Federal appeals judges on Wednesday heard arguments about whether the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories prime contractor forced out a 25-year scientist and manager by giving him only a day to decide whether to resign or undergo a performance improvement program.
Plaintiff Robert Hwang, a Ph. D. formerly at the lab, “was fearful he was going to be terminated by the two supervisors” for Honeywell-led National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia in December 2019, attorney Edward Hollington told a trio of judges in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Given one day for “monumental” decision-making, and with human resources not immediately able to inform him if a firing would cost him retirement benefits, Hwang made the hasty decision to retire, Hollington said.
“He was in somewhat of a panicky mode about losing his benefits,” Hollington said. “It was the convergence of all these in a very short notice,” which led Hwang’s decision to retire. A month-and-half later, after learning termination would not sap his retiree benefits, Hwang unsuccessfully sought to rescind the retirement, the attorney said.
Judges Jacqueline Nguyen, Ryan Nelson and William Fletcher focused their questioning of National Technology and Engineering Solutions attorney Marsha Piccone on the 24 hours given Hwang to decide his future.
It is the contractor’s policy in the case of managers facing an unfavorable performance review to give them the day off to agree to a 60-day improvement plan program, resign or pursue other alternatives, Piccone said.
“There was no constructive discharge,” and no evidence “of intolerable working conditions,” Piccone said. Hwang had choices, which included submitting his own performance improvement plan, she added.
PIccone also said there is no evidence of prior contractor employees being allowed to rescind their retirement decision because they faced a performance improvement review, but Nguyen said that does not matter. The question before the appeals court is whether the prime contractor is entitled to summary judgment that would end the case without further litigation.
Hwang is appealing an August 2022 ruling by a U.S. Magistrate judge who rejected the scientist’s contention that he was effectively fired by the Honeywell-led contractor.
Born in Macau, Hwang eventually became a U.S. citizen and rose to the level of research center manager at Sandia. Hwang has said his troubles with management started when Honeywell took over Sandia in 2017.
Audio and video of the appeals court arguments can be found here.
