P.S. Docket No. AO 21-248

INITIAL DECISION

Respondent, the Postal Service, seeks to collect several debts totaling $1,762.96 from Petitioner, Mia Thornton. The debts are based on alleged overpayments of continuation of pay (COP), premium pay, and federal taxes. Petitioner timely requested a hearing, which was held on January 26, 2022. For reasons explained below, I find the Postal Service did not meet its burden and grant the Petition.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Petitioner was a Postal Service employee from October 20, 2015, through June 8, 2020 (Resp. Exh. 12). During her time of employment, Petitioner sustained multiple injuries on the job (Pet. Exh. LL; Tr. 49-50).
2. On March 11, 2019, Petitioner incurred a knee injury while working and submitted a Notice of Recurrence (Department of Labor Form CA-2a) to request up to 45 days of COP and medical treatment while awaiting a decision on her claim from the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Program (OWCP) (Pet. Exh. KK).
3. The Postal Service returned the Form CA-2a to Petitioner on March 13, 2019, finding that it had been filed unnecessarily because a prior OWCP claim remained open for medical treatment, and that claim had “sufficient medical documentation to support time loss” (Pet. Exh. KK).
4. From March 16 – April 6, 2019, which encompasses pay periods 07/2019, week 1 through 08/2019, week 1, the Postal Service paid Petitioner for a total of 169 hours. These hours included 75 hours of COP, 70 hours of night work hours, and 24 hours of Sunday premium hours (Resp. Exhs. 10 and 25).
5. Petitioner’s last day in a pay status with the Postal Service was April 23, 2019 (Resp. Exh. 12).
6. In May 2019, the Postal Service issued a Letter of Demand to Petitioner to collect $398.17 for 24 hours of COP and 22.50 hours of night work paid in pay period 24 of 2016, which was attributed to alleged dual compensation. It was noted that the paid hours had been changed to OWCP LWOP (leave without pay) (Pet. Exh. W).
7. The Postal Service issued a second Letter of Demand to Petitioner on June 14, 2019, for $1,228.86 to recoup payment for the work hours paid in 2019, again noting that the payment code had been changed to OWCP LWOP (Resp. Exh. 22).
8. The Postal Service issued a third and final invoice to Petitioner on January 24, 2020, for $135.93 to recover taxes paid on the debt created by the alleged overpaid hours from 2019 (Pet. Exh. A; Resp. Exh. 21).
9. On May 21, 2021, OWCP sent a letter to the Postal Service and Petitioner indicating that Petitioner’s Form CA-2a (Notice of Recurrence) from March 11, 2019, had been converted to a new injury, which entitled Petitioner to COP since the date of the injury (Pet. Exh. MM).

DECISION

To recover a salary overpayment, the Postal Service bears the initial burden to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the overpayment was made, the amount of that overpayment, and that the employee was not entitled to keep the overpayment. Jordan v. United States Postal Service, AO 19-66, 2019 WL 4233901 (I.D. August 22, 2019, aff’d, September 30, 2019). The Postal Service has not met this burden.
At the hearing, the Postal Service elicited testimony from only one witness. This witness sufficiently explained the accounting procedures about how the alleged overpayments were calculated, as reflected in Petitioner’s payroll journals (Tr. 17-28). However, the record lacks any evidence or testimony to prove that Petitioner was ever dually compensated, and thus not entitled to the alleged overpayments.
Where dual compensation is alleged, we have held, “the Postal Service must show that [Petitioner] was paid twice by the government for the same periods of time.” Barbara Moore v. United States Postal Service, AO 14-284, 2015 WL 13647621 (I.D. January 26, 2015). There is no such evidence here, as the Postal Service only presented evidence of its own payroll records from the periods at issue. Without more, such as testimony from an employee familiar with injury compensation and payment records from OWCP, the Postal Service fails to meet its initial burden of proof. See Brenda J. Hailey, DCA 01-155, 2001 WL 37119056 (July 9, 2001); Rashan R. Rowan v. United States Postal Service, DCA 20-43, 2020 WL 6800310 (October 5, 2020). Moreover, the letter issued by OWCP in May 2021 states that Petitioner’s pay should have been adjusted to reflect another 45-day entitlement of COP from the onset of her new injury that occurred on March 11, 2019, which further undermines the allegation that Petitioner was overpaid during that period in 2019 (Resp. Exh. 24).
Although the Postal Service’s failure to meet its initial burden forecloses the need to address any arguments from Petitioner, it is important to note that I found her argument that the Postal Service violated her constitutional rights by seeking to collect the alleged debt wholly unpersuasive in this decision (Tr. 38-42). Petitioner cited several regulations to bolster her argument, which are irrelevant to this case and ultimately reflect a misapplication of the law.

ORDER

The Petition challenging the debt assessments is granted.
Because the tax debt is dependent on the validity of the debt for a salary overpayment, the Petition is also granted as to that debt.
The Postal Service may not collect any of the assessed debts by administrative offset.