Cecil v. Am. Fed'n of St.

312 A.3d 841

261 Md.App. 228

261 Md.App. 228

Dale CECIL

v.AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES

No. 2049, Sept. Term, 2022

Appellate Court of Maryland.

March 28, 2024

Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Case No. 24-C-22-003835, Lawrence Fletcher-Hill, Judge.

Argued by James L. Ellison, II, Ellison Sadri, LLC, Annapolis, MD, on brief, for Appellant.

Argued by David Maher (David Gray Wright, Kahn, Smith & Collins, P.A., Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellee.

Argued before: Arthur, Albright, Alexander Wright, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Albright, J.

This appeal comes to us from the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. In essence, it presents a dispute between an employee, Appellant, Dale Cecil ("Mr. Cecil"), and his union, Appellee, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Maryland Council 3, AFL-CIO ("AFSCME," "the Union"). The dispute arises out of Mr. Cecil’s allegedly wrongful termination by his employer, the Maryland State Highway Administration ("SHA"), and the Union’s handling of Mr. Cecil’s administrative appeal from that termination. After Mr. Cecil’s administrative appeal was dismissed, Mr. Cecil sued the Union in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging that the Union had breached its duty of fair representation to him by failing to file his administrative appeal on time.

Upon conceding that the U.S. District Court likely did not have jurisdiction over the state Union, Mr. Cecil voluntarily dis- missed his federal complaint. He then reasserted his fair representation claim as a state-law claim in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. As for limitations, Mr. Cecil claimed that it was tolled by 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d) while his claims were in federal court. Mr. Cecil also asserted a claim for negligence. The circuit court dismissed Mr. Cecil’s complaint, concluding that the fair representation claim was untimely¹ and that his negligence claim was abrogated by Maryland’s fair representation statute. Mr. Cecil then timely filed this appeal.

[1] Mr. Cecil presents the following questions, which we have rephrased:²

1. Did Mr. Cecil timely file his state court complaint against the Union for breach of the duty of fair representation?

2. Does breach of the duty of fair representation under Md. Code, State Pers. & Pens. § 3-306 (repealed 2023) ("SP&P § 3-306 (2022)"), as this statute existed before its repeal, abrogate common-law negligence?³

We affirm the judgment of the circuit court for the reasons explained below.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Before this cause of action arose, Mr. Cecil was a Maryland State employee and a member of AFSCME, the exclusive union for certain Maryland State employees.

Mr. Cecil first sought the Union’s assistance in representing him upon his termination from a position in the State Highway Administration ("SHA") (a unit of the Maryland Department of Transportation ("MDOT")). He was terminated for allegedly failing to comply with a mandatory alcohol test, so he sought to appeal his termination pursuant to MDOT employee procedures. The Union represented Mr. Cecil in a settlement conference with SHA, but the parties were unable to reach a resolution. Following the settlement conference, Mr. Cecil decided to continue with his appeal to the OAH. The OAH dismissed the appeal on December 22, 2021, concluding Mr. Cecil’s administrative wrongful termination claim.

Just under six months later, Mr. Cecil brought a case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging that the Union failed to timely file his appeal to the OAH.⁴ His original complaint in the U.S. District Court ("the original federal complaint," "the original complaint"), filed June 17, 2022, alleged one count of breach of the duty of fair representation. Mr. Cecil contended that by failing to timely file his wrongful termination appeal, the Union had breached its duty of fair representation. Given that Mr. Cecil cited the Labor Management Relations Act ("LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 185⁵ as the basis for his claim, federal jurisdiction was grounded on the presence of a federal question. The Union filed a motion to dismiss Mr. Cecil’s complaint, stating that since it was a state public union, the federal duty of fair representation did not apply to it.

Another month later, Mr. Cecil filed an amended complaint ("the amended federal complaint," "the amended complaint"). This complaint alleged two counts of breach of the duty of fair representation—one count under federal law, LMRA, 29 U.S.C. § 185 .and one count under state law, SP&P § 3-306 (2022).⁶ This complaint continued to allege federal question jurisdiction (by citing the LMRA, 29 U.S.C. § 185) but added a paragraph stating, "AFSCME is a labor organization within the meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 152(5)⁷ and/or Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § [5-120(a)]." (emphasis added) (footnotes added).

Eventually, Mr. Cecil conceded that the Union’s liability under the LMRA was "unlikely," and he moved to voluntarily dismiss both the federal and state claims. His voluntary dismissal stated that it was "pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) & (d)⁸ and Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(i)[.]⁹" (footnotes added). The federal court approved the voluntary dismissal without prejudice.

Before his voluntary dismissal was even filed in federal court, Mr. Cecil filed a new complaint ("the state complaint") in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. His state complaint repeated his state-law claim for breach of the duty of fair representation and added one count of negligence. At the time of the alleged breach, the Maryland Code provided an administrative remedy for a union’s breach of its duty of fair representation. That remedy was available through the Maryland State Labor Relations Board ("SLRB").¹⁰ The SLRB was "responsible for administering and enforcing certain provisions of" the State Personnel and Pensions title, including "investigat[ing] and tak[ing] appropriate action in response to complaints of unfair labor practices and lockouts." SP&P § 3-205 (2022) ("Powers and duties of Board"). The Maryland Code also provides a judicial cause of action for a union’s breach of its duty of fair representation in Courts and Judicial Proceedings, Section 5-120 ("CJP § 5-120") (providing for a six-month statute of limitations).¹¹ Mr. Cecil did not clarify in his state complaint under which statute he was asserting his fair representation claim. However, both parties agree that because AFSCME was the exclusive representative of certain Maryland employees, including Mr. Cecil, the Union owed Mr. Cecil a duty of fair representation under Maryland law.¹²

The Union moved to dismiss the state complaint for failure to state a claim under Maryland Rule 2-322(b).¹³ The Union contended that Mr. Cecil had filed his fair representation claim outside the six-month limitations period and that Mr. Cecil had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. For its limitations argument, the Union argued that because the federal court never had jurisdiction over Mr. Cecil’s federal fair representation claim, limitations on his state-law claim was never tolled. The federal court never had original jurisdiction, according to the Union, because a fair representation claim will not lie under the LMRA against a state union. See Adams v. Am. Fed'n of State, Cnty. & Mun. Emps. Int'l, 167 F. Supp. 3d 730, 741 (D. Md. 2016) (emphasizing that the LMRA does not apply to employees of state unions). Because the federal court did not have original jurisdiction, the Union argued, the federal court also did not have supplemental jurisdiction over Mr. Cecil’s state-law fair representation claim. The Union also argued that Mr. Cecil’s causes of action for fair representation and/or negligence accrued earlier than December 17, 2021, so that Mr. Cecil’s original federal complaint, filed on June 17, 2022, was already untimely under the six-month limitations period in CJP § 5-120(b) (establishing the statute of limitations for the judicial cause of action as six months).

The Union further asserted that the tolling provision of 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d) would not have rendered Mr. Cecil’s fair representation claim timely because he had voluntarily dismissed the fair representation claim in federal court. The Union also claimed that Mr. Cecil’s amended federal complaint did not relate back to his original federal complaint for purposes of § 1367(d) tolling, leading again to the conclusion that his state-law fair representation claim was outside the six-month limitations period.

[2] The Union also argued in its motion to dismiss that Maryland’s breach of the duty of fair representation statutes abrogate, or preempt,¹⁴ Maryland’s common-law negligence. The Union contended that it only owes its members a duty of fair representation, so its members could only bring a claim for breach of the duty of fair representation, not a claim for negligence.¹⁵

Finally, the Union argued that Mr. Cecil was required to exhaust his administrative remedies before bringing a judicial action. The Union claimed that the SLRB is the primary forum for unfair labor practice claims and that statutory breach of the duty of fair representation is an unfair labor practice. Therefore, the Union asserted that the administrative remedies for a breach of the duty of fair representation were the primary remedies, rather than concurrent, and Mr. Cecil should have exhausted these administrative remedies before pursuing the instant judicial action.¹⁶

Mr. Cecil filed an opposition to the Union’s motion to dismiss. He contended that under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d), the filing of his state-law fair representation claim in federal court tolled limitations, pausing the running of the limitations period until he dismissed his federal complaint. Because limitations had been tolled, Mr. Cecil argued, his state-law claim (as it appeared in his state complaint) had been filed within the six-month limitations period for fair...