State v. Sharafeldin

• Decision Date: 27 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. 102,102
• Citation: 382 Md. 129,854 A.2d 1208
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Ibnomer SHARAFELDIN.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

854 A.2d 1208

382 Md. 129

STATE of Maryland v. Ibnomer SHARAFELDIN.

No. 102, Sept. Term, 2003.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 27, 2004.

Scott S. Oakley, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellant/cross-appellee.

Fatai A. Suleman (Amorow & Kum, P.A., Takota Park, on brief), for appellee/cross-appellant.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA and GREENE, JJ.

WILNER, J.

In September, 1999, Ibnomer Sharafeldin sued the State Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in U.S. District Court, claiming, among other things, breach of contract. The contract allegedly breached was a 1995 Settlement Agreement intended to resolve a discrimination claim that Sharafeldin had filed against the Department with the State Human Relations Commission (HRC) and the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). When, in April, 2000, his Federal breach of contract action was dismissed on Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity grounds, Sharafeldin filed a similar claim in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, where he met with better success. The jury returned a verdict in his favor of $366,500, which, upon his acceptance of a remittitur in order to avoid a new trial, was reduced to $108,000.

Two inter-related issues are before us in this appeal from the Circuit Court judgment, both emanating from the Department's defense of sovereign immunity. Through the enactment of what is now Maryland Code, § 12-201 of the State Government Article (SG), the Legislature has conditionally waived the State's sovereign immunity in actions filed in Maryland courts for breach of a written contract, but in § 12-202 has provided that "[a] claim under this subtitle is barred unless the claimant files suit within 1 year after the later of: (1) the date on which the claim arose; or (2) the completion of the contract that gives rise to the claim." The first question is whether § 12-202 constitutes a condition to the waiver of sovereign immunity and thus to the right of action itself against the State or is, instead, merely a statute of limitations.

It is undisputed that the action in Circuit Court was not filed within the allowable one-year period. In order to save that action, Sharafeldin relies on Maryland Rule 2-101(b), which provides, in relevant part, that, if an action is filed in U.S. District Court within "the period of limitations prescribed by Maryland law" and the Federal action is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, an action filed in the State Circuit Court within 30 days after entry of the order of dismissal "shall be treated as timely filed in this State." The second issue, as presented, depends on the answer to the first. If SG § 12-202 is merely a statute of limitations and Sharafeldin's action was filed in Federal court within the one-year period, the action filed in Circuit Court would be regarded as timely, as it was filed within 30 days after the Federal breach of contract claim was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. If SG § 12-202 is a condition to suit and not a statute of limitations, however, the question arises whether Rule 2-101(b) can save the action even if it had been filed in Federal court within the one-year period; does § 12-202, in other words, bar the action if not filed in State court within the one-year period?¹

BACKGROUND

Sharafeldin was employed by the Department as a chaplain at one or more of the State prisons in the Hagerstown area. He began in 1989 as a contractual employee but, after filing discrimination charges against the Department with the HRC and EEOC, he became a full-time employee in 1991. Since then, he has filed seven further complaints of discrimination. The gist of his current unhappiness was his desire to be transferred from the Hagerstown complex to prisons in the Baltimore/Jessup area.

In February, 1995, in a resolution of one of his complaints to HRC and EEOC, the Department entered into a written Settlement Agreement with Sharafeldin in which the Department made three commitments:

(1) It would rescind two existing suspensions and pay lost wages of $632;

(2) It would "[n]otify and interview [Sharafeldin] for consideration of Chaplain position in the Baltimore/Jessup region"; and

(3) It agreed that "there will be no retaliation or harassment taken against [Sharafeldin]."

In October, 1995, a chaplain position opened in the Jessup area. The Department notified Sharafeldin of the vacancy, interviewed him for the position, but selected someone else for the job — a chaplain who received higher scores from three different raters selected by the Department to review the applications. In the Fall of 1997, another chaplain position opened in the Jessup area. Believing that it had fulfilled its obligation to Sharafeldin by considering him for the 1995 vacancy, the Department filled that position without notifying or interviewing Sharafeldin. In March, 1998, the Department informed Sharafeldin of a third vacancy in a chaplain position in Jessup, interviewed him for the position, but, again, hired someone else, a person who received higher scores from five different raters. On August 21, 1998, an incident involving Sharafeldin and two correctional officers occurred at one of the Hagerstown prisons, in which Sharafeldin was allegedly shoved and mildly bruised. He filed criminal charges against the officers, which were dismissed, and another discrimination complaint with HRC and EEOC, which also was unsuccessful. He never returned to work, although, for whatever reason, the Department kept him on the payroll until June, 1999.

On September 27, 1999, Sharafeldin filed a three-count complaint against the Department in the U.S. District Court, alleging hostile-work-environment harassment on the basis of his race, color, religion, and national origin (Count I)², constructive discharge arising from the hostile-work-environment harassment (Count II), and breach of the 1995 Settlement Agreement (Count III). In Count III, Sharafeldin alleged that the Department breached the 1995 agreement "by not notifying him of chaplaincy position on at least two occasions" and by "retaliating against him when the Defendant did not hire him or transfer him for the chaplaincy position for which he was well qualified" and picking, instead, "candidates who were less qualified than the Plaintiff."

The Department's response to the complaint is not in the record before us. It appears from the court's discussion, however, that the dispositive argument with respect to Count III, made in a motion to dismiss, was Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, for, on April 10, 2000, the court dismissed Count III on that ground and discussed no other.

In February, 2001, the court entered summary judgment for the Department on the other two counts, concluding that Sharafeldin had not shown that the harassment alleged by him was based on race, religion, or national origin. Indeed, the court concluded that Sharafeldin was "a contentious, disgruntled and paranoiac employee who clashed with almost everyone with whom he came into contact, including inmates, correctional officers, nurses, other chaplains, and superiors," that he "constantly complained about his duties and work assignments," that he "overreacted to petty slights and inconveniences," that it was his "inability to work with others and to comply with the directions of his superiors which led to the claims asserted by him," and that "[w]henever disputes or conflicts arose, Sharafeldin attributed them to his race, his religion or his national origin." Sharafeldin v. Maryland, Dept. of Public Safety, 131 F.Supp.2d 730, 740 (D.Md.2001). In an unreported opinion filed November 15, 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit summarily affirmed the judgment of the District Court.

On April 25, 2000 — 15 days after dismissal of Count III of his Federal complaint — Sharafeldin filed a two-count complaint against the Department in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Count 1, captioned "Breach of Settlement Agreement," alleged that, in the 1995 Settlement Agreement, a copy of which was attached to the Complaint, the Department promised that it would notify Sharafeldin "of vacant chaplain positions in the Baltimore and Jessup regions and would interview him for consideration of those positions" and that the Department breached the agreement in two respects: first, in the Fall of 1997, by appointing another person to fill a vacant position in Jessup without notifying him of the vacancy, and second, by failing to hire him to fill vacancies that occurred in October, 1995 and March, 1998, failures which Sharafeldin averred constituted retaliation against him for filing a discrimination complaint.

Count 2, captioned "Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing," incorporated the earlier averments and asserted that the Department "did not observe good faith and fair dealing under the agreement when it had every opportunity to do so" and that, by reason of its failure to make a good faith effort to honor the Settlement Agreement, Sharafeldin was forced to endure "years of hostile and abusive work environment and to subsequently los [e] his job." Count 2 was thus also in the nature of a breach of contract claim, based on an alleged breach of the 1995 Settlement Agreement.

The Department moved to dismiss the action on the ground of sovereign immunity. As to Count 1, the Department argued, that, because the action was not brought within one year from the date on which Sharafeldin's claims arose, the Department retained its defense of sovereign immunity. In presenting that defense, the Department contended, at least by implication, that the requirement imposed by SG § 12-202 of bringing suit within one year constitutes not a statute of limitations but a condition precedent to the action itself — a condition to the waiver of the State's sovereign immunity. In taking that position, the...