Title: Roop v. Whitt

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

PRESENT:  Lemons, C.J., Goodwyn, Millette, Mims, and 
McClanahan, JJ., and Russell and Lacy, S.JJ. 
 
BRAD L. ROOP 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OPINION BY 
v. 
Record No. 140836 
  
    
JUSTICE WILLIAM C. MIMS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   February 26, 2015 
J.T. “TOMMY” WHITT, IN HIS 
CAPACITY AS SHERIFF 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY 
J. Howe Brown, Jr., Judge Designate 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether a sheriff’s deputy is 
a local employee for the purposes of Code § 15.2-1512.4. 
I.  BACKGROUND AND MATERIAL PROCEEDINGS BELOW 
Brad L. Roop was Captain of Criminal Investigations in the 
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office (“MCSO”).  In May 2012, an 
employee of the Virginia Department of Forensic Science (“DFS”) 
informed Roop that the laboratory had repeatedly failed to 
detect any controlled substances in evidence submitted by the 
MCSO Street Crimes Unit (“SCU”).  Roop met with Sheriff J.T. 
“Tommy” Whitt because Roop believed that the information from 
DFS could suggest corruption, impropriety, or malfeasance by 
MCSO employees.  Whitt directed Roop to investigate the matter. 
During his investigation, Roop discovered what he 
considered to be troubling irregularities in several cases 
involving controlled substances, domestic violence, and child 
endangerment.  The alleged irregularities included 
 
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misrepresentations to the Commonwealth’s attorney’s office, 
alteration of incident reports, use of a deputy’s brother as a 
confidential informant, and controlled drug buys that failed to 
yield controlled substances. 
On June 23, 2012, Roop reported his findings to Whitt.  On 
June 26, Whitt met with the captain supervising the SCU.  Later 
that day, Whitt met with Roop and informed Roop that his 
discoveries had been sufficiently explained.  Roop disagreed, 
advising Whitt that the evidence contained in Roop’s report 
could not be ignored. 
On June 29, Whitt suspended Roop with pay and informed him 
that Whitt would initiate an internal affairs investigation by 
the Blacksburg Police Department into Roop’s conduct.  Roop was 
never provided with the results of such an investigation, if 
any.  However, Whitt subsequently informed Roop that he 
believed Roop had initiated the SCU investigation for personal 
reasons, including a desire to discredit the SCU’s incumbent 
supervising captain so Roop could command the unit himself.  On 
August 28, Whitt terminated Roop’s employment with the MCSO. 
On December 7, 2012 Roop filed a complaint alleging that 
his termination was impermissible retaliation, in violation of 
Code § 15.2-1512.4, which protects the right of “any local 
employee to express opinions to state or local elected 
officials on matters of public concern.”  In May 2013, he filed 
 
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a motion for leave to amend the complaint and a proposed 
amended complaint pursuant to Rule 1:8.  Whitt opposed Roop’s 
motion.  In July, Roop filed a new amended complaint 
substantially different from the one he proposed in May with 
his motion for leave to amend. 
Whitt filed a demurrer to the July amended complaint and a 
motion to dismiss, arguing that Code § 15.2-1512.4 created no 
right of action.  He further argued that even if the statute 
created a right of action, it did not apply to Roop because he 
was not a local employee. 
The circuit court held a hearing on the demurrer and 
motion to dismiss the July amended complaint.  At the hearing, 
Roop argued that he was a local employee for the purposes of 
Code § 15.2-1512.4 and that he had a right of action under Code 
§ 8.01-221.  He also made an oral motion for leave to amend his 
amended complaint.  The court ruled that neither Code § 8.01-
221 nor Code § 15.2-1512.4 created a cause of action.  It also 
ruled that Roop was not a local employee for the purposes of 
Code § 15.2-1512.4 because sheriffs have broad discretion in 
the hiring and firing of deputies.  The court thereafter 
entered an amended final order sustaining the demurrer, denying 
leave to amend the amended complaint, and granting the motion 
to dismiss. 
We awarded Roop this appeal. 
 
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II.  ANALYSIS 
In one assignment of error, Roop asserts that the circuit 
court erred by ruling that he was not a local employee for the 
purposes of Code § 15.2-1512.4.  He argues that sheriff’s 
deputies are included as local employees under Code §§ 15.2-
1512.2 and 51.1-700.  He also argues that even if sheriffs have 
discretion to terminate their deputies at will, this Court 
recognized a cause of action for termination of employment in 
violation of public policy in Bowman v. State Bank of 
Keysville, 229 Va. 534, 540, 331 S.E.2d 797, 801 (1985).  He 
contends his termination violated the public policy expressed 
in Code § 15.2-1512.4 and therefore is actionable. 
Whether a sheriff’s deputy is a “local employee” as that 
term is used in Code § 15.2-1512.4 is a question of statutory 
interpretation.  We review such questions de novo.  Payne v. 
Fairfax County Sch. Bd., ___ Va. ___, ___, 764 S.E.2d 40, 42 
(2014). 
Code § 15.2-1512.4 provides in relevant part that 
“[n]othing in [Chapter 15 of Title 15.2] shall be construed to 
prohibit or otherwise restrict the right of any local employee 
to express opinions to state or local elected officials on 
matters of public concern, nor shall a local employee be 
subject to acts of retaliation because the employee has 
expressed such opinions.”  The section includes no definition 
 
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of the term “local employee.”  The only such definition in the 
Code is in Code § 51.1-700.  However, the application of that 
definition is expressly limited to Chapter 7 of Title 51.1, a 
chapter dealing with federal social security in a title 
covering pensions, benefits, and retirement.  Code § 51.1-700.  
That subject is not connected to the one before us here, and we 
do not believe the General Assembly intended it to apply to 
Chapter 15 of Title 15.2.  Cf. Prillaman v. Commonwealth, 199 
Va. 401, 405, 100 S.E.2d 4, 7 (1957) ("The general rule is that 
statutes may be considered as in pari materia when they relate 
to the same person or thing, the same class of persons or 
things or to the same subject or to closely connected subjects 
or objects.") 
“When the legislature leaves a term undefined, courts must 
give [it] its ordinary meaning, taking into account the context 
in which it is used.”  American Tradition Inst. v. Rector & 
Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 287 Va. 330, 341, 756 S.E.2d 435, 
441 (2014) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).  
The ordinary meaning of “employee” is “one employed by 
another,” Webster's Third New International Dictionary 743 
(1993), or “[s]omeone who works in the service of another 
person (the employer) under an express or implied contract of 
hire, under which the employer has the right to control the 
 
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details of work performance”.  Black's Law Dictionary 639 (10th 
ed. 2014). 
A sheriff’s deputy is appointed only by the sheriff, who 
may remove a deputy subject only to a few statutory 
limitations, such as those in Code § 15.2-1604.  Code § 15.2-
1603.  Further, the compensation of the sheriff and his or her 
deputies is paid by the Commonwealth, not the locality.1  Code 
§§ 15.2-1609.7 and 15.2-1609.9.  Finally, “[t]here is no 
privity of obligation existing between a deputy sheriff and the 
board of supervisors of a county.  The supervisors . . . have 
no say as to whom the sheriff shall appoint as his deputy; they 
do not prescribe his duties; they have no control over his 
conduct; they have no power to remove him from office nor any 
control over the duration of his term thereof . . . .”  
Rockingham County v. Lucas, 142 Va. 84, 92, 128 S.E. 574, 576 
(1925). 
Accordingly, a sheriff’s deputy is the employee of the 
sheriff, not the local government.  To ascertain whether a 
sheriff’s deputy may be a local employee derivatively, through 
                                                 
1 Local governments may appropriate supplemental 
compensation.  Code § 15.2-1605.1.  They may condition such 
appropriations on the sheriff’s acceptance of certain 
restrictions on the use of the appropriated funds.  See Bailey 
v. Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, 288 Va. 159, 167-68, 762 
S.E.2d 763, 765 (2014). 
 
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the sheriff, we must consider the role of the sheriff as a 
constitutional officer. 
Under the Constitution of Virginia, the General Assembly 
may create or dissolve localities at will.  Va. Const. art. 
VII, § 2.  The legislature may likewise provide by statute for 
a locality’s government and administration.  Id.  A locality 
therefore has no government until one is authorized by the 
General Assembly. 
By contrast, constitutional officers, including sheriffs, 
are creations of the constitution itself.  Va. Const. art. VII, 
§ 4.  Their offices exist, abeyant and unfilled, by virtue of 
constitutional origination from the moment their county or city 
is created by the legislature.  Their offices and powers exist 
independent from the local government and they do not derive 
their existence or their power from it.  Their compensation and 
duties are subject to legislative control, but only by state 
statute and not local ordinance.  Id.; see Carraway v. Hill, 
265 Va. 20, 24, 574 S.E.2d 274, 276 (2003). 
Consequently, “[w]hile constitutional officers may perform 
certain functions in conjunction with” local government, they 
are neither agents of nor subordinate to local government.  Id.  
The local government has no control over their work 
performance.  Similarly, constitutional officers are elected by 
 
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the voters for prescribed terms.  They are neither hired nor 
fired by the locality.  They therefore are not local employees. 
Accordingly, a sheriff’s deputy, who is an employee of the 
sheriff, is not a local employee for the purposes of Code § 
15.2-1512.4.  The circuit court did not err in sustaining 
Whitt’s demurrer. 
In another assignment of error, Roop asserts that the 
circuit court abused its discretion by denying his motion for 
leave to amend the amended complaint.  He argues that Rule 1:8 
requires leave to be liberally granted and that Whitt would not 
have been prejudiced by the amendment.  However, while the 
record reflects that Roop made an oral motion for leave to 
amend the amended complaint, nothing discloses any proffer or 
description of how the amendment would alter the pleading upon 
which the circuit court had ruled.  We therefore cannot review 
the court’s decision to deny leave to amend.  Prince Seating 
Corp. v. Rabideau, 275 Va. 468, 470, 659 S.E.2d 305, 307 (2008) 
(per curiam) (“We cannot review the ruling of a lower court for 
error when the appellant does not bring within the record on 
appeal the basis for that ruling or provide us with a record 
that adequately demonstrates that the court erred.  Our rules 
require the appellant to present a sufficient record on which 
the court can determine whether or not the lower court has 
erred.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 
 
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For these reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the 
circuit court.2 
Affirmed. 
                                                 
2 Roop expressly waived an additional assignment of error 
in which he asserted that circuit court erred in ruling that 
Code § 8.01-221 did not create a cause of action.