Indiana Dept. of Highways v. Dixon
Decision Date | 15 July 1987 |
Docket Number | No. 82A01-8611-CV-294,82A01-8611-CV-294 |
Citation | 512 N.E.2d 1113 |
Parties | INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS, Respondent-Appellant, v. Kenneth E. DIXON, Petitioner-Appellee. |
Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., David R. Treeter, Deputy Atty. Gen., Office of Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for respondent-appellant.
Thomas G. Krochta, Vanstone & Krochta, Evansville, for petitioner-appellee.
The Indiana Dept. of Highways appeals the Vanderburgh Superior Court's order reinstating Kenneth Dixon as a DOH employee. We reverse. 1
Kenneth Dixon was an employee for the Indiana Dept. of Highways (DOH), classified as a "Maintenance IV Worker". On September 25, 1984, he was dismissed by the DOH for violating a work rule which proscribed abuse of a supervisor. While off duty, Dixon allegedly told a former summer worker, Mark Hardiman, that the DOH had a job opening in the Princeton Unit. However, Dixon allegedly said that, based upon conversation he heard among DOH supervisors, Hardiman would not get the job because Hardiman had filed a racial discrimination suit against the DOH with the NAACP.
After dismissal, Dixon filed an employee complaint. He was denied relief at the initial stage of the grievance procedure and all subsequent stages. In a letter dated February 22, 1985, the director of the DOH notified Dixon that the dismissal would not be changed.
ISSUE
Although the DOH presented four issues for review, the following issue is dispositive:
Whether Dixon was an "at will" employee, thus precluding his right to judicial review under the AAA.
DISCUSSION AND DECISION
Dixon was an "at will" employee. Indiana Code section 8-9.5-4-4(g)(1) provides, "All employees of the [DOH] are subject to demotion, discipline, dismissal, or transfer at the discretion of the director." (Emphasis added). Thus, Dixon was employed at the director's pleasure.
The DOH regulations provide an employee complaint procedure. 120 Ind.Admin.Code 1-3-1 through 7. However, this procedure is only for professional and technical employees. 120 I.A.C. 1-3-1(a); 120 I.A.C. 1-3-4(a). The regulations specify those positions which are considered professional or technical. 120 I.A.C. 1-3-7. Dixon's status as a "Maintenance Worker IV" is absent from that list. Thus, Dixon was ineligible to utilize the employee complaint procedure. Furthermore, the regulations provide that, after exhausting this procedure, professional and technical DOH employees may file a petition for judicial review pursuant to Indiana Code section 4-22-1-14 which is part of Indiana's Administrative Adjudication Act. By the regulation's omission, employees who are not professional or technical do not have a right to seek judicial review after dismissal. Therefore, the trial court erred by not dismissing Dixon's suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 2
Reversed.
1 Because of our disposition of this case, we need not consider the propriety of a wrongful discharge suit against the DOH for Dixon's exercise of constitutional or statutorily conferred rights. Frampton...
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Harp v. Indiana Dept. of Highways
...review under the AAA, asserting as authority an unpublished memorandum decision, subsequently published as Indiana Department of Highways v. Dixon (1987), Ind.App., 512 N.E.2d 1113, and two years later vacated by the Indiana Supreme Court in Indiana Department of Highways v. Dixon (1989), I......
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Indiana Dept. of Highways v. Dixon
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