Marcato v. U.S. Agency for Int'l Dev.
| Decision Date | 24 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-1041,19-1041 |
| Citation | 11 F.4th 781 |
| Parties | Robin S. MARCATO, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Respondent Merit Systems Protection Board, Intervenor |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Kathleen McClellan argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs was Jesselyn A. Radack.
Allison Kidd-Miller, Assistant Director, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Robert E. Kirschman, Jr., Director, and Isaac B. Rosenberg, Attorney.
Tristan L. Leavitt, General Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, Katherine M. Smith, Deputy General Counsel, and Stephen W. Fung, Attorney, were on the brief for intervenor Merit Systems Protection Board in support of respondent.
Before: Garland,* Pillard, and Katsas, Circuit Judges.
A federal agency may defend an adverse personnel action taken against a whistleblower by showing that it would have taken the same action in the absence of any protected disclosures. In this case, the Merit Systems Protection Board found that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would have fired petitioner Robin Marcato for workplace misconduct in the absence of her protected disclosures. We conclude that substantial evidence supports this finding.
The Civil Service Reform Act permits federal employees to appeal certain adverse personnel actions, including removal from office, to the MSPB. 5 U.S.C. §§ 7512(1), 7513(d). To sustain a challenged action before the MSPB, the employing agency must show that the charged employee conduct occurred, id. § 7701(c)(1)(B); that the adverse action was necessary to promote the efficiency of the service, id. § 7513(a) ; and that the penalty imposed was reasonable, Douglas v. Veterans Admin. , 5 M.S.P.R. 280, 299–300 (1981). See , e.g. , Bryant v. Nat'l Sci. Found. , 105 F.3d 1414, 1416 (Fed. Cir. 1997). The MSPB may not sustain an adverse action "based on any prohibited personnel practice described in section 2302(b)." 5 U.S.C. § 7701(c)(2)(B). As relevant here, section 2302(b) prohibits any adverse personnel action "because of" an employee's "disclosure of information" about unlawful activity, gross agency mismanagement, or similar conduct. Id. § 2302(b)(8)(A).
The Whistleblower Protection Act permits any federal employee subjected to a personnel practice prohibited by section 2302(b)(8) to "seek corrective action" from the MSPB. 5 U.S.C. § 1221(a). In such a case, the employee bears the burden to show that her protected disclosures were a "contributing factor in the personnel action." Id. § 1221(e)(1). The employee may discharge that burden through "circumstantial evidence," including evidence that an official took the personnel action shortly after learning of the disclosure. Id. If the employee carries this burden, the agency can nonetheless prevail by showing "by clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same personnel action in the absence of such disclosure." Id. § 1221(e)(2). Factors that the Federal Circuit has identified as pertinent to this defense include:
the strength of the agency's evidence in support of its personnel action; the existence and strength of any motive to retaliate on the part of the agency officials who were involved in the decision; and any evidence that the agency takes similar actions against employees who are not whistleblowers but who are otherwise similarly situated.
Carr v. Soc. Sec. Admin. , 185 F.3d 1318, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 1999). This burden-shifting framework governs appeals to the MSPB under the Civil Service Reform Act, which can fairly be described as a kind of "corrective action" for adverse personnel actions undertaken in retaliation for whistleblowing. Accordingly, on review of an MSPB decision under the CSRA, we must determine whether the MSPB correctly applied the Whistleblower Protection Act framework to factual findings supported by substantial evidence.
A party aggrieved by an MSPB decision may petition a court of appeals for review. 5 U.S.C. § 7703(a)(1). Until 2012, the Federal Circuit had exclusive jurisdiction over such petitions. See id. § 7703(b)(1)(A). Since then, the regional circuits have had concurrent jurisdiction over petitions challenging only the disposition of whistleblower-retaliation claims. See id. § 7703(b)(1)(B). Because we were given jurisdiction to review MSPB decisions only recently, we consult Federal Circuit precedent for guidance, as other regional circuits have done. See Acha v. USDA , 841 F.3d 878, 880 n.2 (10th Cir. 2016).
USAID administers the federal government's foreign development assistance program. Hanson v. USAID , 372 F.3d 286, 289 (4th Cir. 2004). The OIG is the Agency's oversight arm. Its components include an Office of Investigations, which conducts criminal and other investigations of grant recipients and others involved in the agency's programs, and an Office of Management, which provides support services to the OIG. In 2012, the OIG hired Marcato to the management office, where she worked as a management analyst.
During her tenure at OIG, Marcato frequently alleged misconduct by its high-ranking officials, including Acting Inspector General Michael Carroll, Deputy Inspector General Catherine Trujillo, Chief of Staff Justin Brown, and Deputy Assistant Inspector General Lisa McClennon. Beginning in 2012, Marcato reported within the OIG that officials had doctored various audits and reports sent to Congress. In 2013, Marcato repeated those allegations to Senate staffers, prompting a critical letter from Senator Coburn and unfavorable media coverage in the Washington Post . In October 2014, Carroll withdrew his nomination to be the Senate-confirmed Inspector General, and he retired from the OIG a few months later.
While routinely reporting the misdeeds of others, Marcato engaged in concerning conduct herself. In December 2014, she approached Rebecca Giacalone, an agent in the Office of Investigations, about an ongoing criminal probe on which Giacalone was working. The investigation concerned International Relief and Development, Inc. (IRD), which was Marcato's former employer and one of USAID's largest grant recipients. Marcato identified potential witnesses, including former IRD employee Dawn Greensides. After Marcato told Giacalone that Greensides would feel uncomfortable cooperating, Giacalone asked Marcato to vouch for her to Greensides as a trustworthy investigator. Marcato proceeded to send Greensides an e-mail that went well beyond the scope of Giacalone's request: Marcato identified the subject of the investigation, the name of a suspect, and the name of a cooperating witness, and she stated that the OIG was considering a subpoena for IRD files. No OIG employee reviewed the e-mail beforehand or learned of it until a year later.
Marcato became increasingly preoccupied with the IRD probe. She would seek to discuss it with Giacalone several times daily. Giacalone became uncomfortable because Marcato was not a trained investigator, and her visits were distracting. Giacalone relayed her concerns to her supervisors in the Office of Investigations, including McClennon. McClennon passed on the concerns to Trujillo and Robert Ross, who supervised Marcato in the Office of Management. Trujillo and Ross then developed a protocol requiring Marcato to go through Ross if she wanted to speak to Giacalone or enter the Investigations workspace. In February 2015, Ross and Trujillo met with Marcato to explain the protocol. Marcato recorded the meeting on her cell phone, despite a USAID security policy barring the unauthorized use, in restricted workspace, of any device that can transmit audio or video.
The protocol failed to dampen Marcato's efforts to participate in the IRD investigation. Over the next month, Marcato e-mailed Giacalone three times to flag possible leads and to disparage the protocol as an "insulting waste of ... time." J.A. 83. In March 2015, the Office of Investigations disabled Marcato's access to its suite, and Ross again instructed her to follow the protocol. Yet Marcato violated the protocol at least three more times in the next six months. On one occasion, she initiated a conversation with an investigator by standing on office furniture to speak over the top of a wall dividing the respective workspace of the Management and Investigations offices. On another occasion, she trailed someone into the Investigations suite, then walked past staff who tried to prevent her from entering.
In October 2015, Ross proposed to reprimand Marcato for her repeated violations of the protocol. In response, Marcato attached her e-mail to Greensides, which prompted concern over its disclosure of sensitive information. Around this time, Trujillo learned that Marcato had recorded their February 2015 meeting. According to Trujillo, newly confirmed Inspector General Ann Calvaresi Barr decided to investigate Marcato's conduct, including her e-mail disclosure, cell phone recording, and failure to follow the communications protocol. To avoid any conflicts of interest, Calvaresi Barr arranged for the OIG of the Department of Defense to conduct the investigation. In the formal, written request for assistance, Trujillo noted the "sensitivity" of the investigation given that Marcato "self-identified as a whistleblower" and had recently made disclosures to Congress of alleged misconduct by high-ranking USAID officials. J.A. 62. Trujillo requested DoD's help to ensure that the allegations against Marcato were "appropriately investigated." Id.
The ensuing investigation consumed over a year. In an interview, Marcato informed DoD investigators that, at the beginning of her February 2015 meeting with Ross and Trujillo, she told them that she would be recording the meeting with her cell phone, which she visibly...
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