Wilkinson v. State Crime Laboratory Com'n

• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: FLANDERS, Justice.
• Citation: Wilkinson v. State Crime Laboratory Com'n, 788 A.2d 1129 (R.I. 2002)
• Decision Date: 31 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. 2000-410-Appeal.,2000-410-Appeal.
• Parties: Richard C. WILKINSON v. The STATE CRIME LABORATORY COMMISSION et al.

788 A.2d 1129

Richard C. WILKINSON v. The STATE CRIME LABORATORY COMMISSION et al.

No. 2000-410-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

January 31, 2002.

Present LEDERBERG, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.

Sean M. McAteer, for plaintiff. Louis J. Saccoccio/ James R. Lee, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

This is a government-employment dispute involving a whole passel of claims and counterclaims between a classified "full status" state employee and the state governmental entities and individuals that either employed him or supervised his work at the state's crime laboratory. Both sides have appealed from the Superior Court judgments that disposed of the parties' respective claims.

To resolve the legal issues presented, we must construe provisions of the Merit System Act (merit system) — specifically G.L. 1956 § 36-4-59 (tenure in state service) and § 36-4-38 (dismissal) — as well as the State Crime Laboratory Commission Act (crime lab act), G.L. 1956 § 12-1.2-6. In addition, we must decide whether certain 1994 amendments to the crime lab act (the 1994 amendments) stripped the plaintiff, Richard C. Wilkinson (plaintiff or Wilkinson), of a property interest in his "full status" as a classified employee under the merit system. Finally, we also must consider whether the individual defendants — Louis Luzzi (Luzzi), who was dean of the Pharmacy Department ofthe defendant University of Rhode Island (URI) and also served as executive secretary to the Commission, and Dennis Hilliard (Hilliard), who was the director of the crime laboratory, defamed Wilkinson and whether Hilliard committed contempt of court.¹ With respect to defendants' counterclaims, we address whether, as part of his employment at the crime laboratory, Wilkinson was entitled to receive certain benefits and compensation from either or both defendants, URI, and the defendant State of Rhode Island (state). For the reasons classified below, we reverse in part the rulings on summary judgment, affirm the final judgment embodying the trial justice's rulings, and remand this case to the Superior Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The pertinent facts and travel of this case are as follows.

Facts and Travel

In 1971, Wilkinson began working as a criminalist for the state in what was then known as the Laboratories for Scientific Criminal Investigation (laboratory), located at URI's Kingston campus. In June 1973, he became the laboratory's assistant director. In 1978, however, the General Assembly enacted G.L. 1956 chapter 1.2 of title 12, via P.L. 1978, ch. 206, § 2, which established the State Crime Laboratory Commission (commission), a named defendant herein. It also enacted G.L. 1956 chapter 1.1 of title 12, via P.L. 1978, ch. 205, art. VIII, § 1, which established the State Central Crime Laboratory (lab or crime lab) at URI.² Section 12-1.1-8 authorized the commission, among other things, to pay the salaries of lab employees and to monitor the crime lab's general operation. Although the General Assembly did not authorize URI in 1978 to supervise the commission's employees or to manage the lab's activities, nevertheless, URI did so by exercising a close oversight of the lab and its personnel.³

In July 1988, after obtaining twenty years of state-service credit, plaintiff achieved "full status" under the state's merit system as a classified commission employee for which he received his twenty-year certificate.⁴ In 1990, as part of a salary negotiation, the state offered plaintiff thenonclassified position of associate professor of toxicology at URI, in addition to his preexisting position as assistant director of the crime lab. The state also allowed plaintiff to work fewer hours, for the same salary. Wilkinson accepted the offer, and in March 1991, the state appointed him acting director of the crime lab.

The present dispute arose with respect to a disagreement over what entity or entities actually employed Wilkinson and to whom he was required to report. By letter dated January 8, 1992, Luzzi notified Wilkinson in writing that he was being fired for his alleged insubordination to Luzzi and to URI. On or about February 24, 1992, the commission ratified the action taken by Luzzi and terminated Wilkinson from state employment. On June 30, 1992, however, the commission decided that it should provide Wilkinson with a post-termination hearing. The commission held that hearing on July 22 and 23, 1993, after which it referred the matter to the Attorney General's office (AG) for findings of fact and conclusions of law (a designee of the AG chaired the commission). The AG determined that Wilkinson and all other employees of the crime lab were not URI employees; rather, such employees were statutorily responsible to the commission alone. Thus, the AG concluded, Luzzi lacked authority to act as Wilkinson's superior. The AG also concluded that Wilkinson could not have been insubordinate to Luzzi because Wilkinson was responsible only to the commission (rather than to Luzzi and URI), and that his termination for alleged insubordination had been improper.

After his termination, Wilkinson filed a claim for unemployment compensation benefits. Initially, the director of the Department of Employment Security (DES) denied Wilkinson's claim, stating that he had been discharged for "proved misconduct," and was thereby barred from receiving unemployment benefits by G.L. 1956 § 28-44-18. The defendants URI and the commission were parties to the administrative proceedings and to the administrative appeal to the District Court under G.L. 1956 § 42-35-15 of the Administrative Procedures Act) that followed the agency's denial of benefits to Wilkinson.

The District Court referred the matter to a master, who ultimately issued written findings of fact and law. Thereafter, the District Court duly adopted the master's findings and recommendations as the decision of the court and entered judgment thereon in favor of Wilkinson. The District Court ruled that:

"[I]t is clear that the University's view of its authority over the Crime Laboratory was contrary to law. No rational person may suggest that state employees by their administrative action may overrule duly promulgated laws. From the record before the [DES] Board it cannot be determined when in recent history this illegal encroachment first occurred. It matters not. It is also irrelevant whether the administrative authority asserted by [URI] was the result of a simple misunderstanding, mere presumptuousness, an abdication of responsibility by others, or an intentional usurpation. * * * Therefore at all times relevant [Wilkinson] was answerable only to the [c]ommission."

In effect, the District Court's decision declared that from 1978 to the time of the court's decision, Wilkinson had been a classified employee of the commission — and not of URI. Because defendants did not seek this Court's review of that ruling, the District Court's judgment became final and binding on defendants.

Later, in 1994, the commission requested an advisory opinion from the Attorney General (AG) to determine whether Wilkinson's acceptance in 1990 of the position of associate professor at URI hadaltered his full status under the merit system as a classified state employee. The AG opined that Wilkinson's acceptance of the URI associate professorship position had no effect on his classified full-status employment with the state. As a commission employee, Wilkinson, the AG concluded, could be fired only for cause; that he had never been informed that accepting the associate professorship position at URI would affect his rights under the merit system; and that, in any event, state employees like Wilkinson could not validly waive rights that they were unaware they were surrendering. As a result, the AG recommended that the commission reinstate Wilkinson to his commission job with back pay.

Pursuant to the AG's recommendation, the commission reinstated Wilkinson to his job at the lab. But the commission reinstated Wilkinson as a criminalist, a lower-ranking position than his former job as assistant lab director. In response to this unsatisfactory reinstatement, and to resolve other disputes over the restoration of his employment benefits, Wilkinson instituted this Superior Court lawsuit in 1994 — well before his final discharge occurred, in 1996.⁵

Thereafter, in 1994, the General Assembly amended the crime lab act to convert all commission jobs at the lab into "limited appointment positions of the board of governors for higher education and [they] shall be subject to all employment policies, practices, and procedures of the board of governors for higher education and the University of Rhode Island." Section 12-1.2-6, as amended by P.L. 1994, ch. 50, § 2. Then, in 1996, apparently at the urging of Luzzi and Hilliard, the commission terminatedWilkinson from his employment with the state by refusing to reappoint him to his criminalist job at the lab, asserting that his limited-term position there had expired. The commission's refusal to reappoint Wilkinson occurred without any assertion of cause to discharge him from state employment.

Wilkinson then amended his complaint to challenge his termination. In due course, the case proceeded to summary judgment in the Superior Court, after Wilkinson and defendants had filed cross-motions seeking this relief. Wilkinson contended that, as a matter of law, he was a classified full-status employee who could not be terminated from state employment without just cause. The defendants argued, however, that, because of the 1994 amendments, Wilkinson had become a statutorily appointed limited-term employee of URI. Consequently, they urged that he had lost the benefits previously afforded to him when he was a classified, full-status employee of the commission under the merit system.⁶

In response, Wilkinson argued points too numerous to be recited here,⁷ but the motion justice...