An employee who produced new evidence to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and had a new case opened had a renewed right to an individual right of action appeal after OSC issued a new close-out letter, found the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) suspended a Contracting Officer Representative for 30 days after alleging that the employee created the appearance of a conflict of interest and failed to disclose an outside business venture, but the Merit Systems Protection Board reversed an administrative judge’s initial decision upholding the penalty, finding that no appearance of a conflict of interest had been created and that the employee had no prior duty to disclose the outside activity at issue.

In anticipation of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the United States Office of Special Counsel issued updated guidance regarding federal employee use of social media and email concerning presidential candidates.

The MSPB affirmed the Office of Personnel Management’s decision to deny a lump-sum payment of retirement contributions to an adult designated beneficiary due to the existence of a minor child entitled to monthly annuity payments.

An anti-subrogation regulation in Kansas preventing insurers from issuing policies containing subrogation clauses came into conflict with the Federal Employees Health Benefit Act (“FEHBA”), but the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal common law preempted the Kansas regulation.

The MSPB canceled the two indefinite suspensions of a former Army aircraft mechanical parts worker and ordered the agency to pay the employee back pay with interest and other benefits.

A former Army Diagnostic Radiologic Technologist was removed from her position on April 5, 2012, based on 25 specifications of Conduct Unbecoming a Federal Civilian Employee.

After a U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) investigation, the Army recently settled a whistleblower retaliation claim filed by an Army civilian infection control analyst at Womack Army Medical Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

An Office of Personnel Management senior accountant, through her Union, grieved her annual performance rating of “exceeds fully successful” both overall and in two critical elements of her performance plan.

In 2012, the Merit Systems Protection Board joined two adverse action appeals concerning an employee’s placement on enforced leave and sustained an MSPB administrative judge’s reversal of the enforced leave periods.

On August 13, 2013, Department of Defense (DoD) suspended an Operations Research Analyst’s access to classified information pending a final security determination by the DoD Central Adjudication Facility (CAF) concerning whether to revoke the employee’s security clearance.

Mark Shapiro began working for the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) as an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) in the New York Hearing Office in 1997.  Beginning in 1998, the SSA informed Mr. Shapiro that his performance was lacking.

In November 2012, the Thomas E. Creek VA Medical Center in Amarillo, Texas mandated overtime for all Title 38 registered nurses after suffering through a staffing shortage that saw the number of registered nurses drop twenty-four percent.

In the Office of Special Counsel’s Annual Report to Congress, submitted to Senate President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner last week, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner detailed the burgeoning number of complaints and cases received by OSC in fiscal year 2014.

A National Park Service Superintendent at Sitka National Historical Park was removed from her position after she refused a management-directed reassignment to a different position.

An International Examiner at the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) received a proposed removal on September 2010 and was removed in November 2010. In 2013, the employee filed an individual right of action (“IRA”) appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”), citing his Office of Special Counsel (“OSC”) complaint claiming that he had been retaliated against after making protected whistleblower disclosures to his supervisor and the Commissioner of the IRS in February 2010 regarding an alleged $500 million tax fraud perpetrated by ExxonMobil.

In 2013, the Department of Commerce informed the National Weather Service Employee Organization (“NWSEO” or “union”) that it would no longer provide eating utensils to workers due to a lack of funds, despite a September 2009 memorandum of understanding pledging the purchase of said utensils.