Huffman v. Office of Personnel Management’s Empirical Analysis
263 F.3d 1341 · 2001
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 9 district · 14 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States · Pilot Life Insurance v. Dedeaux · Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans · Crandon v. United States · United States v. Price
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(A) any disclosure of information by an employee or applicant which the employee or applicant reasonably believes evidences— (i) a violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or (ii) gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety....”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[In this situation] the employee has, as part of his normal duties, been assigned the task of investigating and reporting wrongdoing by government employees and, in fact, reports that wrongdoing through normal channels. A law enforcement officer whose duties include the investigation of crime by government employees and reporting the results of an assigned investigation to his immediate supervisor is a quintessential example. Employees of an inspector general's office may be in a similar position. Willis holds that reporting in connection with assigned normal duties is not a protected disclosure covered by the Act. Id. While the language of the Act is ambiguous as to whether normal duties reports are covered, the core purposes of the WPA are simply not implicated by such reporting. Extending the WPA's protections to such situations would be inconsistent with the WPA's recognition of the importance of fostering the performance of normal work obligations and subjecting employees to normal, non-retaliatory discipline. See S. Rep. No. 100-413, at 15 (1988) ("The Committee does not intend that employees who are poor performers escape sanction by manufacturing a claim of whistleblowing . . ."); S. Rep. No. 95-969, at 8, reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2723, 2730-31 ("Nor would the bill protect employees who claim to be whistle blowers in order to avoid adverse action based on inadequate performance."). While dictionary definitions of the term "disclosure" obviously provide little as”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The purpose of the statute is to encourage disclosures that are likely to remedy the wrong. The wrongdoer is not such a person. Extending the WPA to cover reports to a supervisor of the supervisor’s own misconduct would also have drastic consequences. As we stated in Willis, “[djiscussion and even disagreement with supervisors over job-related duties is a normal part of most occupations.” If every complaint made to a supervisor concerning an employee’s disagreement with the supervisor’s actions were considered to be a disclosure protected under the WPA, virtually every employee who was disciplined could claim the protection of the Act. Although Congress intended that the WPA’s coverage be broad, we think it unlikely that Congress intended the Act to extend that far, and we hold that it did not.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.