Opinion ID: 2091176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Court of Special Appeals Remand (19 December 2002)

Text: The Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion filed on 19 December 2002, weighed in on the 30 day notice provision of § 11-106(b), taking into account our opinion in Geiger II. The intermediate appellate court identified its task as deciding [w]hen did the [SDAT] acquire knowledge sufficient to order an investigation of the conduct that ultimately resulted in the termination of [Reier]. The appellate court panel prefaced its review of the procedural history and facts of the case by noting that if the SDAT acquired adequate notice in early August 1996, as alleged by Reier, the termination would have to be rescinded. Obfuscating the court's analysis of the question before it, however, was the fact that the chronology set forth [by the ALJ's factual findings] suggests  but does not definitively establish  that prior to September 3, 1996, Messrs. Norris and White went to the property [sic] mentioned on the mislaid permits and discovered that Reier had not noted the improvements on the permits even though he had claimed to have been on the premises. [12] If Norris or White actually had checked Reier's field cards to determine if he had noted any of the improvements after Reier had claimed to have visited the properties, the panel hypothecated, then Reier's supervisors would have possessed, at that point, sufficient knowledge to investigate Reier for derogation of his duties. Because this realization would have occurred before Reier reported that his field work was complete on 3 September 1996, the 7 October termination would have fallen outside of the statutorily prescribed 30 day period for the proper administration of the statutory investigative and disciplinary processes in this case. The Court of Special Appeals ultimately resolved that it could not so conclude because neither the initial ALJ, M. Gayle Hafner, nor ALJ Spencer made an explicit determination of when Norris or White examined Reier's field cards. Because of the ambiguous chronology established in the earlier administrative decisions, the appellate court panel noted that the facts as found, when alternatively viewed in a light most favorable to either party, would allow either party to prevail. The court noted that it was possible to conclude that Norris and White, prior to 3 September 1996, were aware of Reier's omission from the field cards of the improvements described in the misplaced building permits and that Jack Burgesen, another assessor in the Carroll County office, had audited one of Reier's assigned properties, at White's direction, on 4 September. Conversely, the record also supported a contrary conclusion that Norris and White only became aware of Reier's deficient performance upon their field inspection of the building permit properties on 9 September 1996. The intermediate appellate court opined that the date that SDAT acquired knowledge sufficient to order an investigation into whether Reier had been properly performing his field work was when the employer discovered (1) that improvements (mentioned on the misplace[d] permits) had been performed and (2) that Reier had visited the premises but had failed to note on SDAT's field cards that the improvements had been completed. The ambiguity of the ALJ's fact findings, however, did not determine with certainty when the critical knowledge noted above was acquired by the SDAT. Accordingly, the court remanded the case for a determination by the ALJ whether the SDAT acquired the critical knowledge prior to 7 September 1996, which, if so, would require rescission of Reier's termination.