“INTERIM RELIEF” MEANS MONEY

A VA employee was fired from his job, appealed to MSPB, and the Administrative Judge ordered that he be granted “interim relief.” That is what the Board calls it when the agency is ordered to put the employee back on the job while it decides whether to appeal the decision to the full Board and courts. The reinstatement is not final until the agency loses the appeal or chooses not to timely appeal. However, in this case the agency decided the employee was “unable to work” and placed him on leave without pay rather than compensate him while the appeal was pending. That is not an outrageously unfair decision; it is just the wrong decision under the law.

The Board acknowledged that an agency under an “interim relief” order does have a narrow right to refuse to put the employee back to work while an appeal is pending. It can do so if it can prove the reinstatement would create an “undue disruption.  (See 5 U.S.C. § 7701(b)(2)). Given that this agency did not even attempt to argue that returning the employee to the job, the Board enforced the Judge’s initial decision and ordered that the employee receive retroactive compensation and benefits.  Check out Kenneth J. Johnson, v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2023 MSPB 9 (February 28, 2023) for details.