State Commission on Human Relations v. Amecom Division of Litton Systems, Inc.

• Decision Date: 12 July 1976
• Docket Number: No. 155,155
• Citation: 278 Md. 120,360 A.2d 1
• Parties: , 27 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 606 STATE of Maryland COMMISSION ON HUMAN RELATIONS v. AMECOM DIVISION OF LITTON SYSTEMS, INC.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 120

278 Md. 120

360 A.2d 1, 27 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 606

STATE of Maryland COMMISSION ON HUMAN RELATIONS v. AMECOM DIVISION OF LITTON SYSTEMS, INC.

No. 155.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 12, 1976.

Philip J. Tierney, General Counsel, Baltimore (Jacob J. Edelman and Edelman, Levy & Rubenstein, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

C. Maurice Weidemeyer and Philip A. Dales, III, Annapolis (Basil E. Moore, Jr., Annapolis and Jeanette L. Thomas, Beverly Hills, Cal., on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE, ELDRIDGE and O'DONNELL, ^* JJ.

LEVINE, Judge.

This action was commenced by the filing of a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on June 27, 1975. That complaint, in which the complainant, Patricia A. Carlson (Carlson), alleged unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex and retaliation for previous sworn testimony in the termination of her employment with appellee, Amecom Division of Litton Systems, Inc. (Amecom), ¹ was referred pursuant to federal law to appellant, the Maryland Commission on Human Relations (the commission). See Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-5(c) (1974). The commission, purportedly acting pursuant to Maryland Code (1957, 1972 Repl.Vol., 1975 Cum.Supp.) Art. 49B, § 4, filed a bill of complaint for interlocutory injunction requiring reinstatement of Carlson pending administrative disposition of her complaint. The Circuit Court for Prince George's County (Couch, J.) dismissed the bill upon Amecom's motion. An appeal was taken and we granted certiorari prior to consideration by the Court of Special Appeals.

Carlson's employment with Amecom was terminated on June 6, 1975, and on June 27 she filed a complaint with the EEOC that was transferred in due course to the state commission. At its 1975 session, the General Assembly had enacted Chapter 419 of the Laws of 1975, now codified in Code (1957, 1972 Repl.Vol., 1975 Cum.Supp.) Art. 49B § 4, which provides that:

'At any time after a complaint (alleging discrimination in public accommodations, employment or housing) has been filed, if the Commission believes that appropriate civil action is necessary to preserve the status of the parties or to prevent irreparable harm from the time the complaint is filed until the time of its final disposition, the Commission may bring action to obtain a temporary injunction. . . .'

In § 3 of Chapter 419 it was provided that the act take effect on July 1, 1975.

Amecom argued in the court below, as it does on appeal, that Art. 49B, § 4 should not be applied retroactively, that is, to alleged acts of discrimination that occurred before July 1, 1975, the effective date of the legislation, and that the relief sought was not authorized by the act since the term 'status' refers to the position of the parties at the time the § 4 action is commenced and because the element of irreparable harm is lacking due to the availability of federal relief in the form of money damages for lost pay. The circuit court held that the act was procedural or remedial in nature and was thus to be applied retroactively, but agreed with Amecom's alternative arguments and so dismissed the complaint. We shall affirm the decision of the court below solely on the grounds that Art. 49B, § 4 should be construed to apply prospectively with regard to alleged acts of discrimination, and thus we find it unnecessary to reach the question whether § 4 authorizes an injunction ordering reinstatement of an employee in an action brought subsequent to the termination of his employment. ²

A retroactive statute is one which purports to determine the legal significance of acts or events that have occurred prior to the statute's effective date. See Greenblatt, Judicial Limitations on Retroactive Civil Litigation, 51 Nw.U.L.Rev. 540, 544 (1956). Thus a statute, though applied only in legal proceedings subsequent to its effective date and in that sense, at least, prospective, is, when applied so as to determine the legal significance of acts or events that occurred prior to its effective date, applied retroactively. Application of § 4 to a case such as this, where an alleged discriminatory discharge occurred prior to the effective date of the statute, would effect a reversal of a previous act, the discharge, and would thus be retroactive in its impact. Section 4 must, therefore, be applied retroactively if Carlson is to be granted the relief sought by the commission.

There is, of course, no absolute prohibition against retroactive application of a statute. If the Legislature intends that a law affecting rights or matters of substance operate retrospectively, that intent will be given effect so long as constitutional prohibitions are not violated. Janda v. General Motors, 237 Md. 161, 169, 205 A.2d 228 (1964). Because of the potential for interference with substantive rights, however, and because of the resulting prejudice against retroactive application, the presumed intent is that statutes operate prospectively and are to be construed accordingly. Rigger v. Baltimore County, 269 Md. 306, 310, 305 A.2d 128 (1973); Kastendike v. Baltimore Ass'n, 267 Md. 389, 395-96, 297 A.2d 745 (1972); State Farm v. Hearn, 242 Md. 575, 582, 219 A.2d 820 (1966); Bell v. State, 236 Md. 356, 369, 204 A.2d 54 (1964); ,Beechwood Coal Co. v. Lucas, 215 Md. 248, 253-54, 137 A.2d 680 (1958); Kelch v. Keehn, 183 Md. 140, 143-44, 36 A.2d 544 (1944) (and cases cited therein). Nevertheless, if the statute contains a clear expression of intent that it operate retrospectively, see State Farm v. Hearn, supra, 242 Md. at 582, 219 A.2d 820; Bell v. State, supra, 236 Md. at 369, 204 A.2d 54; Tax Comm. v. Power Company, 182 Md. 111, 117, 32 A.2d 382 (1943), or the statute affects only procedures or remedies, Luxmanor Citizens v. Burkart, 266 Md. 631, 644-45, 296 A.2d 403 (1972); Janda v. General Motors, supra, 237 Md. at 168, 205 A.2d 228; Richardson v. Richardson, 217 Md 316, 320, 142 A.2d 550 (1958); Ireland v. Shipley, 165 Md. 90, 98, 166 A. 593 (1933), it will be given retroactive application.

No expression whatsoever of an intent that the act operate retroactively appears in Chapter 419. Nor, in our view, is § 4 merely remedial or procedural in nature. Chapter 419 was a legislative response to the October 1974 decision of this Court in Gutwein v. Easton Publishing Co., 272 Md. 563, 325 A.2d 740 (1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 991, 95 S.Ct. 1427, 43 L.Ed.2d 673 (1975). There we noted that the purpose of the employment discrimination subtitle of Article 49B was, as then set forth in Code (1957, 1972 Repl.Vol.) Art. 49B, § 17.

'. . . to assure all persons equal opportunity in receiving employment and in all labor management-union relations regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin, sex, or age . . .'

and to that end, that the particular subtitle sought

'. . . to prohibit discrimination in employment by any person, group, labor organization, organization or any employer or his agents.'

Nonetheless, we held in Gutwein that even given a determination that an unlawfully discriminatory discharge under Art. 49B, § 19(a) had occurred, the commission was not authorized by § 14(e), which empowers the commission to issue an order requiring the respondent to cease and desist from the discriminatory acts and 'to take such affirmative action as will effectuate the purposes of the particular subtitle,' to make awards of back pay in light of the 'prohibitory,' as opposed to 'compensatory,' nature of the employment discrimination subtitle. In April 1975, only six months after the decision in Gutwein, the General Assembly enacted Chapter 419. In declining to authorize the awarding of damages for lost wages, the Legislature sought through Chapter 419 to substantially eliminate the need for such damages by authorizing instead interlocutory injunctive relief in order that the status of the parties be preserved pending a determination on the merits. In so doing, however, the Legislature created an action based on what amounts to a new substantive right.

An act is remedial in nature when it provides only for a new method of enforcement of a preexisting right. See Kelch v. Keehn, supra, 183 Md. at 145, 36 A.2d 544; Ireland v. Shipley, supra, 165 Md. at 98, 166 A. 593. Chapter 419, however, goes further and provides a remedy based, not upon a preexisting right, in this case the right to be free from acts of discrimination in employment, but upon the mere filing of a complaint alleging discriminatory acts. Such an interlocutory remedy, available without a determination on the merits that a preexisting right exists, cannot, then, constitute simply a new method for enforcement of the undetermined right, but must instead be deemed itself to create in effect a new substantive right.

Thus, this case is unlike the federal cases, such as Koger v. Ball, 497 F.2d 702 (4th Cir. 1974), relied on by the commission, giving retroactive operation to the provisions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (1972), with regard to claims of federal employees based upon acts antedating the effective date of the Act. The court in...