262
OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the federal circuit
No. 96-1395. Argued December 2, 1997—Decided January 21, 1998*
Respondents, federal employees subject to adverse actions by their agencies, each made false statements to agency investigators with respect to the misconduct with which they were charged. In each case, the agency additionally charged the false statement as a ground for adverse action, and the action taken against the employee was based in part on the added charge. The Merit Systems Protection Board (Board) upheld that portion of each penalty that was based on the underlying charge, but overturned the false statement portion, ruling, inter alia, that the claimed statement could not be considered in setting the appropriate punishment. In separate appeals, the Federal Circuit agreed with the Board that no penalty could be based on a false denial of the underlying claim.
Held: Neither the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause nor the Civil
Service Reform Act, 5 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq., precludes a federal agency from sanctioning an employee for making false statements to the agency regarding his alleged employment-related misconduct. It is impossible to square the result reached below with the holding in, e. g., Bryson v. United States, 396 U. S. 64, 72, that a citizen may decline to answer a Government question, or answer it honestly, but cannot with impunity knowingly and willfully answer it with a falsehood. There is no hint of a right to falsely deny charged conduct in § 7513(a), which authorizes an agency to impose the sort of penalties involved here "for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service," and then accords the employee four carefully delineated procedural rights—advance written notice of the charges, a reasonable time to answer, legal representation, and a specific written decision. Nor can such a right be found in due process, the core of which is the right to notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Even assuming that respondents had a protected property interest in their employment, this Court rejects, both on the basis of precedent and principle, the Federal Circuit's view that a
*Together with Lachance, Director, Office of Personnel Management v. McManus et al., also on certiorari to the same court (see this Court's Rule 12.4).
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