About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

B-175031(MRV) 1 (1979-03-06)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabjmi0001 and id is 1 raw text is: COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON, D.C. 20548 B-175031 (MRV) March 6, 1979 The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy E-I United States Senate tt H e eV2nA e-77e- e0f ear Senator Kennedy: This is in response to your letter of January 2, 1979, requesting reconsideration of our decision (B-175031, April 28, 1978, 57 Comp. Gen. 444) in which we denied the claim of Mr. Norman E. Guidaboni for reimbursement of certain legal fees. As your letter points out, Mr. Guidaboni was employed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Department of Agriculture, when he wrote several letters during the summer of 1976 concerning the allegedly improper activities of a meat pack- ing plant in Rhode Island. In response to certain allegations contained in those letters, Mr. Guidaboni's supervisor filed suit in a state court in Rhode Island alleging that the letters were libelous and constituted malicious defamation. It appears that, through private counsel, Mr. Guidaboni had the lawsuit transferred to Federal court and then later had it dismissed in both state and Federal courts. Mr. Guidaboni's claim for legal fees in the amount of $852.94 was denied by our Office in our decision cited above. Your letter states that it would be wrong to, in effect, penalize an employee because he brings allegations of wrongdoing to the attention of his agency or Congress, and you suggest that such actions on the part of an employee are not outside the scope of his employment. As we stated in our decision, our Office has long held that the hiring of an attorney is a matter between the attorney and the client, and that absent express statutory authority, reim- bursement of attorney's fees may not be allowed. A suit against a Government employee in his individual capacity is his responsi- bility to the same extent as it is of a private person. However, it is the policy of the Department of Justice to represent Federal employees who are sued for actions which reasonably appear to have been performed within the scope of their employment. The authority for such representation is contained in 28 U.S.C. - 517, @ • 518 (1976) and 28 C.F.R. 9 50.15, 50.16 (1978). Counsel is pro- 's vided under these circumstances not as a matter of entitlement but, rather, as a matter of policy, such representation being considered to be in the interest of the United States.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most