Court Opinion

ID: 9407758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-08 21:00:32.737132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:39.841298
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 21-1947     Doc: 65         Filed: 07/07/2023   Pg: 1 of 15

                                           UNPUBLISHED

                              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                  FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 21-1947

        BARBARA ANNETTE SMITH,

                            Plaintiff – Appellant,

                     v.

        COMMISSIONERS OF ST. MARY’S COUNTY, MARYLAND; SHERIFF TIMOTHY
        K. CAMERON, St. Mary’s County Sheriff, In his Official Capacity,

                            Defendants – Appellees.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland at Greenbelt.
        Paula Xinis, District Judge. (8:20-cv-03785-PX)

        Argued: March 9, 2023                                            Decided: July 7, 2023

        Before KING and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges, and Joseph DAWSON III, United
        States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, sitting by designation.

        Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge
        King and Judge Dawson joined.

        ARGUED: Thomas J. Gagliardo, GILBERT EMPLOYMENT LAW, P.C., Silver Spring,
        Maryland, for Appellant. Kevin B. Karpinski, KARPINSKI, CORNBROOKS & KARP,
        P.A., Baltimore, Maryland; Carl N. Zacarias, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
        OF MARYLAND, Annapolis, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Gary M. Gilbert,
        Joseph D. Gebhardt, James A. Hill, Elizabeth A. Wilson, GILBERT EMPLOYMENT
        LAW, P.C., Silver Spring, Maryland; Lenore C. Garon, LAW OFFICE OF LENORE C.
USCA4 Appeal: 21-1947      Doc: 65         Filed: 07/07/2023    Pg: 2 of 15

        GARON, PLLC, Falls Church, Virginia, for Appellant. Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General,
        OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland, for
        Appellee Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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        RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:

               Barbara Smith was fired from her position with the St. Mary’s County State’s

        Attorney’s Office. The County warned her ahead of time that she was being investigated

        for improperly handling confidential information and allowed her to respond to those

        allegations. It then fired her for conduct related to the alleged improper handling. She

        appealed that decision. A review board upheld her termination after a two-day hearing.

        She now argues that the County and the County Sheriff violated her due process rights by

        failing to provide adequate pre- and post-termination procedures. The district court

        dismissed her claims, finding the procedures constitutionally adequate. We agree and

        affirm. The County and Sheriff provided sufficient process to Smith.

        I.     Background

               Barbara Smith was a “merit” employee for the Saint Mary’s County State’s

        Attorney’s Office. The County’s merit employees can be fired only for cause. Following

        a months-long investigation, Smith was fired for insubordination and various policy

        violations.

               Smith first got wind that she might be in trouble in mid-July 2019. She received an

        email from Jaymi Sterling, the Office’s Chief of Staff, telling her she had to meet with

        Sterling and Buffy Giddens, the Chief of the District Court, that day. Smith disobeyed

        Sterling’s order by not meeting with them then. When she finally met them, Sterling and

        Giddens asked her if she had accessed the file of a recent arrestee, Alex Murphy, in a

        confidential government database called “Optiview” and if she had any business reason for

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        doing so. 1 She denied accessing the file and conceded she had no reason to do so. After

        the meeting, Sterling and Giddens notified Smith in writing that she was suspended with

        pay. The notice cited allegations that she improperly shared confidential information and

        warned her that she could be terminated if those allegations were supported.

               Over the next few months, County officials contacted Smith several times about the

        incident. The Sheriff’s Office interviewed her in July, asking her questions “focused on

        unauthorized disclosure.” Appellant’s Reply Brief at 11 n.6. The County emailed her

        twice about ongoing investigations related to the Optiview allegations. She and her lawyer

        also met with several County officials in September. The officials asked her where she

        kept her computer password and why she had delayed the July meeting with Sterling and

        Giddens. They also told her the Sheriff’s Office revoked her Optiview access.

               About a week later, Smith received an email notifying her that she was being fired

        and identifying three reasons for her termination: (1) refusing to meet Sterling and Giddens

        when ordered to in July; (2) violating the County’s policies and procedures by accessing

        Murphy’s file without reason and lying about it; and (3) violating the County’s IT use and

        security policy by keeping her name and password posted to her computer monitor. The

               1
                 Optiview is a database that contains information on criminal defendants. State’s
        Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Office workers need to access it to perform their duties.
        But they are not allowed to access Optiview for non-business reasons.
               Alex Murphy, who had been arrested on assault charges, revealed to his booking
        officer that someone had leaked information to him from this database. This sparked an
        investigation to find the leaker. That investigation produced forensic evidence that Smith’s
        computer was used to access Murphy’s file during working hours and that she was the only
        one to do so without an apparent reason. But, based on the allegations in the complaint,
        Smith did not know any of this when she was first contacted by Sterling.
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        email also noted that Smith could not perform her duties because her Optiview access had

        been revoked.

               Smith did not take her termination lying down. She filed a “grievance” with the

        State Attorney and Director of Human Resources challenging her termination. When this

        was denied, she appealed to the County’s Grievance Review Board.

               The Board held a two-day hearing at which Smith was represented by counsel, could

        present evidence and witnesses, and could cross-examine adverse witnesses. The Board

        reviewed three grounds for Smith’s termination: (1) “Insubordination”; (2) “Violation of

        IT Policy”; and (3) “Access of Murphy Case File; Grievant’s Denial; Database Access.” It

        found that Smith was insubordinate but that this was not an adequate ground for

        termination. It also found that Smith had not violated the IT Policy. Lastly, it found that

        Smith improperly accessed Murphy’s file, lied about it, and—as a result—was

        “appropriately” denied Optiview access. J.A. 38. The Board then affirmed Smith’s

        termination. 2

               Smith sued the St. Mary’s County Commissioners and the Sheriff of St. Mary’s

        County, in his official capacity, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 3 Smith brought ten claims against

               2
                   She appealed the Board’s decision to the County Commissioners, who upheld it.
               3
                  The Sheriff claims he is immune from suit, invoking so-called Eleventh
        Amendment immunity. But we do not reach the immunity issue since he expressly did not
        “insist” on his defense at oral argument and because we hold that he did not violate Smith’s
        due process rights. See Koon v. North Carolina, 50 F.4th 398, 404 n.4 (4th Cir. 2022).

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        Defendants under federal and state law. 4 Only a handful of those claims are now before

        us, all of which relate to alleged due process violations. In Counts I and II, Smith claimed

        that the County gave her insufficient pre-termination procedures. In Counts III and IV,

        Smith challenged her post-termination procedures, arguing she impermissibly bore the

        burden of proof at her Board hearing. And in Counts VII and VIII she alleged that her

        post-termination procedures were inadequate because the Board could not reinstate her.

               The district court granted Defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, rejecting all

        of Smith’s claims. It agreed with Smith that she had a protected property interest in her

        job and so was entitled to due process. But it also held that she had been given all the

        process she was constitutionally entitled to. Smith appeals the dismissal of these claims.

        II.    Discussion

               When a tenured public employee—that is, one with a protected interest in their

        employment—is fired, due process requires both a “very limited” pre-termination hearing

        and a “more comprehensive” post-termination hearing. Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924,

        929 (1997). Smith was a tenured public employee. And she argues the district court erred

        by holding she was afforded sufficient pre-termination procedures. She also asserts that

        her post-termination procedures were inadequate because she bore the burden of proof at

        her hearing and because the Board could not reinstate her.

               4
                 The state-law due-process claims are assessed under the same framework as the
        federal ones. See Vehicle Admin. v. Armacost, 474 A.2d 191, 203 (Md. 1984); City of
        Annapolis v. Rowe, 717 A.2d 976, 977 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1998).
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               We review the district court’s decision de novo, taking all well pleaded facts as true

        and construing them in the light most favorable to Smith. See Chaudhry v. Mobil Oil Corp.,

        186 F.3d 502, 504 (4th Cir. 1999). We generally consider only the complaint. Yet since

        Smith attached several exhibits to her complaint and incorporated them by reference, we

        also consider those. See Occupy Columbia v. Haley, 738 F.3d 107, 116 (4th Cir. 2013)

        (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(c)). To survive, Smith must have adequately pled enough facts

        to plausibly state a claim for relief. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). She

        has not. Even giving Smith every benefit of the doubt, she has not plausibly alleged she

        received constitutionally inadequate pre- or post- termination procedures.

               A.     Defendants     provided     constitutionally    adequate     pre-termination
                      procedures

               A “root requirement” of procedural due process is giving an individual some kind

        of hearing before depriving them of their property. 5 Cleveland Bd. Of Educ. v. Loudermill,

        470 U.S. 532, 542 (1985) (quoting Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 379 (1971)). In

        the public employment context, that hearing need not be elaborate. See id. at 546. It can

        be informal and does not need to “resolve the propriety of the discharge.” Linton v.

        Frederick Cnty. Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs, 964 F.2d 1436, 1439 (4th Cir. 1992). It just needs

        to serve as “an initial check against mistaken decisions.” Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 545.

               5
                 In some “extraordinary” and “unusual” scenarios, deprivations that occur without
        a pre-termination hearing are constitutional, so long as there is adequate post-termination
        process. Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 90–93 (1972) (listing cases). This is not one of
        those scenarios. See Richmond Tenants Org., Inc. v. Kemp, 956 F.2d 1300, 1307 (4th Cir.
        1992); Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 546.
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               This initial check must provide two things: notice and an opportunity to be heard.

        The employee must know the nature of the charges against them, either because they were

        directly informed of the charges or context makes the charges clear. See Riccio v. Cnty. of

        Fairfax, 907 F.2d 1459, 1465 (4th Cir. 1990); see also Linton, 964 F.2d at 1440. And while

        an employee has no right to know all the evidence against them, they do have to know

        enough so that they can identify the conduct giving rise to their termination. Linton, 964

        F.2d at 1440. The employee must also be allowed to respond to those charges and explain

        why they should not be fired. Id. Essentially, an employer satisfies due process at this

        stage by informing an employee why they are being fired and letting them make some

        argument against it.

               Smith had adequate pre-termination notice. She was fired in early October for three

        reasons: (1) violating the County’s policies and procedures by accessing Murphy’s file

        without reason and lying about it; (2) being insubordinate by refusing to meet Sterling and

        Giddens about the Murphy incident when ordered to in July; and (3) violating the County’s

        IT use and security policy by keeping her name and password posted to her computer

        monitor (which came to light during the Murphy-related investigation). She was put on

        notice of the first grounds in mid-July when she was asked if she improperly accessed

        Murphy’s file and then received written notice that she was suspended for allegedly leaking

        confidential information. From that point forward she knew there was an investigation into

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        her alleged mishandling of Murphy’s Optiview data that could end in termination. 6 She

        also knew from the September meeting with County officials that this investigation was

        looking into her July refusal to meet her supervisors and her cybersecurity practices—the

        remaining grounds for her termination. So she had enough information to understand why

        she was being fired and formulate a response to those grounds before she was terminated.

        See Riccio, 907 F.2d at 1465; Linton, 964 F.2d at 1440.

               Smith was also given adequate opportunity to respond.            She met with her

        supervisors twice and was questioned about each ground for her termination. See J.A. 52

        (“[Her supervisors] asked Plaintiff whether she had a reason to access Alex Murphy’s file

        on Optiview. Plaintiff responded . . .); Appellant’s Reply Brief at 11 (“[I]t is true that

        [Smith] was asked if she had accessed a confidential file . . .”); J.A. 54–55 (“Plaintiff was

        asked [by supervisors] why she didn’t meet with [her supervisors] on July 12, 2019, and

        she replied . . .); J.A. 55 (“Plaintiff was questioned [by supervisors] about where she kept

        her computer password; and she replied . . .). While not required, one of those times she

        was even represented by counsel. Smith thus had plenty of opportunity to argue against

        her termination. See Riccio, 907 F.2d at 1465; Linton, 964 F.2d at 1440.

               So Defendants satisfied their minimal, pre-termination, burden. Smith was aware

        of the conduct she was being investigated for and she knew that investigation could end in

        her termination. She was also allowed to explain why she should not be fired. As a result,

               6
                A fact she was reminded of when interviewed by the Sheriff’s Office later that
        month. While Smith argues that certain portions of the Sheriff’s report cannot be
        considered as true, she herself admits the Office asked her questions about disclosing
        Optiview information without authorization.
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        she received all the pre-termination procedures she was due. And the district court was

        right to dismiss her claims to the contrary.

               B.     Defendants         provided   constitutionally   adequate   post-termination
                      procedures

               A tenured public employee who is fired is due a post-termination hearing that is

        “more comprehensive” than the pre-termination hearing. Gilbert, 520 U.S. at 929. To

        determine whether the employee was due more process than she received, courts balance

        the private interest at stake and the “probative value, if any” of any demanded additional

        safeguards against the Government’s interest in not providing them. Mathews v. Eldridge,

        424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976).

               Smith received extensive post-termination process. She was afforded a two-day

        hearing before the Board during which she was represented by counsel, could present

        evidence and witnesses, and could cross-examine adverse witnesses. The Board then

        issued an appealable, written opinion.         That opinion was affirmed by the Town

        Commissioners.

               Smith challenges the sufficiency of these procedures on two grounds: (1) she bore

        the burden of proof before the Board; and (2) the process was a “sham” because the Board

        could not reinstate her. Appellant’s Reply Brief at 15. In other words, she demands two

        new safeguards: allocating the burden of proof to the employer and a more powerful Board.

        See Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335. Yet she has not plausibly alleged that she was deprived of

        either and so her claims fail.

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                      1.     The burden of proof

                Smith asserts that the Board impermissibly forced her to prove by a preponderance

        of the evidence that she was unjustifiably fired. For support, she points to an email from

        her former Director of Human Resources telling her as much and to County policies

        enacted after her hearing affirmatively allocating the burden of proof to the employer. She

        says that the allegedly misplaced burden of proof violated her due process.

                We reject her argument because it is implausible that Smith bore the burden of proof

        at her Board hearing. The Board found that: (1) Smith should be reprimanded because it

        found her insubordinate “by a preponderance of the evidence”; (2) Smith should not be

        fired for violating the County’s IT Policy because the record “fails to demonstrate [a

        violation] by a preponderance of the evidence”; and (3) Smith was justifiably fired because

        the Board found “by a preponderance of the documentary evidence” that she accessed the

        Murphy file without a valid reason, lied about it, and thus her Optiview access was

        “appropriately” revoked. J.A. 37–38. 7 In each finding, the Board required a preponderance

        of the evidence support the reason for termination. But if Smith bore the burden as she

        claims, the Board would have required a preponderance of the evidence support her defense

        instead. 8

                We consider the Board’s written decision because Smith attached it to her
                7

        complaint. See Occupy Columbia, 738 F.3d at 116.
                8
                 Take the Board’s second finding as an example. Smith prevailed before the Board
        on this issue. If she bore the burden of proof, the Board would have had to find that the
        record affirmatively demonstrated that there was no violation of the IT policy. But that’s
        (Continued)
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               To be clear, Smith plausibly alleged that Human Resources told her beforehand she

        had the burden of proof. But that is not the purported due process violation. Smith claims

        her rights were violated because the Board itself assigned her the burden at her hearing.

        Yet Smith attached the Board’s written decision to her complaint revealing she did not.

        Even at this early stage, we cannot turn a blind eye to reality—particularly when the

        plaintiff herself provides it for us. So, based on Smith’s own allegations, it is implausible

        Smith bore the burden of proof at the hearing and, likewise, implausible her due process

        rights were violated in this way. 9

                      2.      The Board’s power

               Smith next argues that her Board hearing offered insufficient post-termination due

        process because the Board could not reinstate her. Smith needed access to Optiview to do

        her job. So, as Smith tells it, without access, she could not be reinstated. The Sheriff

        not what the Board found. Instead, it found that the record failed to establish a violation
        of the policy. And that means the County, not Smith, bore the burden of proof.
               9
                 This is not to suggest that had the Board placed the burden of proof on her, it would
        have violated the Constitution. We have never held due process requires the employer bear
        the burden of proof when firing an employee. And we are skeptical that it does. See, e.g.,
        United States v. Santoro, 866 F.2d 1538, 1544 (4th Cir. 1989) (“Undoubtedly, Congress
        may alter the burden of proof in a civil proceeding as it sees fit, without constitutional
        implications.”); Lavine v. Milne, 424 U.S. 577, 585 (1976) (“Outside the criminal law area,
        where special concerns attend, the locus of the burden of persuasion is normally not an
        issue of federal constitutional moment.”); Rockwell v. Comm’r, 512 F.2d 882, 887 (9th Cir.
        1975) (“Rockwell argues that to impose the burden of persuasion on him is to deny him
        due process of law. The argument borders on the frivolous.”); James v. City of Houston,
        48 F. App’x 916, 916 & n.10 (5th Cir. 2002) (“[N]ot a single federal court of appeals has
        held that shifting the burden of proof in such a review proceeding violates the Fourteenth
        Amendment's Due Process Clause.”); Benavidez v. City of Albuquerque, 101 F.3d 620,
        626-28 (10th Cir. 1996); Chung v. Park, 514 F.2d 382, 386–87 (3d Cir. 1975). Yet we
        need not go so far as to decide that today.
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        removed her access. And while the Board reviewed that decision, Smith claims the Board

        could not restore her Optiview access. She thus concludes that her post-termination

        proceedings were a sham because they could never have ended in her reinstatement even

        if the Board agreed with her.

               To be more specific, Smith does not allege the Board lacked authority to restore

        Optiview access and reinstate her. She says the Board had the power to do exactly that. 10

        Instead, she advances a nuanced theory: while the Board could restore her Optiview access

        and reinstate her, it believed it could not. Procedurally this amounts to the same thing. In

        either case, the proceedings would be, in Smith’s view, a sham. She cites two things to

        support her argument that the Board believed it could not restore her Optiview access: (1)

        the County represented to the district court, after the Board’s judgment, that the Board

        could not override the Sheriff’s Optiview decision; and (2) the Board did not affirmatively

        indicate that it had the power to restore her access.

               These alleged facts cannot nudge Smith’s claim that the Board could not have

        reinstated her if it wanted to over the plausibility threshold. See Ashcroft, 556 U.S. at 681.

        To start, her complaint contains scant support for this “belief” theory. It alleges that “[t]he

        County now takes the position that it could not consider a lesser penalty because the

        Sheriff’s ostensibly [sic] revocation of Plaintiff’s authorization to access the Optiview

                Smith alleges that only the State’s Attorney’s Office has the power to revoke her
               10

        Optiview access. She also acknowledges that the Board has authority over the State’s
        Attorney’s Office. Smith makes similar claims in her brief on appeal.
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        database cannot be overridden.” 11 J.A. 61. But this was added to the complaint in response

        to the County’s motion to dismiss Smith’s original complaint. So it is her interpretation of

        the County’s post-hoc litigating position. And that position tells us next to nothing about

        how the Board viewed its role when deciding. 12 Cf. Dep't of Homeland Sec. v. Regents of

        the Univ. of California, 140 S. Ct. 1891, 1908–09 (2020) (explaining why courts generally

        disregard justifications for agency action presented during post-hoc litigation). This

        allegation thus does not make Smith’s claim plausible, particularly since the Board gave

        one huge indication that it thought it could restore her Optiview access: it reviewed the

        merits of the Sheriff’s revocation decision.        J.A. 38 (Board determining “by a

        preponderance of the evidence” that the revocation was “appropriate”).

               True, the Board did not expressly state it could reverse the Sheriff’s decision.

        Indeed, it did not say it could reverse any decision it reviewed. Yet we simply cannot infer

        from the Board’s silence that it thought its proceedings were purposeless. Doing so would

        defy both common sense and the facts before us. Cf. Koon, 50 F.4th at 409 (explaining

        that we can only draw inferences that are “reasonably probable given the facts”). Smith

        has thus not plausibly alleged that the Board could not reinstate her. So her argument that

        she was due a more powerful board fails.

               11
                 The complaint also alleges that the Board’s review failed “to provide any
        opportunity for full remedial relief of reinstatement.” J.A. 71. This cryptic statement does
        not support Smith’s “belief” theory.
               12
                  We also question whether Smith is accurately characterizing the County’s
        position in the district court. See Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 19, at 25–26 (April 22,
        2021). And we note the County does not represent on appeal that the Board could not have
        reversed the Sheriff.
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                                       *             *              *

               Public employees with a property interest in their jobs cannot be fired without some

        process. Yet the process due is not unlimited. Smith was given notice of the charges

        against her and an opportunity to respond to them before she was fired. She could then

        appeal her termination to a review board where she was represented by counsel, could

        present evidence and witnesses, and could cross-examine the witnesses against her. She

        did not carry the burden of proof during that appeal. She also has not plausibly alleged that

        the Board could not reinstate her. Here, due process requires nothing more. The district

        court is

                                                                                       AFFIRMED.

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