Frey v. HHS

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Petitioner filed a whistleblower complaint against his former employer, HMS, alleging that he was terminated because of disclosures he made regarding HMS's billing practices. The OIG found that, although petitioner had made protected disclosures, they were not a contributing factor to HMS's decision to fire petitioner and that HMS would have fired him absent the disclosures. HHS adopted the OIG's report and denied petitioner's claim.The Fifth Circuit denied a petition for review of HHS's decision, holding that the four years that passed between petitioner's 2009 disclosures and his 2013 firing, as well as a "lack of other evidence" supporting a finding of retaliation, bolstered HHS's conclusion that petitioner's disclosures were not contributing factors in HMS's decision to fire him, and was enough to satisfy the "highly deferential" arbitrary and capricious standard. In this case, the OIG's summary of its interviews with petitioner's supervisors and several other HMS employees sufficiently supported HHS's conclusion that HMS fired petitioner because of his poor performance or as part of a reduction-in-force. View "Frey v. HHS" on Justia Law