de novo and having a chance to win your eeoc claim
are you giving up your right to a trial when you forego the option. When you ask instead for the option of a final agency decison, you are getting a de novo opinion, however
the opinion is tainted, slanted and not in your favor, because the opinion is coming from within your agency.
Its not until you appeal, that your case is finally heard outside of your agency. The appeal is also a de novo opinion.
If there was a way to leave the agency from judging your case much sooner, then justice would be served much faster.
As this is an appeal from a decision issued without a hearing, pursuant
to 29 C.F.R. § 1614.110(b), the agency’s decision is subject to de novo
review by the Commission. 29 C.F.R. § 1614.405(a). See EEOC Management
Directive 110, Chapter 9, § VI.A. (November 9, 1999). (explaining that
the de novo standard of review “requires that the Commission examine
the record without regard to the factual and legal determinations of the
previous decision maker,” and that EEOC “review the documents, statements,
and testimony of record, including any timely and relevant submissions
of the parties, and . . . issue its decision based on the Commission’s
own assessment of the record and its interpretation of the law”).
Clifton W. Crawford,
Complainant,
v.
John E. Potter,
Postmaster General,
United States Postal Service,
(Pacific Area),
Agency.
Appeal No. 01200611351
Agency No. 4F-926-0201-04
update:
it is possible for the eeoc to change your request for a hearing to a summary judgement without allowing you the option.
The Commission’s regulations allow an AJ to issue a decision without a
hearing when he or she finds that there is no genuine issue of material
fact. 29 C.F.R. § 1614.109(g). This regulation is patterned after the
summary judgment procedure set forth in Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that summary judgment
is appropriate where a court determines that, given the substantive
legal and evidentiary standards that apply to the case, there exists
no genuine issue of material fact. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,
477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). In ruling on a motion for summary judgment,
a court’s function is not to weigh the evidence but rather to determine
whether there are genuine issues for trial. Id. at 249. The evidence of
the non-moving party must be believed at the summary judgment stage and
all justifiable inferences must be drawn in the non-moving party’s favor.
Id. at 255. An issue of fact is “genuine” if the evidence is such that
a reasonable fact finder could find in favor of the non-moving party.
Celotex v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986); Oliver v. Digital
Equip. Corp., 846 F.2D 103, 105 (1st Cir. 1988). A fact is “material”
if it has the potential to affect the outcome of the case.
The Commission finds that grant of summary judgment was appropriate,
as no genuine dispute of material fact exists. After a review of all of
the evidence of record in this case, the AJ determined that the alleged
claims did not constitute harassment and that, even if they did, they
were not based on, or motivated by, any discrimination. The AJ found
that there is no evidence that other individuals were permitted to exit
a training class prior to its conclusion without using paid leave.
The AJ also found that the evaluation did not contain any negative
comments and complainant was not denied any position or award based
on the evaluation. It is noted that complainant did not claim that
his specific work performance entitled him a higher rating or that a
similarly situated employee received a higher rating than he did.
The AJ further stated that complainant failed to support his contentions
that he had signed up for the conference room at issue and his supervisor
had not. The AJ noted that complainant was in fact able to utilize
another conference room to continue working on his EEO case. The AJ
also stated that the alleged incidents involving the identified coworker
were stray comments that did not constitute an injury to any aspect of
complainant’s employment.
With regard to the Memorandum of Counseling and the Memorandum of
Instruction, the AJ determined that the agency submitted evidence to
support its reason for issuing the memoranda and these reasons were
not disputed by complainant. The supervisor stated the Memorandum
of Counseling was issued to complainant for sleeping on duty and the
Memorandum of Instruction was for his failure to complete work within
a previously set deadline and failure to track his work into a database
as he had been instructed to do.
