UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21-1918

MICHELE WILLIAMS,

Plaintiff − Appellant,

v.

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY; DEWAYNE WICKHAM, in his personal 

capacity,

Defendants – Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. 

George L. Russell, III, District Judge. (1:19−cv−00005−GLR)

Argued: September 16, 2022 Decided: October 13, 2022

Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

Question certified to the Court of Appeals of Maryland by unpublished order.

ARGUED: Daniel Edward Kenney, DK ASSOCIATES, LLC, Chevy Chase, Maryland, 

for Appellant. Ann M. Sheridan, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF 

MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Morris E. Fischer, 

MORRIS E. FISCHER, LLC, Silver Spring, Maryland, for Appellant. Brian E. Frosh, 

Attorney General, Catherine A. Bledsoe, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. 

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ORDER

PER CURIAM:

In this appeal, Michele Williams challenges the district court’s grant of Morgan 

State University’s motion to dismiss. Because the determinative issue hinges on a novel 

question of Maryland state law, we certify the following question to the Court of Appeals 

of Maryland:

Does the waiver of sovereign immunity for “tort action[s]” in the Maryland 

Tort Claims Act, Md. Code Ann., State Gov’t § 12-104(a)(1), extend to 

federal statutory claims, including those where the alleged harm is wrongful 

termination in retaliation for whistleblowing?

We acknowledge that the Court of Appeals of Maryland may reformulate this question. 

Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 12-604. 

I.

The Amended Complaint alleges these facts:

Between 2014 and 2017, Williams worked as Director of Broadcast Operations at 

Morgan State University, where she was responsible for the oversight and management of 

the University’s radio and television stations. In the lead-up to Baltimore’s 2016 mayoral 

election, Williams organized a debate between the candidates. When the incumbent 

Democratic candidate, Catherine Pugh, could no longer attend, Dean DeWayne Wickham 

instructed Williams to cancel the debate. Wickham’s instruction conflicted with prior 

guidance that non-attending candidates be given on-air interviews to replace debate time, 

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and Williams alleges that Wickham canceled the debate at Pugh’s request. Wickham also 

allegedly voiced displeasure when Williams granted requests for airtime to Republican and 

Green Party candidates, threatening that things would “not end well” for Williams. J.A. 

20. Williams believed Wickham’s actions violated the Hatch Act, Federal 

Communications Commission regulations, and other state and federal laws, and she 

complained to the University. 

Williams also repeatedly complained to Wickham and other University leaders that

Morgan State was intentionally including inflated expense figures in reports to state and 

federal agencies to secure larger grants and “pad the University’s funding.” J.A. 21. 

Williams alleges that her complaints about the 2016 mayoral election and the misreporting 

of funds led to her 2017 termination.

Williams brought wrongful-termination and defamation claims against the 

University and Wickham in state court. She also pursued federal whistleblower claims 

under the National Defense Authorization Act, 41 U.S.C. § 4712, and the American 

Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Pub. L. No. 111-5, § 1553, 123 Stat. 115, 297–302 

(2009). After exhausting her administrative remedies with the appropriate federal 

agencies, Williams amended her complaint to allege federal whistleblower-retaliation

claims. The University removed the action to the U.S. District Court for the District of 

Maryland. 

On the University’s motion, the district court dismissed Williams’s suit, holding 

that her federal claims were barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity. Williams v. 

Morgan State Univ., No. GLR-19-5, 2019 WL 4752778, at *5–6 (D. Md. Sept. 30, 2019). 

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Williams appealed, and we vacated the district court’s dismissal of Williams’s federal 

claims in an unpublished opinion. Williams v. Morgan State Univ., 850 F. App’x 172, 174

(4th Cir. 2021). We concluded the University’s Eleventh Amendment immunity didn’t

apply under the circumstances but remanded for consideration of whether Maryland’s state 

sovereign immunity barred Williams’s claims. Id. at 173–74. That immunity is “broader” 

than Eleventh Amendment immunity and isn’t waived when a state removes a suit to 

federal court. Id. at 174. 

On remand, the district court again dismissed Williams’s federal claims, holding 

that Maryland hadn’t waived its sovereign immunity for federal statutory causes of action. 

Williams v. Morgan State Univ., No. GLR-19-5, 2021 WL 3144890, at *6 (D. Md. July 26, 

2021). This appeal followed. 

While neither party has moved for certification, we raised the possibility at oral 

argument and both parties agreed certification would be appropriate. 

II.

The Maryland Uniform Certification of Questions of Law Act permits the Court of 

Appeals of Maryland to answer a question of law certified by this court when (1) the answer 

“may be determinative of an issue in pending litigation” and (2) there is no existing state 

“appellate decision, constitutional provision, or statute” that controls. Md. Code Ann., Cts. 

& Jud. Proc. § 12-603. Both criteria are satisfied here. 

First, the question of whether the “tort action” waiver in the Maryland Tort Claims 

Act (“MTCA”) covers Williams’s federal statutory claims will determine whether those

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claims can proceed. The University is an instrumentality of the state, Md. Code Ann., 

Educ. § 14-101(a)(2), to which Maryland’s sovereign immunity applies unless validly 

abrogated by Congress or waived by the state, see Passaro v. Virginia, 935 F.3d 243, 247 

(4th Cir. 2019). 

Williams concedes that neither the National Defense Authorization Act nor the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act abrogates Maryland’s sovereign immunity. 

Instead, she argues that the Maryland General Assembly waived immunity for her claims 

through the “tort action” waiver in the MTCA:

Subject to the exclusions and limitations in this subtitle and notwithstanding 

any other provision of law, the immunity of the State and of its units is 

waived as to a tort action, in a court of the State, to the extent provided under 

paragraph (2) of this subsection.

Md. Code Ann., State Gov’t § 12-104(a)(1).

*

The district court held that the MTCA’s waiver didn’t encompass Williams’s federal 

whistleblower claims, concluding that “the phrase ‘tort action’ has an ordinary meaning 

and it does not include federal statutory causes of action.” Williams, 2021 WL 3144890, 

at *6 (citing Bd. of Educ. of Balt. Cnty. v. Zimmer-Rubert, 973 A.2d 233, 241 (Md. 2009)). 

The sole issue on appeal is whether that conclusion was correct.

Second, there is no conclusive state appellate precedent or statute that controls. The 

MTCA doesn’t define “tort action.” And while some cases from the Court of Appeals of 

* Paragraph (2) limits liability to $400,000 per claimant for injuries arising from a 

single incident or occurrence and sets aggregate limits on liability arising from “intentional 

tortious acts or omissions or a violation of a constitutional right committed by a law 

enforcement officer.” Id. § 12-104(a)(2). 

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Maryland suggest “tort action” should be read broadly, the Court of Appeals has never 

addressed the specific question of whether Section 12-104’s waiver covers federal 

statutory claims.

For example, Williams cites Lee v. Cline, in which the Court of Appeals determined 

that a separate provision of the MTCA, which grants qualified immunity to state personnel 

for “tortious act[s] or omission[s],” extends to claims of state constitutional violations and 

intentional torts. 863 A.2d 297, 302 n.1, 303 (Md. 2004). The Court of Appeals 

emphasized that the text of the MTCA has no exceptions for intentional or constitutional 

torts and stated its “reluctan[ce] to recognize exceptions in a statute when there is no basis 

for the exceptions in the statutory language.” Id. at 304. But as the University argues, Lee 

involved claims brought under state rather than federal law and thus doesn’t resolve the 

issue before us. 

Other cases discussed by the parties similarly don’t control. See, e.g., Espina v. 

Jackson, 112 A.3d 442, 450 (Md. 2015) (damages cap in Maryland’s Local Government 

Tort Claims Act, Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-303(a), which applies to claims 

based on “tortious acts and omissions” of local government employees, extends to state 

constitutional torts); Green v. N.B.S., Inc., 976 A.2d 279, 286–88 (Md. 2009) (non-MTCA 

statutory damages cap for “victim[s] of tortious conduct” applies to a claim brought under 

Maryland’s Consumer Protection Act); Lopez v. Md. State Highway Admin., 610 A.2d 778, 

779 (Md. 1992) (plaintiff bringing claim against state agency under Maryland’s wrongful 

death statute was required to comply with the procedural requirements of the MTCA).

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We believe this appeal raises a question of Maryland law for which there is no 

controlling precedent. And we have said that “a state’s highest court is entitled to say what 

that state’s law is on the question of consent to suit in federal court.” Lee-Thomas v. Prince 

George’s Cnty. Pub. Schs., 666 F.3d 244, 252 (4th Cir. 2012). Given the weighty concerns

of state sovereign immunity at issue and our obligation to respect the “sovereign dignity” 

of the states, Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 715 (1999), we believe whether Maryland has 

waived immunity for Williams’s claims is best answered by the Court of Appeals of 

Maryland.

III.

Accordingly, we hereby ORDER: (1) that the question stated above be certified to 

the Court of Appeals of Maryland for answer; (2) that the Clerk of this Court forward to 

the Court of Appeals of Maryland, under the official seal of this Court, a copy of this Order, 

together with the original copies of the record before this Court to the extent requested by 

the Court of Appeals of Maryland; and (3) that the Clerk of this Court fulfill any request 

for all or part of the record simply upon notification from the Clerk of Court of the Court 

of Appeals of Maryland. 

QUESTION CERTIFIED

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