Balt. City Detention Ctr. v. Foy, 197 A.3d 1

Background

Lt. Michael Foy, a correctional officer at Baltimore City Detention Center, was found guilty by a COBR hearing board of multiple charges and the board recommended transfer and demotion.
The appointing authority (Acting Commissioner John Wolfe) received the hearing board’s recommendation and decided to increase the penalty to termination; he held a penalty-increase meeting on Dec. 9, 2015.
Audio recording equipment failed during that meeting; Wolfe prepared a memorandum summarizing the meeting, notified Foy’s counsel, attempted to reschedule, then issued a final order terminating Foy within the 30-day statutory window.
Foy sought judicial review claiming the statute required the penalty-increase meeting to be “on the record” and that the recording failure invalidated the increased penalty.
The circuit court remanded for a new on-the-record meeting; the Court of Special Appeals reversed, holding the 30-day deadline precluded a remand to cure procedural defects. The Court of Appeals granted certiorari.
The Court of Appeals held the penalty-increase prerequisites are mandatory, the 30-day period applies to completing them, but remand to hold another on-the-record meeting was the appropriate remedy because there was no prejudice and the appointing authority acted in good faith.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Foy)	Defendant's Argument (BCDC / Wolfe)	Held
Whether §10-910(b)(6) prerequisities for increasing a hearing-board penalty are mandatory	All listed steps must be satisfied before increasing a penalty	COBR’s different wording from LEOBR (omitting "personally" and "only") shows less strict requirements	Mandatory: the listed conditions are a condition precedent to increasing a penalty
When the 30-day clock in §10-910(b)(1) begins	(implicit) clock tied to hearing-board issuance	Clock begins when appointing authority receives the hearing board’s decision	Clock begins on appointing authority’s receipt of the hearing board recommendation
Whether the 30-day deadline prevents curing procedural defects (i.e., holding another on-the-record meeting after deadline)	Failure to conduct the meeting on the record is incurable after 30 days; the hearing-board recommendation should stand	The 30-day limit should allow remand in some circumstances; penalties can be cured if no prejudice and good faith	30-day deadline applies to completing prerequisites, but remand to cure a technical, non-prejudicial defect is allowable
Whether Commissioner Wolfe’s post-hoc memorandum satisfied the "on the record" requirement	The memorandum does not satisfy statutory "on the record" requirement; meeting must be recorded contemporaneously	The COBR does not expressly require audio recording; memorandum memorializes the meeting and suffices	Memorandum insufficient; "on the record" requires contemporaneous recording/transcript (audio, video, or stenographic); remand required to produce such a record

Key Cases Cited

Coleman v. Anne Arundel Cty. Police Dep’t, 369 Md. 108 (2002) (describing LEOBR as an exclusive procedural framework and identifying its notice/hearing safeguards)
Hird v. City of Salisbury, 121 Md. App. 496 (1998) (holding penalty-increase prerequisites under LEOBR are mandatory)
VanDevander v. Voorhaar, 136 Md. App. 621 (2001) (addressing timeliness and cure of LEOBR procedural defects)
Fraternal Order of Police, Montgomery Cty. Lodge No. 35 v. Mehrling, 343 Md. 155 (1996) (an agency may not act until statutory condition precedent is satisfied)
Pollock v. Patuxent Inst. Bd. of Review, 374 Md. 463 (2003) (agency failure to follow mandatory procedures may be vacated but relief requires showing prejudice)
Smith v. State, 291 Md. 125 (1981) (explaining purpose of contemporaneous records: to preserve an accurate account for review)