A federal appeals court has said that what it termed “trivial violations or minor miscues” by an agency do not constitute the types of disclosures that are protected under whistleblower law.
In case No. 2022-1589, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recounted that a district court dismissed on technical grounds Justice Department employee’s suit alleging discrimination. She then filed a second case that among other things alleged that she had experienced retaliation, in the form of a reassignment, for statements she had made in the first case—that the department did not properly comply with a procedural rule when requesting additional time to respond to that case.
After the district court dismissed that case as well, she filed a whistleblower complaint at the MSPB. The board held that the Whistleblower Protection Act did not apply, though, saying her complaint did not include “a claim of fraud, waste, abuse or unnecessary government expenditures.” It said the law was not intended to extend to the type of procedural dispute at issue, which involved an agency obligation to confer with her before it requested an extension of time.
On appeal, the Federal Circuit agreed, saying that “disclosures of trivial violations” do not fall under that law because it is intended “to encourage reporting of a genuine violation of law rather than minor or inadvertent miscues occurring in the conscientious carrying out of a federal official or employee’s assigned duties.”
“The WPA...
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