Court Opinion

ID: 9373652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-22 16:06:30.318717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:42.617648
License: Public Domain

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                        MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD

     BETTY HALLETT,                                  DOCKET NUMBER
                  Appellant,                         SF-0752-16-0233-I-1

                  v.

     DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,                      DATE: June 9, 2022
                 Agency.

           THIS ORDER IS NONPRECEDENTIAL 1

           Betty Hallett, Bainbridge Island, Washington, pro se.

           Joshua N. Rose, Washington, D.C., for the agency.

                                           BEFORE

                               Cathy A. Harris, Vice Chairman
                                Raymond A. Limon, Member
                                 Tristan L. Leavitt, Member

                                     REMAND ORDER

¶1         The appellant has filed a petition for review of the initial decision, which
     dismissed her constructive suspension appeal for lack of jurisdiction.         For the
     reasons discussed below, we GRANT the appellant’s petition for review ,

     1
        A nonprecedential order is one that the Board has determined does not add
     significantly to the body of MSPB case law. Parties may cite nonprecedential orders,
     but such orders have no precedential value; the Board and administrative judges are not
     required to follow or distinguish them in any future decisions. In contrast, a
     precedential decision issued as an Opinion and Order has been identified by the Board
     as significantly contributing to the Board’s case law. See 5 C.F.R. § 1201.117(c).
                                                                                          2

     REVERSE the initial decision, and REMAND the case to the Western Regional
     Office for further adjudication in accordance with this Remand Order.

                                       BACKGROUND
¶2         The appellant, a GS-12 Supervisory Public Health Veterinarian with the
     agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, filed this appeal in which she
     alleged that her absence from work from September 8, 2014, to March 30, 2015,
     was a constructive suspension, arguing that the agency discriminated against her
     on the basis of her medical noise restrictions and failed to grant her repeated
     requests for a reasonable accommodation. Initial Appeal File (IAF), Tab 1 at 7.
     She alleged that the agency failed to provide her a safe workplace, asserting that
     the noise level at her first duty station in February 2010, was excessive,
     sometimes reaching 134 decibels (dB), and she attributed her hearing problems to
     the proximity of the splitting saws used at the meat processing plants where she
     performed her duties. Id. at 7-9. The appellant described conflicts that she had
     with the inspectors she worked with at the processing plants and contended that
     agency officials and employees engaged in a long and complicated series of
     retaliatory actions against her. Id. at 7-19. She also filed an equal employment
     opportunity (EEO) complaint in which she alleged that the agency constructively
     suspended her due to her sex, race, color, national origin, and physical disability,
     and engaged in reprisal for prior EEO activity. Id. at 176-207. 2
¶3         As recounted by the administrative judge, primarily on the basis of the
     testimony before her, the agency transferred the appellant to less noisy work
     environments, but personnel shortages required the agency to occasionally
     reassign her to noisier environments. IAF, Tab 53, Initial Decision (ID) at 3-4.
     Additionally, complaints that the agency received about the appellant from one of

     2
       Because some of the pleadings in this appeal are of substantial length and are
     unnumbered in the hard copy of the file, page number citations in those instances refer
     to the electronic record.
                                                                                        3

     her subordinates and from the management of one of the processing plants caused
     the agency to detail the appellant away from one of the less noisy work
     environments in accordance with agency policy regarding workplace violence.
     Id.; IAF, Tab 12 at 101, Tab 21 at 67. The appellant filed a June 2014 claim with
     the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) and, after subsequently
     experiencing increased symptoms of tinnitus, she provided the agency with
     updated medical restrictions, first limiting her noise exposure to 100 dB, then to
     60 dB, and ultimately limiting her to office work only with no noise exposure at
     all. IAF, Tab 12 at 102, 109, 118-23, 128-30; Tab 21 at 64, 68, 107-08; Tab 39
     at 5-6.
¶4         The appellant requested reasonable accommodation, but the agency
     determined that she was not disabled and consequently denied her request, in
     large part because her physician indicated that her hearing, despite some loss, was
     still within normal limits. IAF, Tab 12 at 42, 107, 117. Upon her September 8,
     2014 return from previously scheduled annual leave, the agency informed the
     appellant that it had no work available within her medical restrictions.          Id.
     at 104-06.   As such, the appellant was absent from the workplace on leave
     without pay (LWOP) from September 8, 2014, to March 30, 2015. Id. at 102-06.
     In March 2015, OWCP denied the appellant’s injury claim and the agency
     subsequently ordered her to return to duty or submit new medical documentation.
     Id. at 118-23. The agency placed the appellant on administrative leave effective
     April 27, 2015, id. at 125, 128-30, and subsequently allowed her to return to
     work, but the record reflects some controversy as to the particular duty station, id.
     at 131-35.
¶5         The agency issued a December 15, 2015 final agency decision on the
     appellant’s EEO complaint finding no discrimination, and the appellant timely
     filed the instant appeal. IAF, Tab 1 at 1-22, 176-207. The administrative judge
     found that the appellant had made nonfrivolous allegations sufficient to warrant a
     jurisdictional hearing on her constructive suspension claim. IAF, Tab 14 at 1-2.
                                                                                        4

     After holding the hearing, the administrative judge dismissed the appeal for lack
     of jurisdiction, finding that even though the appellant lacked a meaningful choice
     concerning her absence from work, she failed to demonstrate that any improper or
     wrongful actions by the agency led to her lack of choice. ID at 8 -14 (citing Bean
     v. U.S. Postal Service, 120 M.S.P.R. 397, ¶ 7 (2013)).
¶6        In her petition for review, the appellant argues that the agency suspended
     her in retaliation for protected whistleblowing disclosures, reiterates her argument
     that the agency failed to provide her with reasonable accommodation, claims that
     she was denied due process, and generally contends that the administrative judge
     erred in assessing the facts. Petition for Review (PFR) File, Tab 3. The agency
     has filed a response in opposition to the petition for review and the appellant has
     filed a reply to the agency’s response. PFR File, Tabs 5 -6.

                     DISCUSSION OF ARGUMENTS ON REVIEW
¶7        The Board’s jurisdiction is limited to those matters over which it has been
     given jurisdiction by law, rule, or regulation.          Maddox v. Merit Systems
     Protection Board, 759 F.2d 9, 10 (Fed. Cir. 1985). The appellant has the burden
     of proving the Board’s jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. 5 C.F.R.
     § 1201.56(b)(2)(i)(A).   A constructive suspension appeal concerns leave that
     appears to be voluntary, but actually was not. Bean, 120 M.S.P.R. 397, ¶ 7. An
     employee may establish jurisdiction if she can prove that she lacked a meaningful
     choice in the matter and it was the agency’s wrongful actions that deprived her of
     that choice. Id., ¶ 8. In contrast, an agency’s placing an employee on enforced
     leave for more than 14 days constitutes an appealable suspension within the
     Board’s jurisdiction, not a constructive suspension. Abbott v. U.S. Postal Service,
     121 M.S.P.R. 294, ¶ 10 (2014).
¶8        In her petition for review, the appellant reasserts her argument below that
     the Board has jurisdiction over her appeal because the agency placed her on
     enforced leave for more than 14 days. PFR File, Tab 3 at 5. For the following
                                                                                       5

      reasons, we find that the administrative judge erroneously construed and analyzed
      the appellant’s claim as a constructive suspension instead of an appealable
      suspension. As noted above, the record reflects that after the appellant returned
      to work from previously scheduled annual leave, the agency told her to leave
      work because it could find no work within her medical restrictions. IAF, Tab 12
      at 104-06. Under such circumstances, the appellant’s absence does not appear
      voluntary, but instead constitutes an appealable suspension within the Board’s
      jurisdiction because the agency placed her in an enforced leave status for more
      than 14 days against her will. See, e.g., Abbott, 121 M.S.P.R. 294, ¶ 11.
¶9          Because a tenured Federal employee has a property interest in continued
      employment, an agency is prohibited from placing an appellant on enforced leave
      for more than 14 days without providing the due process required under the Fifth
      Amendment. Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 546
      (1985); see Martin v. U.S. Postal Service, 123 M.S.P.R. 189, ¶ 11 (2016). An
      agency’s failure to provide a tenured public employee with proper notice and an
      opportunity to present a response, either in person or in writing, to an appealable
      agency action that deprives her of her property right in her employment
      constitutes an abridgement of her constitutional right to minimum due process of
      law, i.e., prior notice and an opportunity to respond. Id. Here, the agency did not
      provide the appellant with notice of any proposed enforced leave or an
      opportunity to be heard, either before or after it imposed the enforced leave , and
      the record reflects that she was in an LWOP status for at least 400 hours. IAF,
      Tab 12 at 128.    Consequently, we reverse the agency’s enforced leave action.
      See, e.g., Martin, 123 M.S.P.R. 189, ¶ 11 (reversing the agency’s suspension
      action because it violated the appellant’s constitutional due process rights).
¶10         Given our finding that the appellant’s suspension is an appealable action,
      she is entitled to a decision on her claim that the agency’s action constituted
      reprisal for her prior EEO activity and on her discrimination claims. See 5 U.S.C.
      § 7702(a)(1).   The case therefore must be remanded to the regional office to
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      adjudicate     these   claims.    See   Aldridge    v.   Department     of   Agriculture,
      111 M.S.P.R. 670, ¶ 23 (2009); Totten v. U.S. Postal Service, 68 M.S.P.R. 255,
      257 (1995). On remand, the administrative judge should, if necessary, hold a
      hearing on the appellant’s affirmative defenses of discrimina tion based on sex,
      race, color, physical disability, and national origin, and retaliation for protected
      EEO activity. 3 IAF, Tab 1 at 5; see Hess v. U.S. Postal Service, 123 M.S.P.R.
      183, ¶¶ 9-10 (2016) (remanding the appellant’s discrimination claims for a
      hearing because she raised a cognizable claim of discrimination in connection
      with an otherwise appealable action and sought compensatory damages).
¶11         The administrative judge also should allow the appellant to proceed with
      her whistleblower reprisal claims to the extent they relate to her suspension. PFR
      File, Tab 3 at 29; IAF, Tab 52 at 4.         The appellant alleges other “retaliatory
      actions,” such as unfavorable work assignments, based on her protected
      disclosures.     Thus, the administrative judge should provide her with notice
      regarding her burden of proving these possible whistleblowing allegations as an
      affirmative defense to an otherwise appealable action (i.e., this appealable
      suspension) or, alternatively, how to establish jurisdiction over such claims in
      connection with any personnel actions that are not otherwise appealable in an

      3
        In the initial decision, the administrative judge indicated that in the appellant’s EEO
      complaint filed with the agency, she raised claims not only based on these protected
      purviews, but also based on age discrimination. ID at 6 (citing IAF, Tab 1 at 176 -207).
      The materials cited by the administrative judge do not support this conclusion. IAF,
      Tab 1 at 176-207. Further, the administrative judge did not list an age discrimination
      claim in her prehearing conference summary and order among the issues to b e resolved
      at hearing. IAF, Tab 47 at 2. The parties did not object to this summary and order
      although the administrative judge invited them to do so, and the appellant did not raise
      a claim of age discrimination in her written closing statement followin g the hearing.
      IAF, Tab 47 at 7, Tab 52. In fact, in an affidavit in the record below, completed during
      the agency’s investigation into her EEO complaint, the appellant stated that she was
      “not claiming age discrimination, although it probably exists as well.” IAF, Tab 16
      at 20, 86. In light of our remand, we find it unnecessary to resolve on review whether
      the appellant raised a claim of age discrimination below. The administrative judge
      should affirmatively indicate in the remand initial decision whe ther the appellant raised
      such a claim and, if she did, adjudicate it.
                                                                                       7

      individual right of action (IRA) appeal.       See, e.g., Corthell v. Department of
      Homeland Security, 123 M.S.P.R. 417, ¶¶ 13-14 (2016) (remanding an appeal for
      the appellant to receive notice of the requirements for establishing jurisdiction
      over his IRA appeal); PFR File, Tab 3 at 21.

                                           ORDER
¶12        The initial decision is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Western
      Regional Office for further adjudication.

      FOR THE BOARD:                                     /s/ for
                                                  Jennifer Everling
                                                  Acting Clerk of the Board
      Washington, D.C.