# Patrick G Findlay v. Department of the Army

> Merit Systems Protection Board · August 8, 2024

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10502370

## Case

- **Court:** Merit Systems Protection Board
- **Decided:** August 8, 2024
- **Precedential status:** Unpublished
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10502370

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that, because the settlement agreement provided for the payment of attorney fees, it was unnecessary to determine whether the employee was entitled to fees under section 7701(g)(1); Sherrell v. Department of the Navy, 92 M.S.P.R. 15, ¶¶ 2, 4 (2002

## Opinion text

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD

PATRICK G. FINDLAY, DOCKET NUMBER
Appellant, PH-1221-19-0145-A-1

v.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, DATE: August 8, 2024
Agency.

THIS ORDER IS NONPRECEDENTIAL 1

Patrick G. Findlay , Bel Air, Maryland, pro se.

Jeffrey P. Meineke , Baltimore, Maryland, for the agency.

BEFORE

Cathy A. Harris, Chairman
Raymond A. Limon, Vice Chairman
Henry J. Kerner, Member*

*Member Kerner recused himself and
did not participate in the adjudication of this appeal.

REMAND ORDER

The appellant has filed a petition for review of the initial decision that
awarded him attorney fees and costs in the amount of $284,508.79. For the

1
A nonprecedential order is one that the Board has determined does not add
significantly to the body of MSPB case law. Parties may cite nonprecedential orders,
but such orders have no precedential value; the Board and administrative judges are not
required to follow or distinguish them in any future decisions. In contrast, a
precedential decision issued as an Opinion and Order has been identified by the Board
as significantly contributing to the Board’s case law. See 5 C.F.R. § 1201.117(c).
2

reasons discussed below, we GRANT the appellant’s petition for review,
AFFIRM the portion of the addendum initial decision ordering the agency to
make payments in the amount of $262,950.00 for attorney’s fees, $19,487.54 for
litigation costs and expenses, and $2,071.25 for deposition costs, VACATE the
portion of the addendum initial decision denying the appellant’s request for
reimbursement for expert witness or expert consulting fees in the amount of
$47,918.75, and REMAND the case to the regional office for further adjudication
in accordance with this Remand Order.

BACKGROUND
The appellant filed an individual right of action (IRA) appeal alleging that
the agency took a number of actions against him in retaliation for his protected
disclosures. Findlay v. Department of the Army, MSPB Docket No. PH-1221-19-
0145-W-1, Initial Appeal File (IAF), Tab 1. The appeal was dismissed and
subsequently refiled, see Findlay v. Department of the Army, MSPB Docket
No. PH-1221-19-0145-W-2, Appeal File (W-2 AF), Tab 1, and the agency moved
to stay proceedings, notifying the administrative judge that the parties had agreed
in principle to settlement terms and were in the process of finalizing a settlement
agreement, W-2 AF, Tab 10 at 4.
On April 13, 2020, the parties filed an executed global settlement
agreement resolving the Board IRA appeal, as well as the appellant’s appeals
pending before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and any
other fora where appeals were pending or could be filed. W-2 AF, Tab 14.
Pursuant to the agreement, the appellant agreed to withdraw his Board appeal and
all other pending complaints in exchange for the agency’s agreement to pay the
appellant compensatory damages in the amount of $320,000, as well as the
appellant’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, “with the total amount of such
fees to be determined by the [Board] in connection with” the appellant’s Board
appeal and two pending EEOC complaints. Id. at 4-6. The parties also requested
3

that the settlement agreement be placed into the record in the IRA appeal for
enforcement purposes and agreed that the administrative judge would retain
enforcement jurisdiction over the appeal. Id. at 9. The administrative judge
consequently dismissed the appeal as settled. W-2 AF, Tab 15.
The appellant subsequently filed the instant motion for attorney fees and
costs and a supplemental motion for fees and costs. Findlay v. Department of the
Army, MSPB Docket No. PH-1221-19-0145-A-1, Attorney Fee File (AFF),
Tabs 1, 4. The motion sought payment of $262,950 in attorney fees for
appellant’s counsel, as well as reimbursement costs for attorneys’ fees paid to
appellant’s former counsel, deposition costs, travel costs, and expert consultant
fees paid to C.H. and P.P. AFF, Tab 1 at 4-5, Tab 4 at 4-5. The agency filed a
response in opposition to the fee petition, stating that, while it did not generally
object to fees sought by the appellant’s current and former counsel, and agreed
that the deposition and attorney travel costs appeared reasonable, it did object to
the request for reimbursement for fees paid to the purported expert witnesses,
asserting that it was unclear what role either played in assisting the appellant with
his appeal and that the appellant had not identified any legal authority that
obligated the agency to reimburse him for their fees. AFF, Tab 6 at 1. After an
unsuccessful effort to settle the fees issue, IAF, Tabs 7-10, the parties filed
additional pleadings addressing the issue of reimbursement for C.H. and P.P.,
AFF, Tabs 12-13.
On December 3, 2020, the agency submitted a revised response in which it
acknowledged that it had already paid the appellant the $320,000 in compensatory
damages pursuant to the negotiated settlement agreement, and that it agreed to
reimburse the appellant for fees paid to his former counsel, travel costs,
deposition costs, and miscellaneous costs. AFF, Tab 17 at 4-5; W-2 AF, Tab 14
at 4-6. However, the agency maintained its previous objection to the payment of
purported expert witness fees to C.H. and P.P. Id. at 6. On December 22, 2020,
the administrative judge issued an order awarding attorneys’ fees in the amount of
4

$295,000 for appellant’s counsel, $2,071.25 in deposition costs, and $19,487.54
in reimbursement for fees the appellant paid to his previous attorneys, and for
travel costs and miscellaneous costs. AFF, Tab 19 at 2-3. The order noted that
the remaining disputed issue—the appellant’s entitlement to reimbursement for
work performed by C.H. and P.P.—would be addressed in an addendum initial
decision. Id. at 3.
In an addendum initial decision, the administrative judge incorporated his
findings from the previous order, granting in part the appellant’s fee motion,
awarding the appellant $262,950 2 in attorneys’ fees, $2,071.25 in deposition
costs, and $19,487.54 in reimbursement for litigation costs and expenses. AFF,
Tab 22, Addendum Initial Decision (AID) at 4-5, 7. However, the administrative
judge denied the appellant’s request for reimbursement for purported expert
witness fees paid to C.H. and P.P. AID at 8-10.
The appellant timely filed a petition for review challenging the
administrative judge’s finding in the addendum initial decision denying his
request for reimbursement of fees paid to C.H and P.P. Petition for Review
(PFR) File, Tab 1. The agency filed an untimely response in opposition to the
petition for review, as well as a motion to accept the filing as timely, and the
appellant has filed an objection to the agency’s motion. PFR File, Tabs 3, 5-6.

DISCUSSION OF ARGUMENTS ON REVIEW
On review, the appellant argues that the administrative judge improperly
mischaracterized C.H and P.P. as “expert consultants” instead of “expert
witnesses” and erred by disallowing his request for reimbursement for fees he
paid to them. PFR File, Tab 1 at 4-8, 13-15, 17-20, 23-24. He also alleges that
the administrative judge was biased or showed favoritism and challenges his
rulings on prehearing and other discovery-related motions in the settled IRA

2
In doing so, the administrative judge corrected a typographical error in the prior order
incorrectly identifying the fee award amount as $295,000 instead of $262,950. AID
at 5, 7 n.3.
5

appeal. Id. at 9-13. Additionally, he asserts that the administrative judge
“chastised” him during the proceedings below and suggests that he felt pressured
by the administrative judge into accepting the terms of the settlement agreement.
Id. at 12-13. Finally, the appellant alleges that the counsel provided by his
attorney during the proceedings was inadequate or ineffective. Id. at 16-22.

The agency’s response to the petition for review was untimely filed without good
cause shown for the delay.
In a motion to accept its response as timely, the agency representative
asserts that on May 7, 2021, he witnessed several emails arrive in his email inbox
several hours after they were sent, and that over the course of the next several
days he began to discover other emails that he believed arrived in his inbox well
after they were originally sent, including the email notification for the Petition for
Review acknowledgement letter issued by the Board on March 29, 2021. PFR
File, Tab 2, Tab 5 at 5. He avers that by that time, the April 20, 2021 deadline to
respond to the petition for review or to request an extension of time to respond
had long passed, but he nevertheless filed a response “as quickly as he could”
thereafter, on May 12, 2021. PFR File, Tab 3, Tab 5 at 5. The agency
representative further states that on March 29, 2021, his eyes were “glued” to his
email inbox because he was awaiting another important email message, and so it
was unlikely that he missed the Board’s acknowledgement letter, and further
notes that another attorney in the agency complained about computer problems
that day. PFR File, Tab 5 at 5. Although he acknowledges that it is possible that
he “merely overlooked or ignored the email in question,” he nevertheless suggests
that it may have been a technical error that caused him to miss his response filing
deadline, and requests that his response be accepted as timely filed. Id.
The Board’s regulations provide that e-filers are responsible for ensuring
that email from mspb.gov is not blocked by filters. 5 C.F.R. § 1201.14(j)(2)
(2021). Further, e-filers are responsible for monitoring case activity at e-Appeal
to ensure that they have received all case-related documents. 5 C.F.R.
6

§ 1201.14(j)(3). The agency representative was a registered e-filer and thus was
responsible for monitoring filings and issuances in this case. Accordingly, we
find the agency’s response to the petition for review was untimely filed without
good cause shown for the delay in filing, and we deny the motion to waive the
time limit and have not considered the response to the petition for review.

We remand the appeal for the administrative judge to make a finding regarding
whether the claimed expert witness costs were reasonable.
We turn now to consider the administrative judge’s findings awarding the
appellant requested fees and costs. In the addendum initial decision, the
administrative judge first determined that, because the requests for $262,950 in
fees for the appellant’s then-attorney, $2,071.25 in deposition costs, and
$19,487.54 in reimbursement for prior attorneys’ fees and litigations costs and
expenses were unopposed, the agency was ordered to pay those costs. AID at 8,
10. We find no error in the administrative judge’s finding in this regard and
affirm that portion of the addendum initial decision.
However, the administrative judge denied the appellant’s request for
reimbursement for fees paid to C.H. and P.P., concluding that he was not entitled
to recovery of those costs. AID at 8-10. Specifically, the administrative judge
concluded that, although the settlement agreement did not identify the appellant
as a prevailing party for the purpose of his entitlement to fees and costs, because
the agency had not challenged the administrative judge’s characterization of the
appellant as a prevailing party in the initial decision dismissing the appeal as
settled, he would analyze the fee award request in light of 5 U.S.C. § 1221(g),
with the appellant considered a prevailing party. AID at 8-9; W-2 AF, Tab 15
at 2 n.2. He concluded that, while section 1221(g)(1)(A)(ii) permits payment of
compensatory damages for expert witness fees, the statute is silent regarding
reimbursement of costs for “non-attorney consultants,” and both the settlement
agreement and the motion for attorney fees identified C.H. and P.P. as “expert
consultants” and not expert witnesses who would be called upon to testify at the
7

hearing. AID at 9. He further noted that neither P.P. or C.H. were listed as
potential witnesses in the appellant’s discovery responses, lending further
credence to the conclusion that they were consultants and not expert witnesses.
AID at 9. Finally, he determined that, even if the definition of “expert witness”
in section 1221(g)(1)(A)(ii) was expanded to include fees paid to consultants
serving in a nontestimonial capacity, that section identifies such costs as
“compensatory damages,” and the executed settlement agreement specifically
addressed the appellant’s entitlement to compensatory damages, agreeing that he
would be paid $320,00 to resolve such claims, so the appellant was not entitled to
any additional compensation for this type of damages. AID at 9.
Unlike cases where a party asserts that it is entitled to an award of attorney
fees under the relevant fee statute, the parties in this case agreed to an award of
attorney fees and costs as part of their negotiated settlement agreement. W-2 AF,
Tab 14 at 6-7; see AFF, Tab 4 at 4-5; Tab 17 at 4-5. By the terms of the
settlement agreement, the agency agreed “[t]o pay Appellant’s reasonable
attorneys’ fees and costs, with the total amount of such fees to be determined by
the [] Board” in connection with the appellant’s IRA appeal and his two EEO
complaints. W-2 AF, Tab 14 at 6. The agreement further stated that the fee
award could include reimbursement for fees paid to the appellant’s former
attorneys, identified the agreed-upon billing rate for the appellant’s then-attorney
for the purpose of calculating the fees, and identified the expected billing rates
for the claimed experts in the event the Board ordered the payment of such fees.
Id. Nothing in the language of the agreement identified that fees or costs should
be denied because they were not among the types of fees identified in
section 1221(g)(1)(A). See Martin v. Department of Justice, 99 M.S.P.R. 59, ¶ 20
(2005) (recognizing that the centerpiece of the Board’s analysis in construing
terms of a written settlement agreement is the plain language of the agreement),
aff’d, 188 F. App’x 994 (Fed. Cir. 2006). Under these circumstances, it was
improper for the administrative judge to consider the appellant’s motion for
8

attorneys’ fees pursuant to section 1221(g). 3 See, e.g., Greco v. Department of
the Army, 852 F.2d 558, 561 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (concluding that, because the
settlement agreement provided for the payment of attorney fees, it was
unnecessary to determine whether the employee was entitled to fees under
section 7701(g)(1); Sherrell v. Department of the Navy, 92 M.S.P.R. 15, ¶¶ 2, 4
(2002) (finding that an appellant did not have to satisfy the “prevailing party” or
“interest of justice” standards of section 7701(g)(1) when the entitlement to fees
was based on a settlement agreement in which the agency agreed to pay
“reasonable attorney fees and costs”).
Finally, we note that in Delorme v. Department of the Interior,
124 M.S.P.R. 123, ¶¶ 9-16 (2017), the Board overturned prior precedent and
found that the source of its authority to enforce settlement agreements is
independent of the Board’s jurisdiction over the underlying matter appealed. The
Board found that conclusion to be consistent with not only the law, but also
public policy considerations. Id., ¶¶ 17-21. Thus, the Board is not precluded
from awarding reasonable costs associated with the appellant’s claims, pursuant
to the plain terms of the parties’ settlement agreement. Consequently, the
administrative judge in this case must determine what costs were reasonable
under the terms of the settlement agreement. Accordingly, we find that remand is
necessary for the administrative judge to give full effect to the settlement
agreement by determining whether the sole remaining costs in dispute, the
appellant’s request for reimbursement of expert witness or expert consultant fees
3
We also note that, although the administrative judge analyzed the appellant’s
“prevailing party” status in light of 5 U.S.C. § 1221(g), that provision is also
inapplicable here because in order to receive attorneys’ fees and costs under that
section, the Board must have “order[ed] corrective action under [the] section”
authorizing IRA appeals, which did not occur in this case because the parties agreed to
settle the appeal. AID at 8-10; see Auker v. Department of Defense, 86 M.S.P.R. 468,
¶¶ 4-14 (2000) (finding that the administrative judge erred by considering whether a fee
award was warranted under section 1221(g) when the appellant’s IRA appeal was
dismissed as settled, concluding instead that the fee award should have been considered
under the general fee statute, 5 U.S.C. § 7701(g)(1), which does not require a finding
that the Board ordered corrective action).
9

amounting to $20,562.50 for C.H. and $27,356.25 for P.P., were reasonable. See
Jones v. Department of Health and Human Services, 56 M.S.P.R. 311, 314-15
(1993) (remanding the appeal to the regional office for a determination of the
reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees when the settlement agreement indicated
that the appellant was entitled to a reasonable amount of attorney fees in an
amount “to be determined by the Board”); see also Sowa v. Department of
Veterans Affairs, 96 M.S.P.R. 408, ¶ 11 (2004) (recognizing that an
administrative judge is in the best position to evaluate attorney fee requests).

The appellant’s remaining arguments are unavailing.
Regarding the appellant’s assertion that his attorney was inadequate or
ineffective, it is well settled that the presence of inadequate counsel does not
constitute a ground for reversal since the appellant is held responsible for the
action or inaction of his counsel. Sparks v. Department of the Interior,
62 M.S.P.R. 369, 371 (1994); Sofio v. Internal Revenue Service, 7 M.S.P.R. 667,
670 (1981). Accordingly, even if true, the appellant’s assertion provides no basis
to disturb the addendum initial decision.
With respect to the appellant’s allegations of bias or favoritism in relation
to the administrative judge’s rulings on prehearing motions and other
discovery-related matters in the IRA appeal, those allegations relate to the settled
IRA appeal and not the instant addendum fee appeal, so we need not consider
them. PFR File, Tab 1 at 9-13. Nevertheless, even if we were to consider the
appellant’s claims, they would not compel a different result here. In making a
claim of bias or prejudice against an administrative judge, a party must overcome
the presumption of honesty and integrity that accompanies all administrative
adjudicators. Washington v. Department of the Interior, 81 M.S.P.R. 101, ¶ 7
(1999). An administrative judge’s conduct during the course of a Board
proceeding warrants a new adjudication only if his comments or actions evidence
“a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment
impossible.” Bieber v. Department of the Army, 287 F.3d 1358, 1362-63 (Fed.
10

Cir. 2002) (quoting Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994)). The
appellant’s bare assertions here do not meet this rigorous standard. 4 See Williams
v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 64 M.S.P.R. 436, 438-39 (1994)
(concluding that an appellant’s disagreement with an administrative judge’s
discovery ruling is insufficient to warrant a finding of bias).

ORDER
For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the portion of the addendum
initial decision ordering the agency to make payments in the amounts of
$262,950.00 for attorney’s fees, $19,487.54 for litigation costs and expenses, and
$2,071.25 for deposition costs, VACATE the portion of the addendum initial
decision denying the appellant’s request for reimbursement in the amount of
$47,918.75 for claimed expert witness or expert consulting fees, and REMAND
this case to the regional office for further adjudication in accordance with this
Remand Order.

FOR THE BOARD: ______________________________
Gina K. Grippando
Clerk of the Board
Washington, D.C.

4
To the extent the appellant suggests on review that the settlement agreement is invalid
or alleges that he felt pressured to accept the terms of the agreement, these arguments
challenging the validity of the settlement agreement must be raised in a petition for
review of the initial decision that dismissed the appeal as settled, so we have not
considered them here. PFR File, Tab 1 at 12-13; see Linares-Rosado v. U.S. Postal
Service, 112 M.S.P.R. 599, ¶ 6 (2009).

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10502370. Public record. Not legal advice.