If an agency official retaliates against a current or former employee via another official unaware of the motive, the agency is still responsible, the Merit Systems Protection Board has said in citing a recent case as an example of the principle.
In Dorney v. Department of the Army, 117 M.S.P.R. 480 (2012), an individual who had been employed by Army allegedly made protected disclosures of wrongdoing by her supervisor, and later left the agency, MSPB explained.
It said that several years later she applied for a position with the Army under a different supervisor, but the selecting supervisor denied her application based in part on a negative reference provided by her supervisor in her former Army position.
According to MSPB, if the appellant could prove that the initial supervisor acted out of a retaliatory animus, then she would have proven that the agency acted out of the animus, even if the official who made the final decision had no desire to retaliate.
That was the case here and it said the rule for supervisors is not to assume that a single reference is accurate or that a reference provider is being honest.
