Court Opinion

ID: 9487524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:19:24.197154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:20.137320
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the body of Part III of the majority opinion, which holds that the district court’s dismissal of Dionne’s second section 1983 claim was proper because he did not have a property interest in the continued existence of his job. Having said that, I emphasize that I do not agree with and dissent from footnote 15 to Part III of the majority opinion. That footnote, purely dicta, suggests to the district court an avenue for it to find damages for violation of a cause *686of action the majority has, in that same Part III, found to be non-existent. I doubt that the decision should go so far to justify the additional damages which are its raison d’etre.
I do not agree, moreover, that Dionne should not be barred from seeking additional remedies in federal district court for his initial termination. I therefore respectfully dissent from Part II of the majority opinion and, as well, from a significant part of the result.
The majority states that a state-court section 1988 claim “could conceivably, but not necessarily, have provided all the relief available in the state’s administrative proceeding.” Maj. op. at 683. I differ with this statement only in that I believe Dionne could certainly have received all the remedies provided at the administrative proceeding, reinstatement and backpay, in a state-court section 1983 action. See, e.g., Maryland National Capital Park & Planning Comm’n v. Crawford, 307 Md. 1, 511 A.2d 1079 (1986) (state section 1983 action affirming an award of compensatory damages, a mandatory injunction to transfer the plaintiff to the position which she was denied in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, and attorneys’ fees, and remanding on other grounds); Shapiro v. Chapman, 70 Md.App. 307, 520 A.2d 1330, 1334 (1987) (finding that “the elements of damages recoverable in- an action under § 1983 [for an unprovoked assault] are identical to those recoverable in a common law action” with the exception of the attorneys’ fees available to prevailing parties under § 1988). It is on this basis that I believe that Dionne elected his remedies, and thus that he should be denied further recovery in federal court.
I believe that the doctrine of election of remedies should be invoked to -avoid just such scenarios' as the present litigation presents.1 Mr. Dionne, upon being terminated from his employ, was immediately faced with three choices: (1) he could have brought an administrative grievance within five days to regain his job and collect lost wages; (2) he could have sued in state court under section 1983, regained his job, gotten additional prospective injunctive relief, and recovered lost wages, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees; (3) he could have sued in federal court under section 1983 and recov*687ered precisely what he could have recovered in state court.2
Although it is true that the section 1983 claim cannot be considered in the state administrative proceeding because of the limited jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission, and that the statute of limitations provided for such actions is very short, all of which might have the effect of forcing aggrieved employees to bypass the administrative proceeding in favor of full recovery in federal or state court, this should be of no consequence.3 In fact, it presents all the more reason to find that the Commission’s determination precludes a federal section 1988 action, because this would provide the States with incentive not to create limited administrative proceedings that result in multiple adjudication and unnecessary harassment of defendants such as the Baltimore officials in this case. See supra note 3.
The majority apparently finds it significant that Dionne could not have recovered on theories of both federal due process and state wrongful termination in the state-court proceeding, because the state court would have dismissed the latter claim for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. See maj. op. at 683. I note that it is not at all clear that a Maryland court would be required to dismiss such claims for failure to exhaust, since “[i]t is now clearly established that a plaintiff suing under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ... need not exhaust his administrative remedies prior to bringing his § 1983 action,” Esslinger, 622 A.2d at 778, and there is no evidence in the record that the Civil Service Commission procedures are exclusive. In any event, I find this quite irrelevant since Dionne is doubtless indifferent as to what theory he recovers on, as long as he recovers all that he is owed. See Shapiro, 70 Md.App. 307, 620 A.2d 1330, 1334 (1987) (stating that appel*688lants in that case “would not have been able to recover twice for the same tort merely because the wrong gave rise to alternative theories of recovery,” if a prior recovery had awarded all the remedy that a latter recovery would have provided). The state court section 1983 claim would undoubtedly have allowed him to do just that, whether the wrongful-termination theory could be joined or not.
Effectively, what Dionne has done here is to choose from among several options, any one of which would have satisfactorily provided him "with restitution for his injury (although some admittedly better than others), that which might most quickly and inexpensively afford him some amount of recompense. If his administrative grievance was unsuccessful, he would lose nothing, for he could simply bring a claim in state or federal court; as the majority argues, the Commission’s determination apparently would not be given claim-preclusive effect in either forum. But see supra note 2. If he was successful in the administrative proceeding, however, as was the case here, he could then come into federal court wielding the sword of issue preclusion against the defendants, see Hall v. Marion Sch. Dist. No. 2, 31 F.3d 183, 190 (4th Cir.1994), to summarily recover all the additional damages available in the federal forum.
Quite simply, I do not believe that this is the sort of purpose for which the federal judiciary should be used. It is not, and could not be, claimed that the State of Maryland provides an inadequate forum or remedy for the injury suffered by Dionne, as was the case in the Title VII cases relied on by the Supreme Court in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver, 415 U.S. at 49 & n. 11, 94 S.Ct. at 1020 & n. 11 (finding neither preclusion of a federal Title VII claim nor election of remedies on the basis of an arbitration proceeding to enforce the nondiscrimination clause in a collective-bargaining agreement). Thus, it is neither necessary nor helpful to allow litigants to pursue the course followed by Dionne in this case. See supra note 3. Moreover, the piecemeal nature of such litigation, the unnecessary delay in reaching final adjudication of all claims and theories, and the harassment of defendants that will result from multiple proceedings are more than sufficient basis to deny additional recovery in the federal courts in such cases.
I agree with the Ninth Circuit panel in Haphey v. Linn County that Dionne “chose to pursue a remedy through the administrative process when ... [he] could have brought an action directly in federal court under section 1983,” 924 F.2d 1512, 1519 (9th Cir.1991), vacated in part and remanded en banc on this point by 953 F.2d 549 (9th Cir.1992), and thus, especially since he also had a complete remedy under section 1983 in state court, that he elected a remedy from among inconsistent available remedies and his relief should be limited accordingly.
I would therefore affirm the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to appellees.

. The several variations on the doctrine of election of remedies were analyzed by the Ninth Circuit in Oubichon v. North American Rockwell Corp., 482 F.2d 569, 572-74 (9th Cir.1973) (cited with approval in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 49 n. 11, 51, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 1020 n. 11, 1021, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974)), in the context of Title VII claims following arbitration based on nondiscrimination clauses in collective-bargaining agreements. That court described the traditional doctrine as applying " ‘only where conflicting and inconsistent remedies are sought on the basis of conflicting and inconsistent rights.' " Oubichon, 482 F.2d at 572 (quoting Newman v. Avco Corp., 451 F.2d 743, 746 n. 1 (6th Cir.1971)). The court went on to identify additional concerns identified by modem courts under the doctrine, including the possibility of double recovery, the unfairness of allowing claimant-employees to overturn or augment the disposition of prior proceedings but not defendant-companies, and the unfairness of requiring a defendant-company to defend itself in two fora. In the context of that case, governed by Title VII, the Ninth Circuit was able to dispose of all of these concerns and thus to reject the election-of-remedies defense to a claim for supplemental Tifie VII remedies following arbitration of an alleged breach of the nondiscrimination clause of a collective-bargaining agreement.
In the context of a section 1983 action following a state administrative wrongful-termination decision, these modem election-of-remedies concerns cannot be disregarded. Although the majority circumscribes its opinion to ensure against a double recovery in this case, see maj. op. at 684 — 85 & n. 13, it does not address the piecemeal nature of the litigation or the unfairness to defendants, which are undeniable. Moreover, it -is not relevant in this case whether Congress enacted section 1983 “at least in part, because [state administrative and judicial remedies] had proved inadequate to protect employees from [wrongful termination],” 482 F.2d at 573, as the Oubichon court found with respect to arbitration in the Tifie VII context. It was this finding, that Congress believed nondiscrimination-clause arbitration to be inherently inadequate to protect employees' right against discrimination in the workplace, that made the unfairness to defendants and the additional burdens on the judicial system not only appropriate but calculated in that context. See Oubichon, 482 F.2d at 573-74. Here, by contrast, the State of Maryland provides a forum which gives the full measure of relief available to Dionne in federal cotut, and he simply chose not to take advantage of it.

. As the majority notes, see maj. op. at 684-85 & n. 14, Dionne would probably but not necessarily be permitted to bring suit for additional remedies in the Maryland state courts after following the administrative procedure. See Esslinger v. Baltimore City, 622 A.2d 774, 782-83 (Md.Ct.App.), cert. denied, 331 Md. 479, 628 A.2d 1066 (1993). Esslinger dealt with the claimant's inability to recover any damages at all, in either a Zoning Board hearing on his application for permission to build a satellite dish or the appeal to a Maryland Circuit Court from that hearing, for violations of his federal constitutional and statutory rights. Obviously, unlike Dionne, Esslinger had no choice but to commence his claim by approach to the Zoning Board, because the Zoning Board had exclusive authority to grant or deny his application. Moreover, under the administrative procedures involved in adjudicating zoning applications, Esslinger was denied any monetary recovery for violations of his rights, unlike Dionne who recovered substantially what he was owed, backpay and reinstatement, in his appeal to the Civil Service Commission.
Thus, I am not certain that the Maryland courts would find Dionne’s situation analogous to Esslinger’s and therefore deny preclusive effect to Dionne's administrative award. In any event, even if the State of Maryland would not preclude Dionne’s resort to state court to augment his administrative recovery, the Maryland courts cannot create jurisdiction in the federal courts where it does not otherwise exist. Thus, the fact that the State of Maryland might permit the inefficiency and burden of such piecemeal litigation cannot control our decision whether to do the same.

. As the majority states, "a state can of course provide as wide a scope as it desires for matters that can be determined in particular administrative proceedings." Maj. op. at 683. Whether the State has done so in a manner that would repel potential claimants is within that State’s discretion, but the federal courts should not be compelled by any shortcoming of state administrative procedures to hear piecemeal cases that could have been decided more efficiently and cohesively in one proceeding had the plaintiff chosen to do so. This is all the more apparent in the case where, as here, the State has provided an alternate forum, the state courts, for recovering all that Dionne was owed.
The majority expresses concern that precluding section 1983 litigation following state administrative determinations might result in additional costs and burdens on the federal courts, because litigants might be motivated to avoid the administrative proceeding in fávor of state or federal court. See maj. op. at 684. I note that it will have the same effect on state courts, which should cause States to rethink and expand the jurisdiction of their administrative agencies in order to avoid these problems. Regardless of the effect the federal courts choose to give to them, limited administrative decisions will invariably result in unnecessary burdens, whether on litigants in the form of multiple adjudications and piecemeal litigation or on the state and federal courts because the administrative proceeding will be bypassed as unhelpful. In the light of this, I see no reason not to provide an incentive for the States to structure their administrative proceedings efficiently, rather than to condone any inefficiency of such proceedings by allowing the federal courts to be used to augment them.