Alabama Board of Nursing v. Williams, No. 2040082 (AL 3/24/2006)
| Decision Date | 24 March 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 2040082.,2040082. |
| Parties | Alabama Board of Nursing v. Michael Williams |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Montgomery Circuit Court (CV-03-3315)
The Alabama Board of Nursing ("the Board") appeals from a judgment of the Montgomery Circuit Court reversing an order of the Board that had suspended a license issued to Michael Williams to practice professional nursing and had imposed other disciplinary sanctions against Williams. We reverse the circuit court's judgment.
The record reveals that Williams was first licensed by the Board as a professional nurse in 1985; since 1990, he has been principally employed as a nursing instructor at Bishop State Community College ("the College"). However, beginning in 1991, a series of complaints were lodged against Williams to the effect that he had sexually harassed female students at the College. The College investigated two of those complaints, in 1992 and in 1995, but ultimately concluded that they lacked evidentiary support beyond the accusers' statements and determined that Williams should not be disciplined as to his employment. A third complaint, lodged in November 2000, was apparently not found to warrant discipline on the part of the College.
In 2001, the former husband of one of Williams's students filed complaints with the president of the College, with the Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education, and with the Board arising from Williams's alleged amorous relationship with that student. Although the Department of Postsecondary Education concluded that Williams had not violated policies of the College or of the State Board of Education, the Board undertook its own investigation of the sexual-harassment claims that had been brought against Williams.
In May 2002, the president of the College, after a hearing, indicated that Williams's employment would be terminated effective May 27, 2002, "based upon [his] continued insubordination and ineffective instruction." A letter sent by the president to Williams cited, as a basis for his termination, his having failed to complete an administrative assignment that he had received from the president and alluded to "several serious student complaints" appearing in his personnel file, "including complaints of sexual harassment which are being investigated currently by the Alabama Board of Nursing." Williams later sought review of his termination from employment before a three-person employee-review panel, which was permitted under Ala. Code 1975, §§ 36-26-105 and 362-6-106, as they read in 2002 before the enactment of Act No. 2004-567, Ala. Acts 2004. The panel found that Williams had failed to complete an assignment as directed by the president of the College, had confronted a female coworker "in a manner unbecoming to a faculty member," and had arrived late to a mandatory meeting; however, exercising its prerogative to review Williams's punishment de novo, the panel determined that "termination was not the proper punishment for th[o]se transgressions" and instead imposed an unpaid 42-day suspension. On certiorari review, the Mobile Circuit Court entered a judgment affirming that determination, and this court, in turn, affirmed that judgment. Bishop State Cmty. Coll. v. Williams (No. 2021213, June 11, 2004), ___ So. 2d ___ (Ala. Civ. App.) (table), cert. denied, (No. 1031488, August 13, 2004) ___ So. 2d ___ (Ala. 2004) (table).
On July 11, 2003, the Board issued a "Statement of Charges and Notice of Hearing" in which the Board ordered Williams to appear and show cause why his license to practice professional nursing should not be revoked on the basis that "[o]n multiple occasions from 1991 to 2001, [Williams] had engaged in inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature with students" at the College. According to the Board's statement and notice, Williams's conduct constituted grounds for disciplinary action under § 34-21-25, Ala. Code 1975, and under Board regulations barring, among other things, the exhibition of inappropriate or unprofessional conduct or behavior in the workplace. After a hearing before a hearing officer had been held, the Board entered an order containing findings of facts and conclusions of law; in its order, the Board determined that Williams's conduct warranted disciplinary action and imposed sanctions, including a 3-month suspension of his nursing license and a subsequent 24-month period of probationary licensure status.
Pursuant to § 41-22-20, Ala. Code 1975, Williams sought judicial review in the Montgomery Circuit Court of the Board's order. After the parties had filed written submissions in support of their respective positions, the circuit court entered a judgment reversing the Board's order as unlawful. The judgment did not cite any specific subdivision of § 41-22-20(k), Ala. Code 1975, which sets forth various grounds upon which an administrative agency's order may be reversed. However, the judgment plainly indicates the circuit court's agreement with Williams's argument that the Board's reliance upon the sexual-harassment charges lodged against Williams since 1991 was somehow violative of constitutional due-process guarantees; the judgment stated, in pertinent part, that "[e]ven though [the] College and the [Board] are separate entities, they are still both entities with the State of Alabama" and "[t]he State of Alabama cannot have two bites at the apple."
Our standard of review mirrors that of the circuit court:
" "
Ex parte Alabama Bd. of Nursing, 835 So. 2d 1010, 1012 (Ala. 2001) (quoting Alabama Medicaid Agency v. Peoples, 549 So. 2d 504, 506 (Ala. Civ. App. 1989)).
We first address two preliminary contentions asserted by the Board. The Board first asserts that Williams's arguments in the circuit court regarding remoteness in time and the preclusive effect of the actions of the College and the employee-review panel with respect to the various sexual-harassment allegations lodged against Williams were equivalent to the affirmative defenses of the doctrine of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or laches and that those defenses were not affirmatively pleaded before the Board. The Board further avers that § 41-22-13(1), Ala. Code 1975, which provides that, as a general matter, "[t]he rules of evidence as applied in nonjury civil cases in the circuit courts of this state shall be followed" in contested cases before administrative agencies, mandates application of the rules of civil procedure, such as Rule 8(c), Ala. R. Civ. P., which requires the assertion of affirmative defenses in an response to a preceding pleading. However, no Alabama statute requires proceedings before the Board to comply with the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, and we are thus left to apply the general proposition that strict rules of court procedure do not govern administrative proceedings. See, e.g., Simpson v. Van Ryzin, 289 Ala. 22, 30-31, 265 So. 2d 569, 575-76 (1972); State ex rel. Steele v. Board of Educ. of Fairfield, 252 Ala. 254, 260, 40 So. 2d 689, 695 (1949). We thus cannot conclude that Williams's failure to "plead" the doctrine of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or laches during the administrative proceedings amounts to a waiver of those claimed defenses where, as here, they were adequately raised in the form of objections to evidence offered by the Board in the administrative hearing.
The Board also contends that the circuit court's judgment fails to comply with § 41-22-20(k), Ala. Code 1975, in that, the Board says, that court reversed the Board's order "on grounds other than those authorized by statute." We disagree. As we have noted, the circuit court appears to have concluded that the Board's actions deprived Williams of his nursing license without due process of law, which, if true, would amount at the least to a violation of state and federal constitutional provisions that guarantee due process. Reversal of an administrative order on that ground would be consistent with subsection (1) of § 41-22-20(k).
However, we reach a different conclusion than the circuit court with respect to the principal question raised by the Board's appeal: whether the Board was prevented, either by the results of the previous investigations and hearings by the College involving the sexual-harassment allegations made against Williams or by the passage of time, from disciplining Williams on the basis of the conduct evidenced by those allegations and by the testimony at the hearing tending to establish the truth thereof. Regardless of whether the circuit court's due-process holding is based upon Williams's prior-adjudication argument, upon his remoteness argument, or upon both arguments, neither amounts to a legally sufficient basis to disturb the Board's order.
We first consider the soundness of the circuit court's "two bites at the apple" reasoning. It is well settled that the doctrine of res judicata — a term which encompasses within its scope both claim preclusion and issue preclusion (see Marshall County Concerned Citizens v. City of Guntersville, 598 So. 2d 1331, 1332 (Ala. 1992)) —— may properly be said to apply to a previous agency decision "only when that decision is made after a trial-type hearing, i.e., 'when what the agency does resembles what a trial court does.'" Kid's Stuff Learning Ctr., Inc. v. State Dep't of Human Res., 660 So. 2d 613, 617 (Ala. Civ. App. 1995) (quoting II K. Davis & R. Pierce, Jr., Administrative Law Treatise § 13.3 at 250 (3d ed. 1994)); accord, Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 83(2) (1982) (...
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