Opinion ID: 2077878
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did Wilkinson's classified full-status employment under the merit system vest him with a protected property right entitling him to due process and to just-compensation protections?

Text: In granting summary judgment in favor of defendants, the motion justice ruled that Wilkinson had achieved full status in his classified position at the crime lab in 1988, but that the plaintiff's classified status terminated when the legislature [in the 1994 amendments] made all positions of the lab limited appointment positions subject to the approval of the Commission. The motion justice further ruled that, after the 1994 amendments, as a matter of law, plaintiff had no constitutionally protected interest [as a limited-appointment, crime-lab employee]    to which due-process protections attached. [8] She based this conclusion on her belief that the 1994 amendments had stripped Wilkinson of his classified full-status employment at the crime lab because the 1994 crime-lab amendments were a specific-effect statute that superseded the general, earlier-enacted provisions of the merit system. See Casey v.Sundlun, 615 A.2d 481, 483 (R.I.1992) (holding that G.L. 1956 § 43-3-26 embodies a policy of statutory construction that requires courts to give precedence to a specific statute over a general statute when the two are in conflict). This Court reviews the granting of a summary judgment motion on a de novo basis. M & B Realty, Inc. v. Duval, 767 A.2d 60, 63 (R.I.2001) (citing Marr Scaffolding Co. v. Fairground Forms, Inc., 682 A.2d 455, 457 (R.I.1996)). In conducting such a review, we are bound by the same rules and standards as those employed by the trial justice. Id. See Rotelli v. Catanzaro, 686 A.2d 91, 93 (R.I.1996). [A] party who opposes a motion for summary judgment carries the burden of proving by competent evidence the existence of a disputed material issue of fact and cannot rest on allegations or denials in the pleadings or on conclusions or legal opinions. Accent Store Design, Inc. v. Marathon House, Inc., 674 A.2d 1223, 1225 (R.I.1996). Rather, by affidavits or otherwise [the opposing party has] an affirmative duty to set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact. Providence Journal Co. v. Convention Center Authority, 774 A.2d 40, 46 (R.I.2001) (quoting Bourg v. Bristol Boat Co., 705 A.2d 969, 971 (R.I.1998)). We will affirm the granting of a summary judgment if, after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, we conclude that no genuine issue of material fact existed and that the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Woodland Manor III Associates v. Keeney, 713 A.2d 806, 810 (R.I.1998). For the reasons stated below, we hold that, as a matter of law, the motion justice erred when she granted summary judgment in favor of defendants; on the contrary, Wilkinson was entitled to a grant of summary judgment on his constitutional claims because, as a matter of law, the 1994 amendments did not divest him of his classified full-status employment with the state. Under § 36-4-2 the classified service shall comprise all positions in the state service now existing or hereinafter established, except the following specific positions    or hereinafter specifically exempted   . Because neither commission employees nor lab employees were listed in § 36-4-2 when Wilkinson was appointed to his crime-lab job, employees holding these positions served within the state's classified service. Moreover, § 36-4-38 provides in relevant part that [a] classified employee with permanent status may be dismissed by an appointing authority whenever he or she considers the good of the service to be served thereby, stated in writing, with full and sufficient reason, and filed with the personnel administrator.    In every case of dismissal, the appointing authority shall, on or before the effective date thereof give written notice of this action and the reason thereof to the employee and shall file a copy of the notice with the personnel administrator   . (Emphasis added.) See Aniello v. Marcello, 91 R.I. 198, 206, 207, 162 A.2d 270, 274 (1960) (holding that an appointing authority cannot summarily dismiss a classified employee, and that the language ` the good of the service to be served thereby ' in § 36-4-38 has the `effect of limiting the valid exercise of that power to dismiss for cause') (modified by subsequent statutory amendments). Nonclassified employees of URI, however, are under the exclusive control of the commissioner of higher education. See Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education v. Newman, 688 A.2d 1300, 1303 (R.I. 1997). The merit system also provides that [e]very person who shall have twenty (20) years, not necessarily consecutive, of service credit, the credits having been earned in either the classified, nonclassified, or unclassified service of the state or a combination of both, shall be deemed to have acquired full status in the position he or she holds at the time of obtaining twenty (20) years of service credit. Section 36-4-59(a)(1). Nevertheless, this section shall not apply to employees of the stategovernment whose method of appointment and salary and term of office is specified by statute. Section 36-4-59(a)(2)(iii). The defendants argue that, whatever Wilkinson's status was before 1994, the 1994 amendments altered his status because they provided that his method of appointment was henceforth to be one specified by statute, thereby removing him from the rolls of the merit system. It is undisputed, however, that as of 1988 Wilkinson had accumulated twenty years of service credit and that, when he was hired in 1971 and working at the crime lab in 1988, his position there was not statutorily specified. Thus, in 1988 he achieved full status under the merit system in his classified position as a commission employee working at the crime lab. Although the 1994 amendments specified that, effective on the date of passage, employees of the crime lab would be limited-term appointees subject to URI employment rules and practices, the amendments did not alter Wilkinson's preexisting protected status by rendering his previous crime-lab appointment one that was statutorily specified. [9] We first consider whether, as of 1994, Wilkinson possessed a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment under the merit system. A state employee who, under state law or rules promulgated by state officials, has a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment absent sufficient cause for discharge, may demand the procedural protection of due process. Lynch v. Gontarz, 120 R.I. 149, 157, 386 A. 2d 184, 188 (1978); see also Barber v. Exeter-West Greenwich School Committee, 418 A.2d 13, 19-20 (R.I.1980) (holding that a tenured teacher who can be dismissed only for good cause has a legitimate claim of entitlement to his or her position, and may not bedeprived of it without due process of law). The United States Supreme Court has had several opportunities to discuss what constitutes a property right that will entitle its holder to the due-process protections of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Frequently, these issues have arisen in the context of educational institutions that grant tenure to teachers or professors. [10] In Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), the Supreme Court defined what constituted a protected property interest in an employment benefit. Specifically, the high Court stated that: To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. It is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined    [and that property interests] are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law  rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits. Id. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d at 561. [11] Applying these standards to the statutes before us, we note that the state's merit system contains a two-tiered system of state employment. The first tier is the classification of state employment positions. The second tier is the tenure in state employment that an employee achieves after a specified number of years in state service. But see footnote 4, supra. We turn first to the classified service. In applying these constitutional principles to the classified service, it is evident that achieving permanent classified status under the merit system grants to the state employee in question a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment with the state. As a result, an employee who has achieved permanent classified status in his or her employment with the state has a property right in continued government employment and is entitled to due-process protections before he or she can be deprived of that property right. On the other hand, a classified employee is not totally insulated from termination. For example, if the state determines that cause exists to terminate the employee or that it is necessary to lay off, reorganize, or otherwise abolish a classified employee's position, it is entirely possible, and even probable, that such a decision would be upheld for the good of the service  unless the decision was arbitrary, pretextual, or irrational. But a rational, non-pretextual, and non-arbitrary employment decision would provide cause for termination  provided, of course, that procedural due-process rights were duly afforded to the terminated employee. We next examine the effect of achieving full status under § 36-4-59. Once an employee, in any category of state service, has accumulated twenty years of service credit, he or she is provided with even greater protections than those afforded to mere classified employees. A classified full-status employee still may not be fired except for cause. The definition of what constitutes cause, however, is altered by the statute after the employee achieves full status protection. For example, a full-status employee may not be separated from state service because of layoffs or reorganizations. The full-status employee whose position is lost through layoffs or reorganization still shall be retained within the state services in a position of similar grade. Section 36-4-59(a)(2)(ii). Moreover, and more importantly for the case at bar, an employee who achieves full status (classified or otherwise) acquires full status in theposition he or she holds at the time of obtaining twenty (20) years of service credit. Section 36-4-59(a)(1). Although this Court has not had the opportunity to comment directly on whether a government employee's achievement of classified or full status under the merit system creates a property right subject to constitutional protections, we have suggested as much in the past. In the case of Blanchette v. Stone, 591 A.2d 785, 787 (R.I.1991), the Court was called upon to construe § 36-5-7, another provision of the merit system. The plaintiff in Blanchette was a Rhode Island State Police officer, who involuntarily was retired from the state police force. In challenging his retirement, Blanchette argued that he had achieved full-status protection under the merit system, and therefore could be retired only for cause. The Court ultimately held that the Legislature never intended the merit system's full-status protections to apply to state police officers. [12] In so holding, however, the Court stated that § 36-5-7 was never intended to apply to members of the Rhode Island State Police, and without the protections afforded under § 36-5-7, Blanchette acquired no property interest in continued employment that would assure him of due-process protections. Blanchette, 591 A.2d at 787. (Emphasis added.) Thus, in Blanchette, we alluded by negative inference to the fact that a state employee would, in fact, obtain a property interest in continued state employment by achieving full status under the merit system. In addition, the United States Supreme Court's definition of a property right indicates that a state statute can confer a property interest on government employees, thereby entitling those employees to the due-process and just-compensation protections that are found in both the state and federal constitutions. And unlike the seniority rights and other statutory veterans' benefits that were at issue in Brennan v. Kirby, 529 A.2d 633, 641 (R.I.1987), Wilkinson actually had received the classified full-status benefits conferred on him by the state when the legislation in question was enacted. Thus, as of 1988, when Wilkinson completed his twenty years of state service credit and received his full-status certificate, this statutory benefit had matured from a mere gratuity or floating expectancy into a full-blown vested property right. [13] We therefore explicitly hold that achieving full status under the merit system provides state-government employees with a property right in the position and classification that they hold at the time they achieve full status, entitling such employees to due-process and just-compensation protections against any attempted elimination or alteration of their property rights. Since 1988 Wilkinson has possessed a property interest in his classified full-status employment with the state. Thus, he could not have been deprived of that interest without due process of law. Nor can the state take that interest away from him without cause to do so, or, lacking such cause, without paying him just compensation. [14] Consequently, the hearing justice was incorrect when she held thatWilkinson possessed no protected interest in his full-status employment with the state when the Legislature enacted the 1994 amendments.