JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Third Chamber)

8 July 2014

Case F‑26/13

Rhys Morgan

v

Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM)

(Civil service — Officials — Reports procedure — Appraisal report — Application for annulment of the appraisal report)

Application:      under Article 270 TFEU, in which Mr Morgan seeks the annulment of his appraisal report covering the period from 1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011, and an order that the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM) pay him at least EUR 500 by way of damages.

Held:      The action is dismissed. Mr Morgan is to bear his own costs and is ordered to pay the costs incurred by the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs).

Summary

1.      Officials — Reports procedure — Appraisal report — Assessment of an official’s efficiency — Weighing unsatisfactory output against improved output during the reporting period — Manifest error — None

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

2.      Officials — Reports procedure — Appraisal report — Drawing up — Change in the reporting officer’s appraisal in the definitive general assessment — Infringement of the right to be heard — None

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

3.      Judicial proceedings — Application initiating proceedings — Formal requirements — Statement of the pleas in law relied on — Absence of the essential submissions in law in the application — Reference to the annex — Inadmissibility

(Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 35(1))

1.      Where an official’s output is deemed unsatisfactory in the first half of the appraisal period and markedly better in the second half of that period, an institution does not commit any manifest error of assessment by weighing up his output during those two halves and concluding from that weighing up that, over the whole appraisal period, the official’s efficiency, abilities and conduct in the service were not at an acceptable level. Moreover, an official or other staff member cannot derive an argument from his own actions in order to exempt himself from his professional obligations. Consequently, exceeding his objectives in the second half of the appraisal period does not relieve the official from having to observe that objective in the first half of the appraisal period.

(see paras 57, 60)

See:

judgment in Commission v De Bry, C‑344/05 P, EU:C:2006:710, para. 44

judgments in Ntouvas v ECDC, F‑107/11, EU:F:2012:182, para. 68; and Bogusz v Frontex, F‑5/12, EU:F:2013:75, para. 57

2.      The fact that a reporting officer changes his assessment in relation to the proposal made at the appraisal interview where, under the reporting procedure rules, the general assessment is not yet definitive at that time does not infringe an official’s right to be heard.

(see para. 73)

3.      For a plea in law to be admissible, the basic legal and factual particulars on which it is based must be indicated coherently and intelligibly in the application itself, even if only in summary form. In this respect, whilst the body of the application may be supported and supplemented on specific points by references to extracts from documents annexed to it, a general reference to other documents, even those annexed to the application, cannot make up for the absence of the essential submissions in law which must appear in the application. It is not for the Tribunal to seek and identify in the annexes the pleas and arguments on which it may consider the action to be based, since the annexes have a purely evidential and instrumental function.

(see para. 88)

See:

judgments in Honeywell v Commission, T‑209/01, EU:T:2005:455, paras 56 and 57; and Angelidis v Parliament, T‑424/04, EU:T:2006:376, paras 39 to 41