Quillo v. United States

229 Ct. Cl. 540, 1981 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 549, 1981 WL 22051
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedOctober 30, 1981
DocketNo. 641-80C
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 229 Ct. Cl. 540 (Quillo v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Quillo v. United States, 229 Ct. Cl. 540, 1981 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 549, 1981 WL 22051 (cc 1981).

Opinion

This case is before the court on defendant’s motion for summary judgment. After careful consideration of the parties’ submissions and without oral argument, we grant the defendant’s motion in part, deny it in part, and remand the case to the trial division.

Arthur E. Quillo, the plaintiff, was a civil service employee of the United States for 34 years. From March 14, 1974, through March 15, 1975, he worked as a contracting officer for the Department of the Navy in Vietnam. During [541]*541this period, he accumulated annual leave at the rate of 8 hours per biweekly pay period. On November 13, 1974, the Department of the Navy issued a memorandum setting forth the determination that exigencies of the public service in Vietnam during the 1974 leave year were such that assigned employees had been and would be precluded from using their accrued leave.

Plaintiff alleges that during this period he made several requests for leave from his superiors. He contends they responded that conditions would improve and leave would later be available, that no request, written or oral, was then acceptable. Plaintiffs supervisors were aware he was accumulating excess leave through his D. A. 593 form.

At the end of the leave year, plaintiff had accumulated excessive leave which the Department of the Navy said was forfeited. Plaintiff sought administrative remedy from the General Accounting Office and the Comptroller General. Both denied his claim. Plaintiff is now before this court, pro se, seeking lump-sum payment for the leave under 5 U.S.C. § 6304.

5 U.S.C. §6304 provides for the restoration of annual leave in certain circumstances. It states, in pertinent part:

(d)(1) Annual leave which is lost by operation of this section because of—
(A) administrative error when the error causes a loss of annual leave otherwise accruable after June 30,1960;
(B) exigencies of the public business when the annual leave was scheduled in advance; or
shall be restored to the employee.

Plaintiff presents two arguments for relief under § 6304. The first, that although his requests to schedule leave were oral they should qualify under § 6304(d)(1)(B). The second, that the failure of his superiors to schedule leave and to follow procedures to insure his leave would not be forfeited constitutes administrative error under § 6304(d)(1)(A).

Regulations were promulgated under the authority of 5 U.S.C. §6311 to implement §6304. They provide in part:

630.308. Scheduling annual leave. Beginning with the 1974 leave year, before annual leave forfeited under [542]*542section 6304 of title 5, United States Code, may be considered for restoration under that section, the decision to schedule annual leave for use shall be made in writing before the start of the third biweekly pay period prior to the end of the leave year. [5 C.F.R. § 630.308 (emphasis supplied).]

This written requirement is further detailed in Paragraph 5c of the attachment to Federal Personnel Manual Letter (FPML) 630-22.

Though the statute itself does not specifically refer to a writing, the regulation’s requirement is in accord with the legislative history:

The committee intends that for purposes of complying with the "scheduled in advance” requirement, some formal documentation will have to be furnished to show that the employee, a reasonable time before the end of the leave year, did, in fact, request a certain amount of annual leave in advance, that such request was approved by the appropriate authority, and that such annual leave was lost due to exigencies of the service or sickness of the employee. [H. R. Rep. No. 93-456, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 9 (1973).]

This court has previously upheld the regulation in question to the extent that a prior request for leave is required and where the plaintiff knew of the requirement to schedule leave in advance. Ryan v. United States, 212 Ct. Cl. 540 (1976). As we said then:

[W]hen an agency is given the responsibility of implementing a particular statute, as the CSC was given for the statute now at issue, this court shows great deference to the interpretation given the statute by the agency. Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16 (1965); Barrington Manor Apartment Corp. v. United States, 198 Ct. Cl. 298, 304, 459 F. 2d 499, 502-503 (1972). The CSC regulation serves a useful and necessary purpose recognized by Congress for the administration of the leave program. [Id. at 542.]
We believe that Congress, in this subsection, requires simple proof of prior scheduling. We do not think subsequent testimony, once leave has already been forfeited, is within the intent of section (B) of the statute. Thus, plaintiff cannot maintain a cause of action under § 6304(d)(1)(B). At this point we need not decide what [543]*543documentation will suffice to fulfill the requirements of § 6304(d)(1)(B).

We believe any inequities that may result from this interpretation of § 6304(d)(1)(B) are handled by § 6304(d)(1)(A); i.e., administrative error. The purpose of Congress in enacting this statute was:

[t]o permit employees to accumulate leave beyond the current máximums if they lost leave through no fault of their own through administrative error, exigencies of public business, or illness.
* * S*S *
[I]t * * * corrects several minor but longstanding inequities in the system. [S. Rep. No. 93-491, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 2, reprinted in [1973] U. S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 2773, 2773-2774.]

See also Lindsey v. United States, 214 Ct. Cl. 574 (1977). Thus a goal of the statute is to correct inequities in the annual leave system. The federal guidelines state, "while employees also have an obligation to request annual leave in a timely manner, failure on their part to do so does not relieve management of its responsibility to assure that leave is in fact rescheduled for use.” Paragraph 5c of the Attachment to FPML 630-22. The Comptroller General has said "failure on the part of the agency to properly schedule requested leave constitutes an administrative error, which is itself a basis for restoration of forfeited leave under 5 U.S.C. § 6304(d)(1)(A).” Arthur E. Quillo, File B-194545, April 28,1980. See also 57 Comp. Gen. 325 (1978).

The Comptroller General attempts to distinguish the present case by saying there must be a formal documented request for leave before an administrative error can be found. See also 56 Comp. Gen. 471 (1977). The legislative history and statute, however, do not support this.

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Bluebook (online)
229 Ct. Cl. 540, 1981 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 549, 1981 WL 22051, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/quillo-v-united-states-cc-1981.