Monday, November 30th, 2009...9:50 am
At Will Employment and Drue Pearce
The recent resignation of Drue Pearce, the federal Coordinator of Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects, followed the issuance of a legal opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel that concluded that her employment was “at will.”
This conclusion followed, under federal law, despite her statutorily-confirmed “fixed term” and ”independence” of her office. The U. S. Supreme Court has held that fixed terms impose a limit on service, but don’t imply tenure protection. Parsons v. U.S., 167 U.S. 324, 338-39 (1897). (Under Alaska law, the fixed term would indicate good cause protection - Eales v. Tanana Clinic.) And OLC has previously opined that “[a]ll that should be inferred from the status of an ‘independent agency’ is that the entity is not located within another department or agency.”
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