In the Matter of the Petition by ) January 8, 1998 ) LINDA J. BEAUDRY ) RR 2, Box 31 ) ) at ) ) Claremont, NH 03743-9302 ) P.S. Docket No. DCA 97-392 APPEARANCE FOR PETITIONER: Linda J. Beaudry RR 2, Box 31 Claremont, NH 03743-9302 APPEARANCE FOR RESPONDENT: Denise M. Wolkovich Labor Relations Specialist United States Postal Service 955 Goffs Falls Road Manchester, NH 03103-9401
FINAL DECISION UNDER THE DEBT COLLECTION ACT OF 1982
Petitioner, Linda J. Beaudry, filed this Petition after receiving a Notice of Involuntary Administrative Salary Offsets on October 1, 1997, from Susan Cutting, the Claremont, New Hampshire Postmaster. The Notice stated the Postal Service's intention to withhold $700.00 from Petitioner's salary to recover a loss caused by Petitioner's issuance of a money order on April 18, 1997, that a customer had not paid for.
A hearing was held in Claremont, New Hampshire on December 30, 1997. The Postal Service presented testimony from Ms. Cutting; Mr. Griffin, the Supervisor of Customer Services; and Mr. Liebert, a distribution clerk. Ms. Beaudry testified in her own behalf, and also presented testimony from Mr. LaCroix, a retired clerk who was working on April 18, 1997. Both parties also relied on documents that had been filed with the Petition and the Answer. Each party made an oral argument at the close of the hearing. The following findings of fact are based on the entire record, including observation of the witnesses and their demeanor.
1. Petitioner has been employed as a window clerk at the Claremont, New Hampshire Post Office since 1988. (Answer, Ex. 1).
2. Clerks at the Claremont Post Office maintain a record of all transactions on a computerized system called IRT (Integrated Retail Terminal). A final daily record for each clerk is recorded on a Form 1412. Mr. Liebert's duties include verifying each clerk's receipts against the computer records at the close of business each day. (Tr. 9). On April 16, 1997, Ms. Beaudry inadvertently entered the sale of a 38¢ envelope as a sale of a money order. (Tr. 83). The system automatically entered the serial number of the next available money order - 6635422703, and listed it as a money order sale on her Form 1412. (Answer, Ex. 2-B). Because Ms. Beaudry did not turn in a money order voucher matching that number, the distribution clerk, Mr. Liebert, noted the error on a PS Form 1908, Financial Adjustment Memorandum, at the end of the day, but the entry of #6635422703 was not voided out of the system. (Tr. 10-13; Answer, Ex. 3).
3. On the morning of April 18, 1997, a customer at Ms. Beaudry's window asked to purchase five $700 money orders. Following her normal procedure, she removed five money order forms from her drawer and printed $700.00 on each, using a machine that performs that function. She then made the necessary entry into her IRT terminal, by typing in the number of money orders (5) and the amount of each. The computer automatically enters the serial numbers of the next available money orders. (Tr. 71-72, 76, 83).
4. Any customer purchasing more than $3,000.00 of money orders on one day must present a photo identification and fill out a PS Form 8105. (Petitioner's Ex. 1 - Domestic Mail Manual §S020.1.2). When Ms. Beaudry entered the five $700 money orders into her IRT terminal, a message to this effect appeared on the screen. Because she was unaware of this requirement, and did not have a PS Form 8105, Ms. Beaudry called her supervisor, Mr. Griffin, for help. (Tr. 41, 71-72). He was unable to find the form.
5. At some point, the customer stated that he did not wish to fill out any form, and told Ms. Beaudry to "total it out," or "give me what you have right there," or "cut it off there," or words to that effect. (Tr. 72, 73, 77). At that point, the IRT screen showed only four $700 money orders. The customer gave Ms. Beaudry $2,800.00, and she gave him the stack of money orders that she had printed. This stack consisted of five $700 money orders. (Tr. 73-74, 78; Answer, Exs. 5-C and 5-D). When she did this, she noted that the voucher number of the last money order - 6635422707 - matched the last of the four money orders that were listed on her IRT terminal. (Answer, Ex. 5-B). There are two reasons for this. First, as part of the system's way of not allowing sale of more than $3,000.00 without a Form 8105, the IRT will not display a money order that exceeds this limit. Therefore, the screen listed only four money orders. Second, the first money order that Petitioner printed was #6635422703, and this number did not show up on the IRT list because the IRT still thought that number had been issued on April 16. Had the April 16 error not occurred, the last money order listed on the IRT screen on April 18 would have ended with 706, rather than 707, and presumably Ms. Beaudry would have noticed that the number of the money order on top of her stack (707) did not match the number on the screen.
6. Petitioner did not discover the error until the end of the day, when she realized that she had five $700 money order vouchers (the copy retained by the selling post office) in her drawer. (Tr. 75). She immediately called her supervisor and told him that she had given a customer one too many money orders, and also called the Postal Inspection Service. (Tr. 28-29, 75, 79).
Petitioner makes two arguments. First, she contends that the Postal Service failed to adequately train or prepare her for dealing with the $3,000.00 daily limit on purchase of money orders. Because she did not know that the computer system would not list money orders over the $3,000.00 limit, she contends that her lack of training led to her confusion over how to deal with this situation, and also caused her to mistakenly rely on the final money order serial number that was displayed on her IRT terminal. Second, she contends that the customer, acting in concert with another customer, who had purchased several money orders from Mr. LaCroix a few minutes earlier, intentionally defrauded her, and that the Postal Inspection Service should have made a greater effort to recover the money from these men.
The standard for determining an employee's liability in a case such as this provides that employees to whom postal funds and accountable paper are consigned (such as Petitioner) "are held strictly accountable for any loss unless evidence establishes that they followed the postal procedures established when performing their duties." Postal Service Handbook F-1, Post Office Accounting Procedures (November 1996), Section 141. Respondent's burden of proof is to show that a loss occurred from an account for which the employee is accountable. In this case, there is no doubt that there was a loss of $700.00 from Petitioner's account. To her credit, she discovered it herself and immediately reported it to her supervisor. There is no suggestion that Ms. Beaudry is anything but an honest, hard-working employee, but the facts of this case do not provide a basis for relieving her of liability.
The events described in Finding of Fact #5, and her unfamiliarity with the need for a Form 8105, help explain how Ms. Beaudry made the error, but they do not excuse it. Even if the procedures for selling money orders are not spelled out step-by-step in any regulation, it is fundamental that any clerk who sells a product is required to make certain that the customer receives only what is paid for. Petitioner knew that she had printed five $700 money orders, and she knew that the customer gave her only $2,800.00. The confusion of the moment does not excuse her failure to count the money orders before handing the stack to the customer.
Perhaps the customer's impatience, and his insistence that he did not wish to fill out a form, added to the creation of a mini-crisis, and if he knowingly accepted $700.00 more than he paid for, that was certainly dishonest, but there is no evidence that this customer came to the post office intending to steal. Apparently, this customer was never identified, and there is no evidence that the postal inspectors could have been successful in recovering the $700.00 from him, had they attempted to do so. In any event, his actions do not relieve Petitioner of her responsibility. The loss occurred because she did not count the money orders and verify the total amount before giving them to the customer.
The petition is denied. Respondent may collect $700.00 from Petitioner's salary.
Bruce R. Houston Chief Administrative Law Judge