Blacmailing Whistleblowers is illegal, court rules

A rare victory!

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: News Releases:

Washington, DC - Federal agencies may not cancel a vacancy announcement as a means of refusing to hire a job applicant because the applicant has a history of blowing the whistle, according to a decision this week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The ruling expands coverage of the federal Whistleblower Protection Act and overruled a longstanding policy of the civil service court, called the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

The decision came in the case of James Ruggieri, an electrical engineer, who was apparently selected to fill a vacancy at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an arm of the Interior Department which collects royalties from oil and gas production on public lands. Ruggieri was later told by an MMS official that he would not be hired because he had been a whistleblower at a previous position in the U.S. Coast Guard. MMS then cancelled the vacancy announcement, waited a few months and reposted the same job.

Armed with a tape of his conversation with the MMS official, Ruggieri filed a complaint of whistleblower retaliation with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel which, after 18 months, ruled that the tape recording was not sufficient evidence of a retaliatory motive by MMS. Ruggieri then appealed to the MSPB which ultimately ruled that since MMS had cancelled the vacancy announcement there was no 'personnel action' and therefore it was not covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act.