Simmons v. Brown

• Decision Date: 15 July 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. No. HM 80-1726.
• Citation: 497 F. Supp. 173
• Parties: Stephen SIMMONS, Sergeant, United States Army v. Harold BROWN, Secretary of Defense; Clifford Alexander, Secretary of the Army; and Colonel Herd, Post Commander.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

497 F. Supp. 173

Stephen SIMMONS, Sergeant, United States Army v. Harold BROWN, Secretary of Defense; Clifford Alexander, Secretary of the Army; and Colonel Herd, Post Commander.

Civ. No. HM 80-1726.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

July 15, 1980.

Thomas W. Keech, Stephanie Klein, Dennis W. Carroll, Jr., Administrative Law Center, Legal Aid Bureau, Inc., Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff.

Russell T. Baker, Jr., U. S. Atty. for the District of Maryland, Edward M. Norton, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Baltimore, Md., Calvin M. Lederer, Captain, Judge Advocate Gen. Litigation Division, Dept. of the Army, Washington, D. C., for Harold Brown et al.

HERBERT F. MURRAY, District Judge.

Plaintiff is a staff sergeant presently serving on active duty in the United States Army with assignment at Fort Meade, Maryland. On June 27, 1980, the Commander of Headquarters Command at Fort Meade approved plaintiff's involuntary separation from active duty in accordance with Army Regulations (AR) 600-85 and 635-200, which authorize discharge for personnel who fail to participate satisfactorily in the Army alcohol rehabilitation program. On July 3, 1980 Sgt. Simmons filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in this court and sought a temporary restraining order that would prohibit the Army from discharging him, as scheduled, on July 7, 1980. At the conclusion of a brief hearing held on July 3, 1980, the court scheduled a further hearing for July 11, 1980 and enjoined the defendants and their agents from discharging plaintiff until after the July 11 hearing. On July 10, the government filed a memorandum and several lengthy documentary exhibits in opposition to the request for a temporary restraining order, and on July 11, plaintiff filed an amended complaint and a supplemental memorandum in support of his request. In order to give full consideration to all of these papers, the court, at the time of the July 11 hearing, did not rule on whether a temporary restraining order would be granted. Instead, after receiving the government's assurances that plaintiff would not be discharged until the court had made a decision, the court indicated that it would make its decision on July 15, 1980. In view of the fact that necessary delays have already, in effect, given plaintiff the temporary restraining order he sought, and because both sides have asked the court to treat the ruling announced in open court on July 15, 1980 as though made on an application for a preliminary injunction, the court will treat its July 15 opinion as directed to an application for a preliminary injunction. For the reasons which follow, the court will deny preliminary injunctive relief.

The decision of a district court to grant or deny interlocutory injunctive relief must be based upon a consideration of the factors contained in the balance-of-hardship test as set forth in Blackwelder Furniture Co. v. Seilig Manufacturing Co., 550 F.2d 189, 196 (4th Cir. 1977). See also Maryland Undercoating Co., Inc. v. Payne, 603 F.2d 477, 481-82 (4th Cir. 1979); North Carolina State Ports Authority v. Dart Containerline Co., Ltd., 592 F.2d 749, 750 (4th Cir. 1979); Johnson v. Bergland, 586 F.2d 993 (4th Cir. 1978); United States v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 569 F.2d 1300 (4th Cir. 1978); Fort Sumter Tours, Inc. v. Andrus, 564 F.2d 1119 (4th Cir. 1977).

As the Fourth Circuit noted in the Maryland Undercoating case:

The balance-of-hardship test can be summarized as follows. The decision of the district court to grant or deny interlocutory injunctive relief should be based on a "flexible interplay" among all the factors to be considered, i. e., likelihood of irreparable harm to the plaintiff without an injunction; likelihood of harm to the defendant with an injunction; plaintiff's likelihood of success on the merits; and the public interest. The first step in determining whether interlocutory injunctive relief should issue is for the court to balance the likelihood of irreparable harm to the plaintiff without an injunction against the likelihood of harm to the defendant with an injunction. If a decided imbalance of hardship should appear in plaintiff's favor, it is enough that grave or serious questions are presented; plaintiff need not show a likelihood of success on the merits. The need for plaintiff to show likelihood of success on the merits increases as the probability of irreparable injury to plaintiff without an injunction decreases. Finally, the court should consider wherein lies the public interest, sometimes described as preserving the status quo ante litem until the merits of a serious controversy can be fully considered by a trial court. See Blackwelder, 550 F.2d at 195-97.

In the Blackwelder Furniture case, relied on in Maryland Undercoating, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stated that of the four factors the district court should consider, the two more important ones are those dealing with the likelihood of harm to the defendant if an injunction is issued and the likelihood of harm to plaintiff if an injunction is not issued.

With respect to these two factors, the court must also consider the Supreme Court's opinion in Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 94 S.Ct. 937, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974) in determining whether plaintiff has made a sufficient showing that the balance of harms is weighted in his favor. In Murray, a probationary employee was dismissed from federal employment, allegedly without due process. In reversing the lower court's decision to grant a restraining order, the Court indicated that a plaintiff seeking to prevent his discharge from government service has a heavy burden:

The District Court, exercising its equitable powers, is bound to give serious weight to the obviously disruptive effect which the grant of the temporary relief awarded here was likely to have on the administrative process. When we couple with this consideration the historical denial of all equitable relief by the federal courts in cases such as White v. Berry, 171 U.S. 366, 18 S.Ct. 917, 43 L.Ed. 199 (1898), the well-established rule that the Government has traditionally been granted the widest latitude in the "dispatch of its own internal affairs," Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 896, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 1749, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961), and the traditional unwillingness of courts of equity to enforce contracts for personal service either at the behest of the employer or of the employee, ... we think that the Court of Appeals was quite wrong in routinely applying to this case the traditional standards governing more orthodox "stays." See Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Assn. v. FPC, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 106, 259 F.2d 921 (1958). Although we do not hold that Congress has wholly foreclosed the granting of preliminary injunctive relief in such cases, we do believe that respondent at the very least must make a showing of irreparable injury sufficient in kind and degree to override these factors cutting against the general availability of preliminary injunctions in Government personnel cases.

415 U.S. at 83-84, 94 S.Ct. at 949-50.

The plaintiff in Murray alleged three types of irreparable injury: (1) deprivation of income for an indefinite period; (2) retention of spurious and unrebutted charges in her record; and (3) embarrassment inherent in being wrongfully discharged in the presence of coworkers. 415 U.S. at 89, 94 S.Ct. at 952. In concluding that none of these constituted allegations of irreparable injury, the Supreme Court quoted from Virginia Petroleum Jobbers, 259 F.2d at 925:

"The key word in this consideration is irreparable. Mere injuries, however substantial, in terms of money, time and energy necessarily expended in the absence of a stay, are not enough."

415 U.S. at 90, 94 S.Ct. at 953. The Court held that even if the plaintiff could prove that she would lose income and that her reputation would be damaged by the challenged agency action, "the showing falls far short of the type of irreparable injury which is a necessary predicate to the issuance of a temporary injunction in this type of case." 415 U.S. at 91-92, 94 S.Ct. at 953. Finally, the Court held that, except in some undefined extraordinary cases, the mere fact that a discharged employee cannot quickly find other work does not amount to irreparable injury:

We have held that an insufficiency of savings or difficulties in immediately obtaining other employment-external factors common to most discharged employees and not attributable to any unusual actions relating to the discharge itself— will not support a finding of irreparable injury, however severely they may affect a particular individual.

415 U.S. at 92 n.68, 94 S.Ct. at 953 n.68.

In the view of this court, the Sampson v. Murray case is clearly relevant to several of the contentions raised by Sgt. Simmons. The allegations that his loss of employment and his only source of income and the damage to his reputation are irreparable injuries cannot be sustained in light of Sampson v. Murray.

Moreover, because this case involves review of internal military affairs, the policy underlying the Sampson v. Murray rule is, if anything, more compelling here. In McCormick v. Claytor, 441 F.Supp. 622, 624 (D.Or.1977), the Sampson rule was expressly applied in the context of a request to enjoin an imminent honorable discharge from the Navy. Noting the traditional reluctance of courts to intervene in military affairs, McCormick found no irreparable injury, notwithstanding the fact that, in addition to the injuries found insufficient in Sampson v. Murray, McCormick was likely to suffer a stigma in his community and an obstacle to future employment as a result of his discharge and would suffer an irretrievable loss of medical benefits. Plaintiff's claims of similar potential injuries are equally insufficient to justify preliminary injunctive relief. Although Sgt. Simmons asserts that information concerning the reason for his discharge could be released to...