FAA Employees--Hazard Pay Differential--Barring Act

This decision responds to a request from the Regional Administrator, Northwest Mountain Region, Federal Aviation Administration, concerning a claim for hazard pay differential. The issue is whether an exception can be made to the 6-year statute of limitations in 31 U.S.C. 3702(b) (1982), where the employees were unaware of the presence of a particular toxic substance in their work-place until recently.

According to FAA, there was no prior knowledge that the compound should be handled with care; nor is there evidence that the use of hydrazine in anti-scaling compounds is something that is commonly known. In short, there is no evidence tht the FAA acted wrongly or concealed information from its employees. Accordingly, the employees' claims for hazard pay differential for handling chemical hyzadrine may not be paid retroactively to 1973, but may be paid to June 15, 1983, as permitted by the statute of limitations.