U.S. Must Foot Official’s $11,000 Bill for Trip on Slow Boat to Iowa

WASHINGTON —  A Foreign Service officer who took his family on a 12-day river-boat cruise does not have to repay the government $11,178 for the trip, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a grievance board’s determination that Christopher Paddack complied with government travel regulations when he booked his family on the Mississippi Queen on the final leg of a journey home from an overseas assignment.

“If, as the government conceded, the regulations permitted travel by ocean liner, we think it a reasonable corollary that they permitted travel by river boat,” the appeals court ruled in a 2-1 decision.

Judge Exceeded Authority

The court found that U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Flannery had exceeded his judicial authority by overturning the Foreign Service Grievance Board’s 1985 ruling that Paddack did not have to repay the government.

Flannery had ordered payment of $11,178, the difference between the cost of the 1,100-mile trip and air fare on a more direct route.

“We think Congress’ decision to restrict our review . . . reflects a legislative judgment that the (grievance) board’s familiarity with the Foreign Service ought to be respected by the judiciary,” the court said in an opinion by Judge Laurence Silberman.

Judge Robert H. Bork, a proponent of judicial restraint who was recently nominated by President Reagan to the Supreme Court, filed a dissent.

Bork said the board and Paddack misinterpreted the government travel regulations, which require employees to make “a conscientious effort to minimize costs of official travel.”

“River boats may be a ‘normal mode of transportation on the river,’ but river boats that are luxury hotels and provide tours of historic sites at stopping places are not,” Bork said.

The case stems from a $12,760 cruise that the four-member Paddack family took up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Burlington, Iowa, in 1982. The trip was the final leg of the family’s journey on home leave from Paddack’s post in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Paddack, a Foreign Service officer assigned to the U.S. Information Agency, was ordered to repay the agency $11,178 after the General Accounting Office ruled that the trip violated travel regulations.

He appealed to the grievance board, which, after three days of hearings, overruled the information agency. The agency then filed suit in U.S. District Court to recover the money.

The board took testimony from two State Department travel officials who said the trip did not violate regulations. It found that travel rules permitted travel by ship, rejecting the agency’s argument that a river boat was not covered by the provision.