Bunch v. Robinson

Page 437

122 Md.App. 437

712 A.2d 585, 135 Lab.Cas. P 33,693,

4 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1300

Edward BUNCH, III, et al. v. Bishop L. ROBINSON.

No. 1754, Sept. Term, 1997.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

July 1, 1998.

DAVIS, Judge.

Appellant Edward Bunch, III, formerly a parole and probation officer, and appellants Henry Boulware and Charles Woods, currently parole and probation officers for the State of Maryland, filed claims, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq., and seeking monetary and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland on April 7, 1995. After the federal suit was dismissed on December 11, 1996, appellants pursued the same claim in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

Secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, appellee Bishop Robinson, moved to dismiss appellants' amended complaint and memorandum. Pursuant to the motion and a reply filed in opposition thereto, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City conducted a hearing on September 8, 1997, after which it held the matter sub curia. The court issued its order and memorandum opinion granting the motion to dismiss, and appellants timely noted the instant appeal. On this appeal, appellants, joined by amicus, the United States, ask us to decide:

I. Whether the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution requires the circuit court to enforce the FLSA as mandated by Congress.

II. Whether the Eleventh Amendment immunity under the federal constitution is synonymous with state common-law immunity.

In addition to the issues raised jointly by appellants and in their brief, amici, the United States Department of Labor and the United States Department of Justice, additionally ask us to decide:

III. Whether the proper avenue for State employees to enforce rights created by the FLSA is the State administrative grievance procedure when some of the remedies available under the FLSA are not available under the State grievance procedure.

We shall answer the first issue in the affirmative and the second and third issues in the negative. Accordingly, we shall reverse the decision of the trial court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The underlying cause of action from which this appeal emanates was based on appellants' claim for compensation under the FLSA for being assigned duties that could not be accomplished in a forty-hour work week, but for which appellants were not paid overtime when their work week exceeded forty hours. Appellants Bunch, Boulware, and Woods were probation agents employed by the Division of Parole and Probation (DPP) of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (Department). Appellee Robinson was the Secretary of the Department at the time of the proceedings in the lower court.

On April 5, 1994, prior to the FLSA claim, the Department terminated Bunch, charging him with incompetence and inefficiency in the performance of his duties. Bunch appealed the charges for removal and, after a hearing on the merits before the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) on September 9, 1994, the administrative law judge (ALJ) found that Bunch had violated certain sections of COMAR, ¹ constituting sufficient cause for termination.

A final order adopting the findings, conclusions, and proposed decision of the ALJ that Bunch be removed from State service was issued on November 22, 1994; that order was sustained by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The circuit court's judgment was affirmed by this Court in a per curiam opinion dated March 25, 1997.

As stated above, on April 7, 1995, appellants filed suit in the United States District Court, seeking compensation under the FLSA for not receiving overtime pay for work exceeding forty hours per week. The district court, citing Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), dismissed appellants' lawsuit on December 11, 1996, holding that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction as the FLSA did not abrogate the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity. Appellants thereafter filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, reasserting the same claim that had been dismissed in the federal district court.

THE CIRCUIT COURT'S DECISION

The Circuit Court for Baltimore City, in holding that the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution does not give Congress the authority to abrogate common-law based state sovereign immunity, opined:

In the case before this [c]ourt, the [appellants'] FLSA claim is brought against [appellee] in his capacity as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety, and is therefore a suit against a State agency. This suit was brought under the express language of the 1974 amendments to the FLSA which imposed it on the states under the authority of the Interstate Commerce Clause.

Observing that the issue before the trial court had been decided by at least two jurisdictions since the Supreme Court's decision in Seminole Tribe, the court relied on a decision of the Dane County, Wisconsin Circuit Court, German v. Wisconsin Dep't of Transp., Case No. 96-CV-1261 (March 11, 1997), wherein that court held:

It would be anomalous if the "States' rights" justices who authored Seminole Tribe, and who vigorously dissented in Garcia, acted to uphold [the] States' Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit but, at the same time, affirmed congressional authority to overcome a State's own sovereign immunity under its State constitution.

German, slip op. at 5 n. 5. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City continued, in its memorandum opinion, concluding that,

although the Maryland Constitution does not expressly have such a provision [comparable to Wisconsin's Constitution], this concept that the legislature must decide where and when suits can be brought against its State is deeply rooted in Maryland's common law doctrine of State sovereign immunity. "Parties having claims or demands against [the State of Maryland], must present them through another department of the Government--the Legislature--and cannot assert them by suit in the courts. State v. B & O RR Co., 34 Md. 344, 374 (1871)."

The trial court, in its memorandum opinion, ultimately held:

... Applying the holding of Seminole Tribe, every jurisdiction that has considered the issue has concluded that Congress lacked authority, in enacting amendments to the FLSA under the Commerce Clause, to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity. Since Congress has not abrogated the States' Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity under an appropriate exercise of congressional authority, it logically follows that neither has Congress altered the States' common-law sovereign immunity with respect to a FLSA claim.

Although this [c]ourt holds that this action must be dismissed, this conclusion does not mean that the FLSA does not apply to the State. It only means that a suit for damages against the State cannot be maintained in State or Federal Court. Further, this [c]ourts' [sic] ruling does not leave the State employees with inadequate means of pursuing their complaints. The [appellants], as State employees, have access to an adequate and available administrative remedy to redress their claims. The General Assembly structured a multi-tiered grievance mechanism which covers disputes between the employee and employer about the interpretation of a personnel policy or regulation adopted by the Secretary. The purpose of the employee grievance procedure was to provide employees a means of seeking redress for alleged wrongs and was created to centralize and streamline cases involving State employees' grievances arising from their employment.

(Citations omitted.)

Based on the above holding, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City granted appellee's motion to dismiss and this appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We begin our analysis by setting forth the appropriate standard of review. In considering a motion to dismiss made pursuant to MARYLAND RULE 2-322(b), a court must assume the truth of all well-pleaded material facts and all inferences that can be drawn from them. Rossaki v. NUS Corp., 116 Md.App. 11, 18, 695 A.2d 203 (1997); Society of Am. Foresters v. Renewable Natural Resources Found., 114 Md.App. 224, 232, 689 A.2d 662 (1997); Simms v. Constantine, 113 Md.App. 291, 294, 688 A.2d 1 (1997). The grant of a motion to dismiss is proper if the complaint does not disclose, on its face, a legally sufficient cause of action. Rossaki, 116 Md.App. at 18, 695 A.2d 203; Society of Am. Foresters, 114 Md.App. at 232, 689 A.2d 662; Simms, 113 Md.App. at 294, 688 A.2d 1. The complaint need not specify with minute particularity that which ultimately need be proved; rather, it is enough that the complaint state with reasonable certainty the cause of action. Simms, 113 Md.App. at 295, 688 A.2d 1. When reviewing the grant of a motion to dismiss, we must determine whether the trial court was legally correct in determining that the complaint did not set forth a legally sufficient cause of action. Rossaki, 116 Md.App. at 18, 695 A.2d 203.

DISCUSSION

In this case, essentially we are asked to decide whether the FLSA may be applied to a unit of the state government and enforced in state court. For some years following the Supreme Court's decision in Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985) (subjecting a local government to the FLSA), such application was, for the most part, constitutionally uncontroverted. In a recent line of cases culminating in Printz v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914 (1997), however, the Supreme Court has imposed limits, either through the Commerce Clause or the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments, on the power of Congress to enact legislation that affects state and local governments. See, e.g., Seminole ...