Proctor v. State Government of North Carolina, Executive Branch, 81-2138
| Decision Date | 16 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-2138,81-2138 |
| Citation | 689 F.2d 491 |
| Parties | 30 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,043 Janet M. PROCTOR, Appellee, v. The STATE GOVERNMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA, EXECUTIVE BRANCH; The Department of Human Resources of the State of North Carolina; David Flaherty, Secretary of the N.C. Dept. of Human Resources; The Office of State Personnel of the North Carolina Department of Administration; I. O. Wilkerson, Director of the Division of Facility Services, N.C. Department of Human Resources; Edward Seagroves, Analyst, Division of Manpower Management; North Carolina Department of Human Resources, Clark Edwards, Director, Manpower Management Division, N.C. Dept. of Human Resources; Roy High, Section Chief, Office of State Personnel of the N.C. Dept. of Administration, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Ann Reed, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Raleigh, N.C. (Robert Hillman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, N.C., on brief), for appellant.
Joyce L. Davis, Raleigh, N.C. (Cynthia M. Currin, Crisp, Davis, Schwentker & Page, Robert A. Hassell, Raleigh, N.C., on brief), for appellee.
Before WINTER, Chief Judge, SPROUSE, Circuit Judge, and DOUMAR, * District Judge.
Defendants appeal from an order interpreting a consent decree and requiring defendants to comply with the decree as construed by the magistrate. 1 We conclude that the order must be vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings.
Since 1964 plaintiff has been employed as the administrator of the Student Loan Program, a branch of the Division of Facility Services of the North Carolina Department of Human Resources. The Student Loan Program is designed to improve the delivery of health care services to rural communities and to communities where a shortage of health care personnel exists by subsidizing the cost of medical education for persons who agree to practice in areas where citizens are medically underserved. Under the program, funds are lent to medical students who agree to practice a certain medical specialty in a designated community for a minimum specified period. If the borrower fulfills this obligation, the state cancels the indebtedness. Before certain changes were instituted early in 1981, plaintiff was responsible for supervising loan repayments, approving practice locations, and, in general, for directing the student loan program and its staff.
In 1975 plaintiff filed a class action against defendants seeking to redress an alleged "pattern and practice of sex discrimination" in promotions, classifications, and treatment by and within the Department of Human Resources, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Class certification was denied, and plaintiff's individual suit was scheduled for trial. However, on December 12, 1980, before trial, the parties agreed on a consent order, and the action was dismissed. By the terms of the consent order, defendants agreed that
Plaintiff shall be entitled to continue in her present position with defendant Department of Human Resources ... with the same rights and obligations of any employee of the State of North Carolina similarly situated without fear of retaliatory or discriminatory act on the part of defendants.
After the consent order was entered, defendants made two changes in the conditions of plaintiff's employment which she contends are in violation of its terms. First, plaintiff was assigned an additional supervisor with whom she was directed to discuss certain matters before they were presented to higher authority. This action, plaintiff contends, imposed on her an UNPRECEDENTED AND ADDITIONAL LEVEL OF SUPErvision. accordingly, plaintiff argues, the "position" which defendants allegedly guaranteed her without change from the entry of the consent decree was altered in violation of the decree.
The second change of which plaintiff complains was the transfer of certain functions previously assigned to plaintiff to another office. In particular, in a memorandum issued to plaintiff on April 7, 1981, she was informed that she would no longer be responsible for approving loan deferments, repayment schedules, turning delinquent accounts over to a collection agency, or practice locations. It is defendants' position that these changes were made in response to a fiscal audit of the Division of Facility Services conducted by the State Auditor's office in the fall of 1980. At that time, the auditor reported certain deficiencies in the internal controls of the student loan program resulting from the concentration of administrative functions in a single administrator, the plaintiff. The auditor did not specifically recommend that plaintiff should be divested of some of her duties in order to correct these deficiencies, but this was the course adopted by defendants.
The magistrate found that defendants made the decision to remove some of the functions of plaintiff's job without consulting with plaintiff, although she had asked for and been assured of her participation in formulating a response to the auditor's report. The magistrate also found that this decision had been made by defendants before the consent agreement was signed, but that plaintiff was not informed of this decision until after the decree was filed, or until April, 1981.
On June 2, 1981, plaintiff filed a motion seeking enforcement of the consent decree. She alleged that defendants had violated the decree by reducing the responsibilities and duties of her job as they had existed at the time of the consent decree, and by acting against plaintiff in retaliation for the exercise of her civil rights. As relief, plaintiff sought reinstatement of all the duties and responsibilities of her job and a permanent injunction forbidding any changes in her duties.
The magistrate found that defendants, by virtue of the consent decree, had guaranteed plaintiff the position she held as of the date of the decree, including the "job duties and responsibilities" held at that time, but that changes in plaintiff's duties may be effectuated "in the exercise of reasonable management discretion" without violating the decree. Although the magistrate's order does not explicitly require defendants to revoke the changes made to her duties and responsibilities after the entry of the consent decree, it does enjoin them from "acts of retaliation toward plaintiff for pressing her Title VII claims" and require them to comply "immediately" with the magistrate's interpretation of the consent decree.
In Willie M. v. Hunt, 657 F.2d 55 (4 Cir. 1981) we had occasion to consider both the nature of a consent judgment and, where a dispute arose as to its meaning, how it should be interpreted. We concluded that there were two cardinal principles for interpreting the consent judgment in that case:
First, that its meaning is properly to be sought within the confines of the judicially approved documents expressing the parties' consent. Second, that its meaning is to be sought in what is there expressed and not in the way it might have been written had the plaintiffs established their full rights in litigation or if it had been written to satisfy the purposes of only one of the parties to it.
657 F.2d at 60. We think these principles are applicable here.
The disputed portion of the consent decree in this case is the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Eady v. Veolia Transp. Services, Inc.
...from taking adverse action against an employee which is justified by a legitimate business reason." Proctor v. State Govt. of North Carolina, 689 F.2d 491, 494 (4th Cir.1982), citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The plaintiff has fail......
-
Proctor v. State Government of North Carolina
...by legitimate business reasons," we vacated the magistrate's order and remanded the case. Proctor v. State Government of North Carolina, Executive Branch, 689 F.2d 491, 494 (4th Cir.1982). On remand, the magistrate ruled that the changes in Proctor's position were the result of the exercise......