Henderson v. Civil Serv. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 29 June 2017
• Docket Number: No. 332314,332314
• Citation: 321 Mich.App. 25,913 N.W.2d 665
• Parties: William R. HENDERSON and All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, and Department of Corrections, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

321 Mich.App. 25

913 N.W.2d 665

William R. HENDERSON and All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, and Department of Corrections, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 332314

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted June 13, 2017, at Lansing.

Decided June 29, 2017

Approved for Publication August 15, 2017, 9:05 a.m.

Bill Schuette, Attorney General, Aaron D. Lindstrom, Solicitor General, Matthew Schneider, Chief Legal Counsel, and Christopher W. Braverman, Assistant Attorney General, for the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Corrections.

Sachs Waldman, PC (by Mary Ellen Gurewitz and Marshall J. Widick ), for William Henderson et al.

Before: Talbot, C.J., and Beckering and M.J. Kelly, JJ.

Per Curiam.

Defendants, the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Department of Corrections (DOC), appeal by leave granted the circuit court's order of March 14, 2016, which reversed the CSC's final decision affirming position classification decisions made by a technical review officer. The trial court's order also reversed the technical review officer's decisions and affirmed the positions' former classifications. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we reverse the circuit court's ruling and reinstate the CSC's decision.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

On April 1, 2012, the DOC eliminated approximately 2,415 resident unit officer (RUO) positions and 57 corrections medical unit officer (CMUO) positions. The persons in those positions were able to "bump" into newly created corrections officer (CO) and corrections medical officer (CMO) positions, respectively. The employees performed the same duties as they had in their former positions, but for a lower rate of pay. Their union, the Michigan Corrections Organization (MCO), filed a grievance on their behalf, alleging that the DOC did not eliminate the RUO and CMUO positions for reasons of administrative efficiency.¹ The MCO claimed instead that the DOC was facing budget cuts and could not directly reduce employee pay because of collective bargaining agreements that specified the rates of pay for RUOs and CMUOs. However, the DOC could achieve the same savings by abolishing the RUO and CMUO positions and reassigning employees to newly created positions with lower classifications and lower rates of pay.

A. CLASSIFICATION STUDY

The parties agreed to hold the grievance in abeyance while the CSC’s Office of Classifications, Selections, and Compensation (OCSC) undertook a classification and compensation study to determine whether the new positions were correctly classified as CO and CMO rather than RUO and CMUO, respectively. The classification study involved desk audits of approximately 120 positions by eight classification experts over several months, encompassing all major DOC facilities. The OCSC compared the job duties for an RUO with those of a CO, eventually focusing on the occurrence and frequency that RUOs performed duties related to participating in a treatment team in a housing facility, preparing reports related to treatment team determinations, and duties involving delivering medications to prisoners. The OCSC then reviewed the Desk Audit Findings, reporting in its classification study that when the employees previously classified as RUOs were "asked whether they had served as a member of a treatment team before April 2012, the majority of employees said that they had not." The OCSC further found that "the supervisors viewed most positions in the housing units as participating in treatment teams," with examples including "providing general input on prisoner behavior, filing paperwork for psychological referrals and running training sessions." The OCSC also reported that the appointing authority (DOC) indicated that the RUO's increased "involvement ... in the treatment programs ... has never developed as was initially envisioned."

The OCSC concluded that

[w]hile the [RUO and CO] positions ... do have different duties and those inside the unit may have comparatively more treatment team, reporting, and medication duties, the statements of employees, supervisors, and the appointing authority have not provided evidence that the housing unit positions are performing sufficient duties to make the RUO classification the best fit.

The OCSC then compared the job duties for the CMUO and CMO positions and concluded that the "classifications are essentially differentiable by the level of therapeutic care to be provided. The CMUO is intended to provide more direct and specialized care while the CMO delivers routine care in the course of traditional custody-focused duties." The OCSC found that "[a] review of position descriptions for newly created CMO positions" showed "the primary duties for the CMO positions are security related, which is consistent with the statement by the appointing authority that, as with the RUO, the envisioned duties of care provision never materialized for the abolished CMUO positions." The OCSC concluded that, "[g]iven the lack of specific required medical background for the newly created CMO positions and the lack of focused medical duties, their continued classification as CMOs is determined to be appropriate."

B. TECHNICAL REVIEW DECISION

In October 2013, the MCO filed a "Technical Classification Complaint" on behalf of plaintiffs in the CSC's Office of Technical Complaints, requesting the restoration of all abolished RUO and CMUO positions as well as lost pay and other lost benefits resulting from the action. Plaintiffs took issue with the study's finding that the majority of the former RUOs interviewed did not answer affirmatively when asked if they participated in a treatment team. Plaintiffs noted that the first job duty for the RUO position states as follows:

Participates as a member of a treatment team in determining the classification, reclassification, parole eligibility, counseling needed, minor disciplinary procedures, and treatment programs for each prisoner in the housing unit.

Plaintiffs asserted that the majority of employees responded that they did perform the specific tasks listed above, and the survey only showed that the former RUOs did not understand the meaning of the term "treatment team" when questioned. Plaintiffs maintained that a majority of the former RUOs would have responded that they participated in a treatment team had that term been defined in accordance with the job duty quoted above. Plaintiffs provided an affidavit from Michael Green, a former RUO, who said he was "very uncertain how to respond" to the treatment team question because he "thought they could be referring to mental health treatment." Green, referring to the job duty quoted above, stated: "If that is the definition of a treatment team then I am certainly a member. These are things that I do all the time. These are the things that other Housing Unit Officers do all the time." Plaintiffs also maintained that the results of the desk audits relating to the abolished CMUO positions showed that the employees previously classified as CMUOs performed and continued to perform the work described in the CMUO position description.

After reviewing the entire record, the technical review officer (TRO) found the newly created positions properly classified as COs and CMOs. The TRO acknowledged that duties within the housing units are different from duties outside those units but concluded that different duties did not necessarily mean different classifications, reasoning as follows:

The DOC's assignment of duties is most consistent with the CO and CMO classifications. The audit results indicated that the duties of the majority of employees surveyed lacked a focus consistent with classifications as RUOs or CMUOs, since as an aggregate they have a stronger emphasis on custody than on treatment. The primary role of the affected officers is to provide custody within a housing unit. Their responsibility included reporting to the health care professionals regarding the behavior of prisoners. The professionals on the treatment team decide what treatment will be provided to each prisoner, and the officers perform their portion of the planned treatment.

C. EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD AND CSC’S FINAL DECISION

In December 2014, plaintiffs applied for leave to appeal the technical review decision to the Employment Relations Board (ERB), arguing that the TRO made numerous erroneous findings and ignored evidence and arguments favorable to their position. The ERB recommended that the CSC deny plaintiffs' application. The ERB reiterated that most of the former RUOs neither said that they were members of a treatment team nor demonstrated significant participation in the preparing of reports and delivering medication. With regard to the CMUOs, the ERB found that the record did not demonstrate that they provided the type of direct therapeutic intervention or specialized healthcare to prisoners that was expected of CMUOs. The ERB concluded as follows:

Because the affected employees did not significantly perform the specialized duties described in the [RUO] or [CMUO] job specifications, they cannot be properly classified as Resident Unit Officers or Corrections Medical Unit Officers. The duties that the new position descriptions and the employees themselves described are most consistent with the [CO] and [CMO] classes. The Board finds no reversible error in the [TRO's] decision.

On June 12, 2015, the CSC approved the ERB's decision and adopted it "as the final decision of the civil service commission in this matter."

D. CIRCUIT COURT

Plaintiffs next appealed the CSC's final decision in the circuit court, arguing as they had before the TRO and the ERB. In response, defendants argued that under Const. 1963, art. 6, § 28, the circuit court's review was limited to whether the decision was "authorized by law." They argued that the competent, material, and substantial evidence standard, although also found in Const. 1963, art. 6, § 28, did not apply because the CSC had not authorized a contested...