A little over eight months after hearing oral arguments in Thomasina O. Coates v. The Charles County Board of County Commissioners, et al. — in which District 2 Commissioner Thomasina Coates (D) sought to challenge a permanent injunction issued by the Circuit Court of Charles County barring her from voting on the employment contract of the current county administrator — the court issued a lengthy and detailed opinion affirming the lower court’s ruling “in all respects.”
The 65-page opinion, written by Judge Douglas R.M. Nazarian on behalf of the three-judge panel that heard oral arguments last October, is noteworthy for being “reported,” meaning that the court’s conclusions are binding in Maryland courts when dealing with similar issues of law. According to the People’s Law Library of Maryland, on average only 15% of the Appellate Court’s decisions merit reported status.
Following the issuance of the opinion on June 30, both parties have a 30-day window to file a motion with the court to reconsider its opinion or to inform the court about errors, after which the court will issue its final judgment, called a mandate, on or around July 30.* While waiting for that deadline to pass, I’d like to take a look at some of the findings in the opinion that stood out for me. (Please note that this article is not intended to be a “line-by-line” review of the opinion, which is worth reading in its entirety.)
Court Considers Two Broad Questions
In her appeal, Coates raised six questions for the Appellate Court to consider. As it often does, the court opted to consolidate the questions and recast them as two broad questions:
- Whether the circuit court erred or abused its discretion when it:
- Issued a permanent injunction against Coates; and
- Dismissed Coates’ counterclaim seeking a declaratory judgment affirming that the board had fired the county administrator during a closed-session meeting on December 13, 2022
- Whether the circuit court abused its discretion when it:
- Granted the commissioners’ motion to quash Coates’ subpoenas for deposition testimony from attorney Bernadette Sargeant and other members of her law firm;
- Denied the admission of exhibits and objections during the preliminary injunction hearing in October, 2023; and
- Denied Coates’ motion to compel deposition testimony from the county attorney
Board Action was Administrative, not Legislative
In their brief to the appeals court, Coates’ attorneys argued that circuit court judge Leo E. Green Jr. erred in granting a permanent injunction against Coates barring her from participating in any votes related to the employment contract of County Administrator Mark Belton.** They provided eight reasons in support of their argument. The court’s point-by-point responses to them take up the bulk of the opinion (56-1/2 of its 65 pages).
A key contention in Coates’ appeal on the question of the permanent injunction was that Green misinterpreted the board’s “prompt and remedial action,” or “PRA,” against Coates as a legislative action, rather than an administrative one. During oral arguments in October, most of the questions from the bench focused on this line of reasoning during the appellant’s argument phase. If the PRA was in fact a legislative act, then the actions taken against Coates by the board would have been illegal because the PRA would be an unconstitutional “bill of attainder,” which is a law designed to punish a person without affording them due process.
In seeking to address this question, the appellate court opted for a broad interpretation of the term “administrative.” Rather than simply applying to the implementation or enforcement of existing laws, as defined in other court cases, the court opined that “administrative” can also refer to “the work of managing a company or organization” as conducted as part of “the government’s executive function or a business’s management,” as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary. In the opinion, Nazarian wrote:
“Code county commissioners function as directors of a corporation . . . and board actions to establish internal protocols, adopt and implement bylaws governing board conduct, approve board meeting minutes, or make personnel decisions are quintessentially administrative, even if they don’t implement or enforce laws that are binding on the greater public.” (opinion p.34)
Furthermore, Nazarian wrote, “the administrative nature of the PRA is obvious:”
“The Board adopted the PRA in response to a specific personnel problem involving allegedly illegal conduct and took that measure to restrain specific conduct. It pertained directly to the Board’s management of its own members as it made county personnel decisions. Moreover, the Board’s Rules authorized the body to restrict a member’s ability to vote. The Rules provide that ‘[b]oard members may be excused from casting a vote for reasons such as a perceived or actual conflict of interest, or for other reasons where . . . the County Attorney believe[s] voting would be inappropriate.’ After Ms. Sargeant presented her factual findings to the Board, both the county attorney and outside counsel advised the body to restrain Commissioner Coates from voting on any employment matter pertaining to Mr. Belton. The Board followed that legal advice and excused Commissioner Coates from voting, as the Rules permitted. The Board’s action also was consistent with its personnel policy on equal employment opportunity. . . . Under these circumstances, we are comfortable classifying the PRA as an administrative action and reject the view that it isn’t simply because the Board also has powers as a legislative body.” (opinion pp.35-36)
Court Finds “Procedural Wrinkle” in Dismissal of Counterclaim
While agreeing with Judge Green’s ruling in the case — which Green described as the hardest civil case he’d dealt with during his 20-plus years on the bench — the appellate judges did find one “procedural wrinkle” requiring a retroactive correction by the circuit court.
At one point during the circuit court case, Coates filed a counterclaim arguing that the court should recognize the legality of a Board vote to fire Belton that took place in a closed session on December 13, 2022 — the event that motivated District 1 Commissioner Gilbert Bowling III (D) to publicly reveal the existence of the PRA, which in turn led to the circuit court case followed by the appeal being discussed here.
In issuing the permanent injunction, Judge Green reasoned that because the PRA had barred Coates from participating in such a vote in the first place, her counterclaim should be denied and dismissed. While the appellate court agreed that there was no reason to adjudicate Coates’ counterclaim, outright dismissal was not the right way to dispose of it. Instead, what Judge Green should have done is entered a declaratory judgment stating that she was not entitled to the relief she sought.
“This is resolved easily,” Nazarian wrote. “[A]s we often do, we vacate the portion of the judgment dismissing Commissioner Coates’s counterclaim and remand for entry of a declaratory judgment consistent with the circuit court’s original findings and conclusions, as affirmed in this opinion.”***
Circuit Court was Correct in Disregarding Origins of PRA
In the words of attorney Anthony May, who represented Bowling and District 3 Commissioner Amanda M. Stewart (D), the reason Judge Green decided to issue a permanent injunction in the circuit court case without proceeding to an evidentiary hearing, as Coates had wanted, was “judicial efficiency.”
“The reason [Judge Green] said ‘permanent’ was because by the end of that hearing, there was nothing else left to present,” May told the appeals court. “There was no additional defense.”
Coates’ attorneys had sought an evidentiary hearing because they wanted to show that County Attorney E. Wesley Adams III was involved in a conspiracy with Belton to manipulate the 2020 investigation conducted by outside counsel — attorney Bernadette Sergeant — that found Coates had discriminated against Belton and created a hostile work environment, which led to the adoption of the PRA against her. An evidentiary hearing, they argued, would allow them to subpoena documents and compel depositions from Adams, Sergeant, and others in Sergeant’s law firm that would demonstrate the conspiracy.
However, Green resisted being drawn into a review of the legality or propriety of the PRA, focusing instead on the actions taken — and not taken — by the board following its adoption. Because Coates had no other evidence to submit in that regard, Green made his final decision at the motion hearing.
The appeals court agreed with Green’s decision, stating in its opinion that “whether the Board should have adopted the PRA on June 9, 2020 based on the findings of the Sargeant investigation is a separate legal matter that the court didn’t have to adjudicate to resolve the controversy before it, and it was not obligated to admit evidence of any facts bearing on that question.” [emphasis in original]
Will Coates Appeal?
As TLR previously noted, there is no automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland, the state’s highest court, except in certain special cases such as legislative redistricting. The odds of the Supreme Court of Maryland granting a petition to take up the case are pretty slim; over the last three years, the Supreme Court has accepted only around 11% of the petitions submitted to them.
One interesting statistic uncovered by TLR’s diligent legal researcher in the preparation of this article is that, of the 305 cases heard by the state supreme court over the last three years, slightly over half of them (51%) were reported opinions. So, it appears that the appellate court’s decision to make case law out of the appeal wouldn’t necessarily be a strike against Coates in the supreme court’s deliberations.
In any case, we’ll know more in a month. In the meantime, be sure to follow TLR’s Facebook page for interim updates.
Download the Documents Discussed in This Post
* As of press time, no motions have been listed in the docket for the appellate case. (go back)
** For readers needing a refresher on the case history — and let’s be honest, at this point who couldn’t use one? — this story provides a good introductory overview of the key points discussed here. (go back)
*** As of press time, the docket for the circuit court case does not show an entry for the declaratory judgment. (go back)