MSPB Litigants' Dockets Needed to Hold MSPB Accountable

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Oct. 4, 2013 - PRLog -- To this day, MSPB continues to have problems adjudicating federal employees' cases fairly. Just last month, the non-profit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility took the MSPB to task for failing to correct an "assembly-line injustice" (http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2013/09/09/chances-of-whistleblower-success-remain-slim/).

The reality is that bad rulings at MSPB are not just aberrations at the end of a process, but are a function of several commissions and omissions by administrative judges and Board members. Many of these decisions never see the light of day, because the dockets where they are recorded are not available to the public. This is a big source of the due process problems at MSPB.

Often, appellants don't even know when their rights have been violated, when the agency has argued a point of law improperly, or when the judge should have ruled a certain way or should not have considered a particular argument. Sometimes agencies withhold documents in discovery and hope that appellants don't notice. Sometimes judges fail to apply the rules with the leniency required for pro se litigants, or fail to provide guidance to such litigants, leaving them to figure it out against a resourceful opponent. And relying on overstretched Board or courts of appeals to correct these mistakes simply compounds the problem. Moreover, the statistics, at all levels of appeal, speak for themselves.

But you can help correct this sorry state of affairs.

MSPB Watch is asking any willing former litigant at MSPB to donate his or her docket for the public good. Subject to your agreement and any appropriate redactions you request, MSPB Watch will host your litigation files, at mspbdockets.wordpress.com (currently under construction).

Expected benefits:

*Common agency and MSPB tactics will be exposed.
*Current and future litigants will know what to expect, as well as have access to more tools as their disposal.
*Administrative judges' patterns of handling cases will be revealed and compared with other judges.
*A solid foundation for real reform can be built, based on hard data.

Some points to consider:

*Donating your docket to MSPB Watch does not create an attorney/client relationship with MSPB Watch or its founder, David Pardo.
*Making these dockets available to the public does not constitute legal advice.
*Some litigants' settlement agreements may not allow them to disclose information about their cases. Donors are responsible for ensuring that they do not violate their settlement agreements.
*Due to the sensitive nature of ongoing cases, MSPB Watch is only accepting dockets from cases that have already ended.
*Donors agree to waive liability and hold MSPB Watch and its founder harmless against any injuries or claims.
*Donors agree to provide the entire docket, subject to redactions that do not create material misrepresentations of the underlying facts or claims.
*MSPB Watch is not responsible for the content of the dockets and makes no guarantees about the accuracy or veracity of the information provided.

Contact MSPB Watch today to reform a troubled agency and work for justice: dpardo@mspbwatch.org.