Court Opinion

ID: 9649359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:50:17.257318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:10.010203
License: Public Domain

HARRELL, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. The Court of Special Appeals, for the reasons stated in its unreported opinion, was correct in affirming the judgment of the Circuit Court. Because that opinion was unreported, I re-publish here the relevant portions of its reasoning. I shall add an embellishment or two of my own later in this dissent.
The Court of Special Appeals reasoned as follows:
“Some, but not all, of Antonetti’s actions that the Commission found violated the Ethics Laws come within the ambit of the exception set forth in section 15-501(c)(3).1
“The Commission found that Antonetti violated the Ethics Laws in two distinct ways, viz: (1) by signing numerous documents relating to the hiring or payment of his relatives and (2) by hiring, or being indirectly responsible for hiring, of his relatives.
*460“A. Signature on Documents
“In its findings of fact, the Commission found:
“3. During the period of time relevant to this complaint (1988 to 1994), [Antonetti] in his official capacity as Elections Administrator took many actions involving his spouse Mary Antonetti and his four children (Robert, Jr., Theresa, Edward, and John), all of whom were, at most times involved in this matter, minor children. These actions involved signatures on no fewer than 11 Supplemental Pay Authorizations, 4 Employment Eligibility Verifications, and 36 Time Sheets. The Supplemental Pay Authorizations were the key hiring documents, attesting to the employment of individuals with the Board and authorizing the agency to compensate them for services. The Eligibility Verifications were essential legal documents reflecting a finding by the Respondent on behalf of the agency that individuals met Federal citizenship requirements and were eligible to be employed by the Board. The Time Sheets were the key fiscal documents allowing the County payroll authorities to issue checks compensating individuals for work performed as set forth in the document. The testimony in this matter was that these documents were essential for payment to be made and that they could be signed only by [Antonetti]. It was stated that without [Antonetti’s] signature, an individual would not be paid.
“6. According to Time Sheet documents and testimony in the record, [Antonetti’s] now-adult son Robert, Jr. continued as recently as Summer 1996 to be employed by the Board as a voting machine technician. Though the record reflects his direct supervision primarily by Sam McAfee, another senior employee in charge of the Board’s warehouse and voting machine maintenance program, [Antonetti] continues to be responsible for signature of his son’s Time Sheets, and there is no indication in the record of any action taken to formally separate [Antonet*461ti] from ultimate responsibility for his son’s employment activities for the Board.
“The Board’s conclusions of law included a finding that the signing of the various employment documents constituted a violation of section 15-501 of the Ethics Laws. In reaching that conclusion, the Commission did not discuss whether the provisions set forth in section 15-501(c)(3) shielded Antonetti’s actions. It is clear to us that, insofar as the Commission found that Antonetti violated the Ethics Laws by signing various time sheets and other employment documents, the Commission’s decision must be reversed.
“In the hearing before the Board, it was uncontroverted that Antonetti was the only employee authorized to sign employment documents. And the Commission’s own findings demonstrated this when they found that “these documents (supplemental pay authorizations, employment verifications, and time sheets) were essential for payment to be made and ... they could be signed only by [Antonetti].” Moreover, the evidence before the Board was clear that the Board knew that Antonetti’s family members were working for the Board, that his family members were being paid, and that, as the Supervisor for the Board, he signed the time sheets and other documents necessary for them to be hired and for their salaries to be paid. Thus, the “nature and circumstances” of the conflict was disclosed.
“The trial judge was correct when he reversed the decision of the Commission to the extent that the Commission punished Antonetti for violating the Ethics Laws by signing his name to documents relating to employment of members of his immediate family. Thus, the Commission’s order that Antonetti desist from performing any “signature actions” relating to any continuing employment of Robert, Jr., with the Board must be reversed.
“B. Recommendation to the Board that Family Members Be Hired
“In its findings of fact, the Commission found:
*462“5. The record also indicates that [Antonetti] on more than one occasion, in his official capacity!,] recruited individuals who were his relatives or took actions designed to result in an employment relationship between them and the agency, which was intended to benefit them economically. Testimony by [Antonetti’s] spouse and at least one of his sons was that “my husband” or “my father” suggested their employment with the Board. Lists were generated and included in the record that include [Antonetti’s] relatives’ names as recommended by him for employment, and on one occasion minutes of the Board meeting reflect a recommendation by [Antonetti] for the employment by the Board of his daughter Teresa (then an adult).
“In its conclusions of law the Commission found, inter alia, that Antonetti’s actions relating to the employment of family members as set forth in Paragraph 5, violated the Ethics Laws. On its face, that conclusion of law is wrong insofar as it found that “on one occasion minutes of the Board meeting reflect a recommendation by [Antonetti] for the employment by the Board of his daughter [Teresa] (then an adult).” It was not a violation of the Ethics Laws in May of 1994 for Antonetti to recommend the employment by the Board of his adult daughter. See Md. Ann.Code, art. 407, § 3-101 (1993 Repl.Vol). Effective October 1, 1994, however, the law was changed to prohibit participation by officials in matters related to adult children. See 2 Laws of Maryland 1994, ch. 19.
“Aside from the conclusion as to Teresa, the Commission also found that it was a violation of the Ethics Laws to recommend to the Board that his family members be employed. That conduct is clearly not protected by the exception set forth in section 15-501(c)(3). Insofar as employment recommendations are concerned, Antonetti obviously was not “the only individual authorized to act.”
* 4« 4< * 4: 4:
“Antonetti contends, in the alternative, that his recommendation^) to the Board that his family members be hired *463by the Board was not a violation of the Ethics Laws due to the exception set forth in section 15-501(b)(2) (“This section does not prohibit participation by an official or employee that is limited to the exercise of administrative or ministerial duty that does not affect the disposition or decision with respect to the matter involved.”) is applicable.
“We agree with Antonetti. When he made recommendations to fill temporary clerical jobs and/or positions as book loaders,7 Antonetti was fulfilling an administrative duty. The question then becomes: Did Antonetti’s recommendations affect the decision to hire members of his family? In this regard, the record was clear and unambiguous that it did not. To explain why this is so, an example is useful.
“If, in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, a four-star marine general recommended his son for a job as a social aide at the White House, and if, after that recommendation was received, the general’s son was selected for that coveted position, it can be inferred, legitimately, that the general’s recommendations affected the hiring decision because there obviously would be a host of eager and qualified applicants. But if the same marine general recommended his son to serve as a foot soldier in an infantry platoon in Vietnam and if the general’s son was selected for that position, the general’s recommendation, in all likelihood, would not have affected the decision because of the scarcity of applicants— eager or otherwise. Likewise, in the case sub judice, the record is clear that there was a scarcity of applicants for the jobs at issue. According to the uncontradicted testimony presented to the Commission, it was extremely difficult to get people to take part-time jobs for which Antonetti made recommendations. Due to that fact, many Board members, together with employees of the Board, recruited their own family members to fill the positions during the hectic period immediately preceding the primary and general elections. *464There was no evidence presented to the Commission, nor any fact from which an inference could legitimately be drawn, that Antonetti family members would not have been hired if they had applied for a job with the Board and Antonetti had refused to make a recommendation. Thus, the Commission was clearly erroneous when it found that Antonetti’s actions affected the Board’s hiring decisions.8
(Some internal footnotes omitted; emphasis in original).
By way of embellishment, I note that in Finding of Fact # 2 in its Final Report and Order of 1 May 1997, the State Ethics Commission (Commission) stated ultimately that “[i]t is clear to us from the record that wherever the technical legal hiring authority lay, this [ (the Board of Supervisors of Elections for Prince George’s County) ] is a citizen board that relies substantially on the efforts and recommendations of its full-time professional staff administrator to make hiring decisions, and that he in fact functions in this capacity.” Based on my review of the record extract submitted to this Court, I conclude that such a finding, placed in its relevant context, is unsupported by competent, material, and substantial evidence and, therefore, is arbitrary and capricious. Rather, the record extract reveals a Board that, over the relevant period 1988-94, knowingly participated on at least equal terms with Respondent in pursuing an institutional policy of identifying and *465retaining reliable seasonal/temporary election workers, including from within their own families. In this regard, the Board was no captive of, or slave to, its Administrator, Antonetti.
Jacqueline C. White, appointed as a Democratic member of the Board in 1993 and chosen its President in 1995,2 described the various approaches employed by the Board to find and hire seasonal, temporary election help:
Usually at that time [just prior to an election] we’re so busy that we’re really not having a formal meeting, but Mr. Antonetti always lets us know who the people are, gets an approval, mostly by phone. Sometimes in meeting he will submit us a list, say this is the people I can get, and they look at it, say it’s okay with them. They don’t make a formal motion on most of them.
Leading up to the 1994 election, as one example, Antonetti supplied the Board with lists of the seasonal workers proposed to be hired, organized by job and indicating who had recommended each person for a non-partisan position. The lists for the clerical and book loaders positions indicated after each prospective employee’s name a symbol that equated with that person having been recommended by either a Democratic Board member, Antonetti, or the sole Republican Board member, Mr. Deegan. Antonetti’s family members were on the list under the positions for which they were to be hired, clearly identified as recommended by Antonetti.
As Ms. White explained, however, not all proposed seasonal hires in each election year were memorialized in writing in advance: “if there wasn’t a meeting scheduled, we would usually do it by phone.”3 The Board’s normal, twice-monthly meeting schedule was abandoned “around election time,” due *466to the pressing tasks needing to be accomplished for the imminent election. Frequent telephone calls and weekly written reports became the modalities of Board communication and action.
The seasonal election hiring process, Ms. White testified, was triggered usually by Antonetti advising Board members of the need to fill certain positions. The Board members frequently would propose hiring a family member, friend, or acquaintance. This process achieved goals thought to be good by the Board as a whole, i.e., the obtention of reliable, and the retention of previously experienced, staff, thus saving the Board time and resources in training and recruitment for positions that, while important to the electoral process, were of short duration and relatively low paying. Even within that process, however, Ms. White recalled that “[t]here ha[d] been a couple [of times] in the past” when the Board rejected persons for employment recommended by Antonetti because “someone [on the Board] knew the person[s] and knew they weren’t very reliable.”
Ms. White recommended her adult son be hired temporarily to work at the Board’s warehouse, and he was. She elaborated from personal knowledge a number of other examples of Board members, stretching back as far as 1979 and running through the Board’s 1995 policy change,4 who had recommended family members successfully for seasonal and other Board employment. In no case, however, save that mentioned in n. 3, supra, was the approval of any seasonal employee referenced in the Board’s minutes.
Ms. Shirley E. Reio, the Board’s supervising Republican Registrar,5 corroborated Ms. White’s testimony. Moreover, *467she acknowledged a practice, approved by the County’s Payroll Division of its Office of Finance, whereby she prepared and signed, on the seasonal employee’s behalf, the employee’s time sheets. She did this as a convenience and for the sake of efficiency because the seasonal staff “had no reason to come into the office, and we could not run around the County obtaining these signatures.... ” She had recommended her grandchildren and daughter for Board employment, through Antonetti and the Republican Board member, Mr. Deegan.
Respondent testified that “all of the people [were] hired ... either through Board motion or through Board consent of some kind, approved to work in the Board.... ” Respondent testified that he did not “act independently of the Board.” Regarding the process he and the Board employed for last minute hiring of seasonal, temporary election staff, particularly clerical and warehouse labor, Antonetti described it as follows:
Q. So you didn’t make any advertisements in the newspapers, any ads?
A. It was through recommendations of board members, elected officials, family of people who were employed, or election judges would ask if they had some positions available.
Q. As the administrator you would have solicited the recommendations?
A. I don’t solicit recommendations. I let the board know that we had these positions available and then if there were some names and so forth, I would tell the board here’s some people that are looking for the position, would you want to hire them, and they would confirm it.
The closest to a contradiction of the hiring process described in the above evidence before the Commission was the stipulated “testimony” of Ms. Judith A. Wheatley, a former President and Democratic Board member between 1987-95, who would have testified, inter alia, that she was unaware Antonetti’s children had been hired for the 1994 election until the County’s personnel audit was made and that the Board *468had not approved their hiring. Also, according to the stipulation, she would have acknowledged that her son and daughter had been Board employees during the same time, as a voting machine technician and a recruiter for Democratic election judges, respectively, but that no Board minutes reflected the Board’s approval of their hiring. It was stipulated also that her daughter had been fired as a Board employee at some point during Ms. Wheatley’s tenure as President. The stipulation, however, failed to specify who exactly fired Ms. Wheatley’s daughter and under what circumstances and when.
Because Ms. Wheatley’s testimony was received as a stipulation of counsel, there was no opportunity for the Commission to draw testimonial inferences based on a demeanor-based credibility assessment of Wheatley; thus, at most, only derivative inferences were available to be drawn from such parts of the stipulation as were not otherwise perceived to be discredited. See Anderson v. Dep’t of Public Safety, 330 Md. 187, 210-218, 623 A.2d 198, 209-213 (1993) and Dep’t of Health & Mental Hygiene v. Shrieves, 100 Md.App. 283, 297-304, 641 A.2d 899, 906-909 (1994), and authorities discussed therein. Because the portions of the stipulation regarding the asserted lack of Board approval of hiring the Antonetti children for the 1994 election appear plainly contrary to most of the live testimonial and documentary evidence received by the Commission, a demeanor-based credibility assessment would be the only means by which an administrative fact-finder rationally could choose to believe Wheatley’s stipulated statement over the evidence to the contrary. Given the straightforward and sweeping nature of the stipulated statements, no reasonable or supplemental derivative inferences are available. As a demeanor-based credibility assessment was not possible, it strikes me as untenable to accept that the stipulation as to Wheatley’s relevant testimony could satisfy the substantial evidence prerequisite for any of the Board’s fact-finding or conclusions. Accordingly, Wheatley’s stipulation does not engage, in my view, the deferential standard of review ordinarily accorded by a reviewing court to an administrative agency’s fact-finding.
*469Even if Wheatley’s stipulated testimony could figure in the substantial evidence analysis of the Commission’s fact-finding and conclusions, her statements pertained solely to the hiring of Antonetti’s family members for the 1994 election. Her statements, if credited, fall far short of establishing a fairly debatable basis for the Commission’s findings or conclusions relative to the 1988, 1990 or 1992 election hirings. To that extent, at a minimum, the Commission’s decision was error.
The only other evidence that arguably could be construed to support the Commission’s finding that, in effect, Antonetti led the Board around by its metaphysical nose regarding seasonal hiring decisions was the patently vague and inherently conflicted testimony of the lone Republican Board member, Mr. Charles C. Deegan. Mr. Deegan served on the Board during the 1988-94 period with which the Commission’s charges were concerned. Although acknowledging broadly that seasonal, temporary election workers were hired “usually” after Board members were solicited and approved of the hirings, he professed to be “unaware” or did not “recall” that Antonetti’s wife and two of his sons, John Paul and Edward, were employed by the Board for the 1994 election. His awareness of Mrs. Antonetti’s employment arose when he saw her at the Board’s offices on election day in 1994.6 He stated he became aware of John Paul’s and Edward’s employment at the Board warehouse when he read a newspaper article about the Antonetti family working for the Board. Yet, he admitted he was aware of the employment of Antonetti’s son, Robert, Jr., at the warehouse and Antonetti’s daughter, Theresa, as a pre-election clerk, the latter because he recalled making the motion to hire her as reflected in the Board’s 23 May 1994 meeting. See n. 3, supra. Mr. Deegan also responded negatively to the Commission’s counsel’s questions as to his awareness of the hiring of Edward for the 1992 election or John Paul for the 1990 or 1992 elections. He did not state, however, that the Board had not approved their hiring.
*470Regarding the process of hiring seasonal, part-time staff, Deegan responded that the “practice of putting the names of [such hires] in the [Board’s] minutes is of recent vintage” and was “[s]ometimes” followed and “other times it wasn’t.” Mr. Deegan acknowledged that he had recommended his niece for employment as a pre-election clerk, specifically discussing it with Antonetti. She was hired. As to his niece’s hiring, Deegan could find no record of approval of that action in the Board’s minutes, though he “thought” there had been such a record.
The equivocal nature and highly idiosyncratic quality of Mr. Deegan’s unawareness or lack of recall as to the employment of Mrs. Antonetti in 1994, Edward in 1992 and 1994, and John Paul in 1990, 1992, and 1994, does not support the Commission’s sweeping finding that the Board, as a unit, “relies substantially on ... its ... administrator to make hiring decisions, and that he in fact functions in this capacity.” The Commission’s presumed expertise in interpreting the State Ethics Law does not empower it to translate the slender reed of this testimony into the finding it made. The sum of Mr. Deegan’s testimony that may, at first blush, seem contradictory to that of Ms. White, Ms. Reio, and Respondent’s, does not rise above a scintilla of evidence in my analysis of whether the Commission’s findings are supported on this record.
It fairly may be said that the Board’s hiring practices for seasonal, part-time election personnel between 1988 and 1994 fell far short of best management practices. That now largely abandoned process also may fairly be criticized as overly informal and fraught with nepotism; however, Antonetti’s role in the perpetuation of these internally well-understood processes and policies cannot be construed reasonably to be violative of the State Ethics Law provisions that the Commission found, excepting only the failure to make proper disclosures in his required annual financial reports (§ 15-507). As to those non-disclosure violations, Antonetti offered no contest before the Commission and the Court of Special Appeals. *471Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.7

. That exception provides:
(c) Participation notwithstanding conflict. — An official or employee who otherwise would be disqualified from participation under subsection (a) of this section shall disclose the nature and circumstances of the conflict, and may participate or act, if:
(3) the disqualified official or employee is the only individual authorized to act.

"7 There was no evidence that Antonetti recommended to the Board or to anyone else that his son, Robert, Jr., be hired as a voting machine technician.

 The relevant statement by the [Commission] regarding hiring recommendations was set forth in Paragraph 4 of its "Final Report and Order” as follows:
In our view, that the Board may have had final authority for the budget and for hiring and compensation decisions, does not alter the fact that Respondent is the senior professional employee for a citizen board that relies substantially on his professional expertise and experience. Moreover, each of the types of transactions involved a discrete decision, determination or finding, and Respondent’s actions in each of these types of matters, involved his discretion and judgment, and in most situations was an essential action to reaching a particular result for the employee-relative (either establishing the employment relationship, reflecting a finding of eligibility, or processing a claim for payment). Moreover, these actions all related to determinations that would lead to compensation that would accrue directly to the economic benefit of his spouse or minor children. Under the circumstances, it is our conclusion as a matter of law that Respondent’s actions constituted nonministerial participation in matters in which his relatives had an interest, as prohibited by § 15-501 of the Law.”

. Ms. White previously was employed as a secretary at the Board from 1979 until her appointment as a member.

. As the Majority notes accurately, during the period between 1988 and 1994, the Board appears from this record to have memorialized the hiring of part-time personnel in the written minutes of its meetings only once, on 23 May 1994 for Theresa Antonetti, Monica Elliott, William Bohlayer, and Sean Hensley.

. The change, prohibiting the relatives of Board members or employees from Board employment (other than in the warehouse), was proposed by Antonetti and adopted by the Board, primarily in response to critical articles in local newspapers occasioned by complaints from "disgruntled" former Board members following the closely-contested 1994 statewide election.

. Ms. Reio was employed at the Board from 1964 to 1994.

. Presumably he was referring to the General Election of 1994.

. Moreover, I note the majority appears to have substituted its judgement for that of the State Ethics Commission in concluding Respondent violated § 15-506 of the Public Ethics Law. In Conclusion of Law # 5 in its Final Report and Order of 1 May 1997, the Commission “declinefd] to exercise [its] enforcement discretion to find Respondent in violation of this section of the Law.” (Emphasis supplied). The Circuit Court did not consider the application of § 15-506. In its Memorandum and Order of Court, filed 25 February 1999, the court correctly noted that Respondent "was found not guilty of violating ... § 15-506.” The Commission, in appealing to the Court of Special Appeals and in this Court, did not include § 15-506 among the statutes it found Respondent in violation of and, logically, did not seek review of its own finding that Respondent did not violate § 15-506. The applicability of § 15-506 to Respondent has been a non-issue to both Petitioner and Respondent since the Commission’s Final Report and Order in 1997.