Preview:

REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 1283 September Term, 1995 ___________________________________

MARYLAND STATE RETIREMENT AGENCY v. GERARDINE DELAMBO

___________________________________ Moylan, Murphy, Hollander, JJ. ____________________________________ Opinion by Murphy, J. ____________________________________ Filed: May 6, 1996

Judicial review of administrative action differs from appellate review of a trial court judgment. In the latter context the appellate court will search the record for evidence to support the judgment and will sustain the judgment for a reason plainly appearing on the record whether or not the reason was expressly relied upon by the trial court. However, in judicial review of agency action the court may not uphold the agency order unless it is sustainable on the agency's findings and for the reason stated by the agency. United Steelworkers v. Bethlehem Steel, 298 Md. 665, 679, 472 A.2d 62 (1984) (emphasis added). This appeal from the Circuit Court for Baltimore City presents the question of whether the above stated principle applies to the punishment phase of administrative procedure. hold that the answer to this question is "yes." We

Background Gerardine Delambo, appellee, has been a State employee for over 20 years. In 1991, she began working for the Maryland State As part of her job, appellee used a personal

Retirement Agency.

computer that was "networked" with personal computers of other agency personnel. Computer access to confidential information was protected generally by passwords and other security measures. Unfortunately for appellant, however, some "sensitive" information was not protected. On September 28, 1993, curious about a pending relocation of appellant's offices, appellee used her computer to "access" the

subdirectory of appellant's Executive Director.

One of the files

that she accessed was a copy of the letter of appointment that had been issued to the new Executive Director. The identity of

the new Executive Director had not yet been released and was not supposed to be released until a formal announcement was made. Not realizing that the information was sensitive, appellee revealed the identity of the new Executive Director to two coworkers. On October 1, 1993, pursuant to subtitle 9 of the State Personnel and Pensions Article,1 appellee was suspended without pay pending the outcome of charges in which appellant sought her removal from State service. After a February 15, 1994 hearing,

an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) of the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) upheld the charges and concluded that "a reasonable person in [appellee's] position would have known that her actions constituted misconduct, even in the absence of an Agency directive... [so appellee's] exceedingly poor judgement, resulting in her misconduct reflects that she is unfit to hold a position in this agency." Appellee filed exceptions to this

ruling, but the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Personnel adopted the ALJ's recommendations. Appellee then appealed to the Circuit Court for Baltimore

Unless otherwise specified, statutory references hereinafter are to Md. Code Ann. (1994 Vol.) State Personnel and Pensions. - 2 -

1

City.

After an April 14, 1995 hearing, the circuit court

concluded that the decision of the Secretary with regard to the finding that the [appellee] did the acts complained of by the [appellant] is supported by competent, material, and substantial evidence and that portion of the decision is not affected by any error of law. Notwithstanding, this Court finds that the decision to remove [appellee] from her position because her actions made her unfit for the performance of her duties as a procurement officer is not supported by substantial evidence. State Gov't Art.

Download Md. State Retirement v. Delambo.pdf

Maryland Law