Legal Briefs: Parking spot slip-up

Every Friday on GovExec.com, Legal Briefs reviews several cases that involve, or provide valuable lessons to, federal managers. We report on the decisions of a wide range of review panels, including the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Federal Labor Relations Authority and federal courts.

After seven years of working at the U.S. Postal Service, Jane Pastva sustained an on-the-job injury to her right knee in 1994. The knee required surgery and after the operation, Pastva was assigned a handicapped parking space by the then-Postmaster. Two years later, Pastva required additional knee surgery and was told she had a deteriorating knee joint that might never heal properly. Pastva continued to park in her handicapped space after the second surgery until a new Postmaster arrived and had the 'handicapped' parking sign removed from her space. Pastva adapted by parking on the side of the building, but the Postmaster declared that the area was no longer available to employees for parking. According to Pastva, the Postmaster told her that she did not have to accommodate her need for handicapped parking.

Pastva brought a note from her doctor stating that she needed to park within fifty feet of the building due to her knee condition. Despite this note, and several meetings with management to discuss her disability, Pastva was still denied a closer parking space.

So, when she parked on the street one day, slipped on ice and reinjured her knee, Pastva decided to file a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In her complaint, Pastva alleged that the agency discriminated against her by failing to accommodate her physical disability.

An administrative judge agreed with Pastva that the agency failed to show how providing her a nearby parking space would have caused an undue hardship on operations. The agency rejected the judge's decision. On appeal, the EEOC backed up the original decision. The agency was ordered to pay Pastva any wages or benefits she lost as a result of its discriminatory actions and to pay for any attorney's fees she incurred while filing her complaint.

Lesson: Don't slip up when it comes to disability accommodations.

Jane Pastva v. USPS (01986792), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, June 9, 1999

Untimely annuity

Conrad Schoemakers retired from civil service in 1981. In 1995, he filed a request with the Office of Personnel Management to provide a survivor annuity for his wife, Myrtice. Unfortunately, federal law requires that survivor annuity requests be made within two years of marriage. Schoemakers was married in 1990, five years before he filed the request. As a result, OPM denied his request and the Merit Systems Protection Board affirmed that denial. But Schoemakers died during the Board proceedings. His wife then became the appellant in the case. She argued that Schoemakers never received the required notices of annuity rights and that even if he had, his diminished mental capacity should have warranted a filing deadline extension. MSPB found that OPM met its burden of notification and ruled that Schoemakers' mental state was irrelevant to the filing requirement. As a result, Myrtice Schoemaker was denied a survivor annuity.

Lesson: OPM won't bend the rules out of sympathy- file your requests on time.

Schoemakers, Myrtice v. OPM (98-3144), Merit Systems Protection Board, June 22, 1999.

Survey Says . . .

The union at the Social Security Administration sent an e-mail survey out to its members at SSA's 1,300 field offices. One of the survey questions asked whether the office was located in the same building as one or more law enforcement agencies.

Worried about that information ending up in the wrong hands, SSA's management confiscated the survey responses. The union cried foul, arguing that it has the right to ask its members about their working conditions.

But SSA said it has the right to protect its buildings and employees from harm. The information the union was gathering could be used for nefarious purposes, SSA management contended.

The Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled in the union's favor, concluding that "the agency has not established a reasonable link between the responses to the surveys and its concern for internal security."

The arbitrator in the case noted that the information gathered in the survey could be easily obtained through other sources, such as telephone books or building directories.

Lesson: It's hard to keep information that's publicly available confidential.

SSA v. AFGE (55 FLRA No. 86), Federal Labor Relations Authority, May 28, 1999.