October 2016 Federal Employment Law Training Newsletter
We are Different
I had a chance to work with a talented, solid, agency attorney a couple of weeks ago. Although relatively new to the field of federal employment law, she had spent many years in the world of criminal law. As I took her through some of the more basic points in practice before MSPB/EEOC/FLRA/OSC, she had some wonderfully delightful, emotional, New-York-style insights:
- “That’s just freaking crazy!”
- “We would do just the opposite in criminal law!”
- “That makes absolutely no sense! What are they thinking?!?”
The session was enlightening for us both. She learned a bit about federal employment law and I was reminded that ours is a specialized legal field, a field in which common sense, a good brain, and experience in other legal areas may do you little good. They don’t teach this stuff in law school. You don’t win cases on appeal just because you are right, smart, and good looking (although the good looking part doesn’t hurt). You have to know what these oversight agencies say that the law is, whether you agree with them or not. And that’s what we’ve been teaching here at FELTG since Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate and Donald Trump built Trump World. Come to our classes, experience our audio-conferences. Learn this business or run the risk of losing cases you should not, and occasionally being embarrassed herein this here newsletter. Res ipsa loquitur, infra, Kemosabe.
That’s It! I’ve HAD It! I’m DONE!
By Deborah Hopkins I am mad. Really mad. I am mad about the terrible advice a federal supervisor was given by her chief counsel’s office, about not holding an employee accountable for her performance out of fear of an EEO reprisal complaint. The kind of situation...
Starting to Lose “The Faith”
By William Wiley Here at FELTG, we are civil service systems people. We take the position that there’s little wrong with the system that cannot be fixed by the system. In other words, we may occasionally disagree with a decision issued by an oversight agency, but for...
Arbitration – “It’s Just Not Fair”
By Barbara Haga About a year ago I wrote about a credit card misuse case where the disciplinary action was taken to arbitration. The arbitrator did not find that a GS-13 (with prior discipline about card use) taking ATM advances on the card when not on travel was...
Seventh Circuit Grants Petition for En Banc Review in Sexual Orientation Case
By Deryn Sumner As we’ve discussed a few times in this space, in July 2015, the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations made headlines when it declared in Baldwin v. Department of Transportation, EEOC Appeal No. 0120133080 (July 15, 2015) that claims of sexual orientation...
Changing the Law Won’t Help
By William Wiley Dear Mr./Ms New President, Sometimes I don't know whether to scream or cry. Last week was the 38th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. In 1984, MPSB held that under the “new” Civil Service Reform Act, although it could...
OFO Awards $8,000 in Compensatory Damages Where Complainant Submitted Evidence of Substantial Harm but Failed to Link It to Agency’s Actions
By Deryn Sumner Successful claims for non-pecuniary compensatory damages need two things: evidence of harm and evidence of a connection between the harm and the agency’s actions. Last month, the Office of Federal Operations issued a decision that clearly articulates...
Making Yourself FELTG-Smart
By William Wiley Sometimes in one of our seminars, after we present an especially scintillating nugget of employment law advice, a participant will break down in tears saying something like this: “How do you guys do it? You always seem to know what to do in most any...
What Do We Mean When We Talk About “Qualified Individuals with Disabilities”?
By Deryn Sumner A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of teaching FELTG’s biannual EEOC Law Week alongside Ernie Hadley and Gary Gilbert. On Wednesday, we covered disability discrimination law and focused much of our time on talking about when one is considered...