Peters v. Hobby

Background

A Yale professor of medicine worked part time as a federal consultant and was investigated under the government’s loyalty program. An agency loyalty board twice cleared him after hearings in which he testified and presented many witnesses. Later the central Loyalty Review Board used its so-called post-audit power to reopen the matter on its own, held a new hearing, relied in part on information from unidentified informants, and the Board recommended removal and a three-year bar from federal employment.

Reasoning

The main question was whether the Loyalty Review Board had authority under the President’s Executive Order to call up and decide cases that an agency had already decided favorably when neither the employee nor the agency had appealed. The Court said no. The Executive Order limited the Review Board to making advisory recommendations on appeals of adverse agency decisions. Regulation 14, which let the Review Board rehear and reverse favorable agency findings on its own motion and impose debarment, conflicted with the Order. The Board also exceeded its power by extending debarment beyond the competitive service and acting before the employing agency had made any final determination.

Real world impact

The Court reversed, declared the professor’s removal and debarment invalid, and ordered the Civil Service Commission to expunge the Board’s adverse finding and debarment from its records. The Court did not restore the professor’s appointment because his term had already expired. The decision rests on administrative-authority limits and does not resolve the constitutional due-process issues about secret informers.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Douglas (concurring) urged deciding the constitutional due-process problem and condemned use of faceless informers. Justice Reed (dissenting) defended long-standing administrative practice and presidential awareness of Regulation 14.