employee’s dismissal at the administrative level is one means of preventing and remedying unlawful discharges. An agency’s adherence to certain formal procedures does not, however, mean that justice has been done, especially when the employee’s charge has not been fully addressed during those proceedings.4 In this case, Jolly’s claim that he was discharged in *1313retaliation for speaking out about the corruption of his supervisors was peremptorily rejected in the decision below by the Federal Employee Appeals Authority. Nor have the courts provided any meaningful review of that claim. The District Court granted summary judgment to the Government without a word of explanation. The majority opinion of this court not only failed to acknowledge Jolly’s legal argument, it did not even mention, in its recitation of the factual background of the case, that Jolly had publicly accused agency officials of corruption shortly before those officials instituted proceedings to have him dismissed.
While the majority is correct in asserting that this court should not “reweigh the evidence” or “retry the facts,” Jolly v. Listerman, 672 F.2d at 943 (D.C.Cir.1982), the court is certainly under an obligation to determine whether, in light of the discharged employee’s allegations and the evidence in the record, the agency’s actions were arbitrary or capricious. This inquiry is independent of the question whether the agency followed the requisite procedures. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), (D) (1976). And, while the arbitrary and capricious standard “is highly deferential, and presumes agency action to be valid,” in conducting that review we do “not serve as a mere rubber stamp for agency decisions.” Lead Industries Association, Inc. v. EPA, 647 F.2d 1130, 1145 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1042, 101 S.Ct. 621, 66 L.Ed.2d 503 (1980). In upholding Jolly’s dismissal without even addressing the most serious charge presented by him, the majority has rubber stamped the agency’s decision. Reviewing the record with blinders on, it has eviscerated the arbitrary and capricious standard and provided judicial “review” in name only.
The majority’s excessive deference to the agency plainly perverts the judicial function; regrettably, it is also almost certain to have a deleterious effect upon the agency as well. One important function of judicial review of actions by federal agencies, it seems to me, is to protect employees from reprisals for revealing corrupt activities of agency officials. By allowing 'Jolly’s dismissal to stand, the court delivers a practical message to agency employees that is all too clear: It does not pay to report corruption or other illicit activity within the' agency, particularly if it involves high-ranking officials who are in a position to retaliate. The court today tacitly demonstrates that it will accept such retaliation if the agency goes through the proper procedures and presents at least facially unobjectionable reasons for its actions (even if it takes four attempts to determine what its reasons are). The chilling effect of such a decision is obvious. The unfortunate result is that the agency stands to lose perhaps its greatest internal check on corruption and inefficiency — the forthright disclosures of unfearing and responsible agency employees. Surely this cannot “promote the efficiency of the service,” as the FEAA concluded in upholding Jolly’s dismissal. See Jolly v. Listerman, 672 F.2d at 939 (D.C.Cir.1982).
I do not mean to suggest that the retaliatory actions taken against Jolly are typical of this or any other federal agency. On the contrary, I would like to believe that agencies do not frequently discharge employees unjustly and that administrative procedures much more often than not prevent or correct the unjust actions that do occur. But in those cases in which it is clear that an agency has acted unlawfully and unjustly, rubber stamping its decision out of deference to the agency does not serve the agency’s best interests. It undermines them.
One can only hope that the impact of today’s decision will be limited. In this vein, it is worth recalling that four of six judges on two different panels of this court, and six judges on two different panels of the Fifth Circuit, have at least recognized the legitimacy of the charges asserted by Jolly. In the long run, this decision may well stand more as an aberrant example of injustice than as a meaningful precedent for agencies and courts. Unfortunately, even if this proves true, it will not correct the injustice suffered by Donald Jolly.
POSTSCRIPT
Although I greatly respect the opinion of my colleague, Chief Judge Robinson, and *1314share his view that we can ill-afford to indulge a loose standard for determining when to grant a petition for rehearing en banc, I firmly disagree with the position that he espouses in this case. If Rule 35 does not authorize a rehearing en banc in this case then no case should ever be reheard en banc by this court.
I have never urged that Rule 35 compels a rehearing en banc solely because there has been a “miscarriage of justice.” This case should be reheard for all of the other reasons cited in my opinion. It is not irrelevant, however, that the result reached by the court produces a serious miscarriage of justice. Indeed, it would seem to me quite extraordinary for a court of law to act in disregard of such a result. Moreover, the miscarriage of justice in this case reflects an extreme misapplication of the law, it surely is not the business of judges to ignore such injustice in order to comply with a wooden thesis of finality.

. Jolly v. Listerman, 610 F.2d 999 (D.C.Cir. 1979), reprinted in Jolly v. Listerman, 672 F.2d at 959 app. (D.C.Cir. 1982) (Edwards, J., dissenting).

. Id. at 959 n.l app.

. See record evidence cited in Jolly v. Lister-man, 672 F.2d at 953-954 (D.C.Cir. 1982) (Edwards, J., dissenting).

. Indeed, to the extent that reviewing courts are unduly persuaded by the amount of “process” a discharged employee has been accorded, greater administrative proceedings may actually leave discharged employees more vulnerable.