Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Ross

BATTAGLIA, Judge. The issue before this Court involves the propriety of a trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore (hereinafter “the City”) in a suit brought by former City employee, Margaret Ross, alleging an unconstitutional deprivation of her re-employment rights pursuant to the Baltimore City Charter and Baltimore City Civil Service Commission Rules. The City challenges the decision of the Court of Special Appeals which reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in the City’s favor. We affirm the decision of the Court of Special Appeals and hold that summary judgment was erroneously granted because the trial court misinterpreted the applicable City mandates regarding Ross’s re-employment rights and because there exists a dispute of material fact as to whether the position for which Ross was placed on the re-employment list was filled by another employee in violation of the guarantees provided civil service employees.

I. Background A. Facts Margaret Ross was employed by the Baltimore City Department of Planning from June 14, 1982 until June 28, 1996, when she was laid off because her position as City Planner ³⁵⁴ Supervisor was to be abolished, ostensibly due to budget constraints for the upcoming fiscal year. Because Ross was a civil service employee, the Baltimore City Charter (hereinafter “Charter”) and the Baltimore City Civil Service Commission Rules (hereinafter “Civil Service Rules”) granted Ross placement on a re-employment list for one year. The re-employment list guaranteed Ross absolute preferential hiring status for positions, for which she was similarly qualified, that became vacant within one year of her termination. Section 100(b) of the Charter specifically provides that: “[e]ach person discharged for the purpose of reducing the force and without fault shall ... be placed on the eligible list ... [and] shall have preference in the order of their seniority over others on the eligible list.... ” Baltimore City Charter, Art. VII § 100(b).

Rule 39C of the Civil Service Rules further qualifies that, “persons laid off ... shall have absolute preference in re-employment____” Pursuant to these provisions, Ross was issued a notice stating that she was placed on the re-employment list for a City Planner Supervisor position, and as required, Ross remained on this list for one year, until June 28,1997. The central issue of Ross’s complaint is that, while she was on the re-employment list, the City refused to re-employ Ross in any of the four vacant City Planner Supervisor positions, 1 thus violating her constitutionally protected proprietary interest in the position pursuant to her statutorily guaranteed reemployment rights. 2 ³⁵⁵ One of the positions became vacant when City Planner Supervisor, Israel C. Patoka, was voluntarily laid off on the same day that Ross was discharged. Ross contends that, prior to her termination, she had requested several times to be transferred to fill Patoka’s position, but that her requests were denied. Yet, on July 1, 1996, the first workday after Patoka and Ross were discharged, Amy Hasson, the Executive Assistant to the Director of Planning, requested that the Department of Personnel evaluate applicants for a City Planner Supervisor position through the City’s examination process.

Notably, the type of examination that Hasson requested was an “open” examination, i.e. one open for the public. In spite of the Department of Personnel’s advisement to the City that it must use the re-employment list, an announcement for an open examination for a City Planner Supervisor position was posted on August 26,1996. The position remained vacant until March 24,1997 when the City hired Kyle Leggs to fill it. Both the City and Mr. Leggs himself state that he was hired as a City Planner I, a position with a lower rate of pay and lesser duties and responsibilities than required for a City Planner Supervisor, the position for which Ross was on the re-employment list; however, the Budget Detail Sheets published by the Bureau of Budget and Management Research indicate that Leggs filled the position for City Planner Supervisor, job # 187-16585, which was Patoka’s position.

The Budget Detail Sheets also indicate that Leggs was hired as a City Planner Supervisor “in lieu,” a term that will be addressed in further detail below. Two other City Planner Supervisors, Donald D. Duncan, job # 187-16598, and Ray N. Bird, job # 187-16579, retired on July 30, 1996, a month after Ross was discharged. These positions remained vacant until November 1996, when Laurie Feinberg and Gloria Griffin were asked to serve as Acting City Planner Supervisors, i.e. to perform all the functions previously performed by Mr. Duncan and Mr. Bird, respec ³⁵⁶ tively. The City relied on a provision in the Baltimore City Administrative Manual (hereinafter “Administrative Manual”) referred to as the “in lieu of’ provision, which states: An agency may fill a vacant position with an employee whose job class is not the same as the class of the vacant position if such action will allow the individual to gain the necessary experience to qualify for the class.

To be eligible, the employee’s class and the class of the vacant position must be in the same class series. (For example, a Senior Clerk position may be filled with a Clerk “in lieu” of a Senior Clerk.). 3 Baltimore City Administrative Manual, AM-281-1. The Budget Detail Sheets for November 29,1996 indicate that Feinberg transferred out of her City Planner II position into the City Planner Supervisor position (# 187-16598) “in lieu.” This position was classified as a “budgeted position” that was no longer a “vacancy.” The same Budget Detail Sheets also indicate that Griffin had transferred out of her City Planner III position into the City Planner Supervisor position (# 187-16579) “in lieu.” Griffin further testified that out-of-title pay was given to her for acting as City Planner Supervisor. In September 1997, two months after Ross’s re-employment preference expired, Griffin and Feinberg were formally promoted to City Planner Supervisors.

B. Legal Disposition Ross filed suit for a declaratory judgment, an injunction and money damages against the City on July 29, 1998 in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Ross alleged that, pursuant to the City’s Charter and Civil Service Rules, she had a right to be re-employed as a City Planner Supervisor and was deprived of this right when the City reassigned existing lower ranking employees into vacant City Planner Supervisor positions. This deprivation, Ross alleges, violated her rights ³⁵⁷ guaranteed under Articles 19 and 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. 4 The City and Ross filed cross motions for summary judgment. The City argued that, throughout the year in which Ross was on the employment list, a City Planner Supervisor position never became available, i.e. the positions remained vacant; therefore, Ross was not, as a matter of law, denied any constitutionally protected proprietary interest in the position.

Ross sought partial summary judgment on the issue of liability, arguing that it was undisputed that she had absolute preference for re-employment during the year following her lay-off and that the City, on three occasions, filled City Planner Supervisor slots with other employees “in lieu of’ promotion during the time period in question. All motions for summary judgment were heard on December 3, 1999 in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The Circuit Court denied Ross’s motion for partial summary judgment and ordered summary judgment for the City. Relying on the Administrative Policy Manual, 5 the trial court ruled that ³⁵⁸ the City was permitted to appoint others “in lieu of’ City Planner Supervisors and because the City was only “going to be filling the positions in lieu of, the plaintiff [Ross] did not qualify to fill the positions in lieu of.” Ross appealed the decision of the trial court to the Court of Special Appeals.

The Court of Special Appeals, in a reported opinion, reversed the ruling of the lower court and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City for further proceedings. Ross v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 135 Md.App. 370 , 762 A.2d 974 (2000). Concluding that the trial court erred in finding that the appointment of a person as a City Planner Supervisor “in lieu of’ successfully kept the City Planner Supervisor position vacant while Ross was on the reemployment list, the Court of Special Appeals held that the trial court’s grant of summary judgment on the basis that the City did not fill any vacancies was legally erroneous. 6 Id. at 381 , 762 A.2d at 979-980 . The City petitioned for, and this Court granted, a writ of certiorari on the issue of whether the Court of Special Appeals erroneously interpreted the statutory and regulatory personnel scheme of Baltimore City, and thus erred in reversing the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the City. ³⁵⁹ II.

Standard of Review The propriety of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the City is at issue in this case. Maryland Rule 2-501 (e) expressly provides that a trial judge may grant summary judgment “if the motion and response show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that party in whose favor judgment is entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” In making that determination, the evidence, and all reasonable inferences therefrom, are viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See Jones v. Mid-Atlantic Funding Co., 362 Md. 661, 676 , 766 A.2d 617, 625 (2001) (quoting Natural Design, Inc. v. Rouse Co., 302 Md. 47, 62 , 485 A.2d 663, 671 (1984)). We have emphasized that the summary judgment process is not a substitute for trial, see Goodwich v. Sinai Hosp. of Baltimore, Inc., 343 Md. 185, 205 , 680 A.2d 1067, 1077 (1996), but rather the purpose of the summary judgment process is to determine whether there exists “an issue of fact, which is sufficiently material to be tried.” Jones v. Mid-Atlantic Funding Co., 362 Md. 661, 675 , 766 A.2d 617, 624 (2001); Frederick Road Ltd. Partnership v. Brown & Sturm, 360 Md. 76, 93 , 756 A.2d 963, 972 (2000). “A material fact is a fact the resolution of which will somehow affect the outcome of the case.” Jones v. Mid-Atlantic Funding Co., 362 Md. at 675 , 766 A.2d at 624 (quoting King v. Bankerd, 303 Md. 98, 111 , 492 A.2d 608, 614 (1985)).

Thus, an appellate court’s review of the grant of summary judgment involves the determination whether a dispute of material fact exists, Williams v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 359 Md. 101, 113 , 753 A.2d 41, 47 (2000); Gross v. Sussex, Inc., 332 Md. 247, 255 , 630 A.2d 1156, 1160 (1993); Beatty v. Trailmaster Products, 330 Md. 726, 737 , 625 A.2d 1005, 1011 (1993), and “whether the trial court was legally correct.” Williams, 359 Md. at 113 , 753 A.2d at 47 -48 (quoting Goodwich, 343 Md. at 204 , 680 A.2d at 1076 ). ³⁶⁰ III. Discussion It is undisputed that Ross was a City Planner Supervisor in the Baltimore City Department of Planning and that as a member of the civil service, Ross had an absolute preference for re-employment during the year following her lay-off. It is also undisputed that other employees were reassigned to City Planner Supervisor positions pursuant to the “in lieu of’ provision of the City Administrative Manual. A material dispute does exist, however, as to whether the City Planner Supervisor positions were “filled” once the other employees were reassigned “in lieu of.” This decisional issue requires both factual findings, e.g. was the City Planner Supervisor position a budgeted position for the fiscal years in question and did it remain an independently budgeted position after the “in lieu of’ appointments, and correct application of legal provisions in the City’s Charter, Civil Service Rules, and Administrative Manual.

We conclude that a material factual dispute existed on the record of this case, at the time summary judgment was granted. Ross argues that when Leggs, Griffin and Feinberg were temporarily assigned as City Planner Supervisors, those positions became filled and were no longer vacant. Ross points to the Budget Sheets which indicate that, prior to this assignment, the City Planner Supervisor Positions were held to be “vacancies,” and after the assignment, the positions were no longer deemed vacancies. The City, on the other hand, argues that the City Planner Supervisor positions remained vacant until Griffin and Feinberg were formally promoted to the position in September 1997, two months after Ross’s preference had expired.