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Federal Employees Can Be Punished If They Refuse to Break Law

June 17, 2016

The U.S. Court of Appeals has recently sided with the State Department and ruled that federal employees can be punished if they refuse to follow an order that violates any federal law. A federal employee filed a lawsuit when the department gave him a poor performance review because he refused to do a job that violates the law.

Setting of a New Precedent for Federal Employees

A federal court thinks that the State Department was right to punish a federal employee for refusing to do a rule breaking assignment. This judgment sets a new precedent for federal employees who believed that The Whistleblower Protection Act would protect them.

The Lawsuit

It all began when Timothy Rainey was asked by a supervisor to coerce a contractor to rehire a fired sub-contractor. Timothy refused to do the task as it violates a provision mentioned in the Federal Acquisition Regulation. As a result of the refusal, Rainey received a poor performance review. He was also forced to let go of some of his responsibilities as a contracting officer. They argued that he failed to comply with a directive.

Rainey was enraged by these circumstances and filed a complaint. The Merit Systems Protection Board sided with the state and Rainey didn’t get justice. The U.S. Court of Appeals also upheld the ruling of The Merit Systems Protection Board in the Rainey v. State case and ruled that the State was allowed to take those actions as the rules and regulations do not qualify as the federal statute.

The Protection

Federal employees who are facing the same problems like Rainey believed that they were protected by The Whistleblower Protection Act as this act protects a federal employee from retaliation if the employee refuses to obey an order that would make it mandatory for the individual to violate a law.

The Loophole

The loophole in The Whistleblower Protection Act came to the surface when the MSPB ruled and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that the right to disobey provision applies only when an employee is asked to specifically violate a federal law. It was also ruled that this was not the situation in the Rainey v. State case as Rainey was not specifically asked by any supervisor to break a specific law.

In other words, federal employees cannot refuse an order that breaks the law until their supervisor asks them to break a specific law.