Opinion ID: 2049012
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Allen W. Cartwright, Jr.

Text: Allen W. Cartwright, Jr., an African-American male, was an employee of WSSC for more than six years. Beginning in February 2004, Cartwright served as Chief of Customer Care, a position responsible for overseeing WSSC's Infrastructure Maintenance and Customer Service Departments. According to Cartwright, in September 2005, a supervisor asked him to transfer back to being Chief of Mission Support, a position he occupied earlier in his career at WSSC, because the General Manager of WSSC did not want African-Americans in management positions. Following his refusal to accept the demotion, Cartwright was terminated from WSSC on 3 October 2005. In response to his termination, on 6 September 2006, Cartwright filed, in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County, a complaint against WSSC premised upon violations of § 42(a) and PGCC §§ 2-186 and 2-222. WSSC filed a motion to dismiss and a motion for summary judgment on substantially the same grounds as those asserted in its motions to dismiss Sillers's complaint and for summary judgment on Phillips's retaliation complaint, namely, that § 42(a) did not apply to WSSC because WSSC is a State agency and not a person. After initially denying WSSC's motions to dismiss and for summary judgment, the Circuit Court granted WSSC's motion for reconsideration of the court's denial of summary judgment. Upon reconsideration, the Circuit Court, on 16 July 2008, granted WSSC's motion for summary judgment, agreeing with WSSC's premise that WSSC is not a person under the provisions of Article 49B § 42. In the alternative, the court held that any interpretation of § 42(a) to include WSSC would imbue the underlying County Code provisions with improper extraterritorial impact, rendering them unconstitutional general laws. Cartwright noted timely an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. While the appeal was pending in that court, we issued a writ of certiorari, on our initiative, 406 Md. 744, 962 A.2d 371 (2008), in order to consider whether the use of the term person in § 42(a) includes State agencies, such as WSSC. Because Sillers's and Cartwright's appeals presented the same legal question, we consolidated them for argument upon motion of the parties. As noted supra, following initial oral argument, we ordered the parties to rebrief and reargue the appeal to address the three questions we directed be addressed in Phillips.