Suburban Hosp., Inc. v. Dwiggins
| Decision Date | 01 September 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 1344,1344 |
| Citation | 83 Md.App. 97,573 A.2d 835 |
| Parties | , 116 Lab.Cas. P 56,386, 5 IER Cases 693 SUBURBAN HOSPITAL, INC. v. William DWIGGINS. , |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
George P. Haldeman (Adelman & Haldeman, on the brief), Rockville, for appellant.
Theresa M. Hall (Durke G. Thompson and Goldberg, Thompson, Pasternak & Fidis, P.A., on the brief), Bethesda, for appellee.
Argued before WILNER, BISHOP and ROSALYN B. BELL, JJ.
William Dwiggins was an employee of Suburban Hospital, Inc. On September 26, 1985, he was discharged by his supervisor for allegedly violating a specific condition of his employment. Invoking the hospital's grievance procedure, Dwiggins presented his case to various hospital personnel, including a four-member grievance panel. The panel, on disputed evidence, concluded that Dwiggins had violated the condition and that discharge was an appropriate sanction. The hospital administrator concurred in those findings, thereby effectuating the discharge.
Mr. Dwiggins filed suit in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County against the hospital and its associate administrator, Paul Quinn. He charged the hospital with breach of contract and the somewhat nebulous tort of breaching a duty of fair dealing by denying him due process; he charged Quinn with defamation by publishing untrue statements concerning Dwiggins's abilities and performance. The tort action against the hospital and the action against Quinn were dismissed on motion. The breach of contract count was submitted to a jury, which returned a verdict in Dwiggins's favor in the amount of the wages he lost from the time of his discharge until he found reemployment a year later, in September, 1986. The hospital has appealed from the judgment of $31,259 against it in the contract action; Dwiggins has cross-appealed from the dismissal of his action against Quinn. We shall vacate the former and affirm the latter.
Mr. Dwiggins was first employed in 1975 as a carpenter. In 1982, he was promoted to a supervisory position. His annual evaluations in 1983 and 1984 indicate that his then-supervisor, Larry Emory, regarded his performance as of the highest quality.
During the period 1981-83, the hospital adopted and published a number of personnel policies. In 1981, it promulgated a set of written policies dealing with disciplinary action and grievances. The statement on grievances declared that it was the hospital's policy to assure fair and equitable treatment to its employees and that, if an employee felt that an injustice had been done, he or she "may initiate a grievance as outlined below." The formal grievance procedure created by this policy statement contains six steps, beginning with the immediate supervisor and ending with presentation of the grievance to an "ad hoc grievance committee" (Step 5) and ultimately to the hospital administrator (Step 6).
The ad hoc grievance committee is to consist of four persons, two selected by the employee and two selected by the supervisor. The parties are permitted to choose "any employee of the hospital they wish to serve on the committee." The director of personnel serves as chairman of the committee but may not vote except in case of a tie. The grievance committee is directed to "review the grievance and within two working days inform both parties to the grievance of its decision, in writing." Nothing is said in the policy statement about how a "hearing" before the committee is to be conducted, other than that the director of personnel will determine the time and place of the committee meeting.
In 1982, a more general policy on employee relations was adopted by the hospital. It stated, in relevant part, that the hospital "voluntarily assumes a direct and continuing obligation to protect the privileges, interests and benefits of its employees" and that, to address these and other objectives, the hospital "subscribes to the code of employee relations set forth below." Among the provisions of that code were statements that the hospital "shall establish written work performance and on-the-job behavior standards which shall be expected from an employee" and "shall permit and encourage" employees to present grievances and "assure" that such grievances "will be dealt with at successively higher levels of management in accordance with an established, written procedure."
Finally, for our purposes, in 1983, the hospital adopted a written policy with respect to reinstatement. The introductory paragraph of the document stated that "[r]einstatement is an offer and acceptance of any position within six months of separation from the hospital." This is restated in the body of the policy statement: "A position is offered to a former employee and the employee accepts the conditions of reinstatement."
When Mr. Quinn returned to work on June 3 and discovered what Mr. Dwiggins had done, he concluded that Dwiggins had acted inappropriately in four respects: (1) constructing the wall without "Administration approval"; (2) proceeding without a building permit; (3) expending "outside contractor funds" without "Administrative authorization"; and (4) neglecting to inform the laboratory of the project so that it could move or cover its equipment. Quinn thought the transgressions serious enough to suspend Dwiggins for three days and recommend his termination thereafter. Dwiggins filed a grievance. Although he asserted that the reasons given by Mr. Quinn were "inaccurate," he did not indicate in what way they were inaccurate; his grievance was based primarily on the argument that, as this was his first offense, the recommended penalty was too severe.
The grievance was eventually considered by a grievance committee, which concluded that, as to the first two charges, Mr. Emory, rather than Mr. Dwiggins, was the culpable agent, but that Mr. Dwiggins should have given advance notice to the laboratory and should not have made any change in the plans without consulting Mr. Emory. By unanimous vote, the committee recommended that Dwiggins be reinstated on probation, subject to a number of conditions. The hospital administrator reviewed the findings of the grievance committee and concurred in its recommendations. She wrote to him, in relevant part:
"Three conditions must be met by you with the acceptance of this reinstatement. They are as follows:
1. Written guidelines will be established for project work which you must agree to follow until department policies are written.
2. You will be placed on probation from July 1 through December 31 with the understanding that any violations of the written guidelines will be grounds for immediate termination.
. . . . .
If you accept the above conditions, please call Mr. John Marynowski, your new supervisor, and arrange your return. Upon your return, I would like you to bring me a signed copy of this letter."
(Emphasis added.) At the bottom of the letter was the statement, "I accept the three conditions of reinstatement as listed above, and will plan to return to work on July 2, 1985," under which was a signature and date line.
Dwiggins signed the letter and returned to work. He also signed another document captioned "Performance Conditions," making clear, among other things, that "[n]o outside contractor can be engaged without signed approval from Administration" and that "[f]ailure to comply with any of these provisions during the probationary period will result in immediate termination." A month later, he received a memo from Mr. Marynowski dealing with purchase orders. It stated, in relevant part, that Dwiggins could sign purchase orders for material being requested by maintenance personnel, that the purchase order would then have to be signed by Marynowski, and that any item over $500 had to be approved by hospital administration.
On September 6, 1985, Mr. Marynowski delivered a written warning to Mr. Dwiggins, resulting from what Marynowski regarded as "poor judgment in job planning and supervision in completing the renovation of radiology and the installation of the dishwasher...." The work, he complained, was poorly coordinated and was completed a week late. On September 26, Marynowski decided to discharge Dwiggins for further misadventures in the renovation of the radiology department. Specifically, he charged that, in direct violation of both the reinstatement condition precluding the engagement of outside contractors without Administration approval and the purchase order policy, Dwiggins had "engaged an outside contractor (Peak Sheet Metal) without signed approval from Administration."
Once again, Mr. Dwiggins invoked the grievance procedure, contending that the charge was untrue--that he had not hired any outside contractors. The charge and the defense were presented in Step 4 of the grievance procedure to the Personnel Relations Coordinator who, in a Memorandum of October 17, 1985, found that Dwiggins had indeed engaged the contractor in violation of the condition of his reinstatement agreement. Specifically, he found:
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