Durham v. Somerset County et al

Filing 41

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER denying 37 Motion for Sanctions (Compel Defendant Jones to Answer Interrogatories). Signed by Judge William M Nickerson on 10/5/11. (dass, Deputy Clerk)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

JAMES “TROY” DURHAM

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v.
ROBERT N. JONES et al.

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Civil No. WMN-10-2534

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MEMORANDUM & ORDER
Plaintiff has filed a motion for sanctions, ECF No. 37,
complaining about the completeness of some of Defendants’
interrogatory answers.

The motion is fully briefed.

Upon a

review of the parties’ submissions, the Court concludes that the
motion should be denied.
The interrogatories at issue ask Defendants to
“[d]escribe all of the facts concerning the Plaintiff’s
termination” including “every material reason the Plaintiff was
terminated, the identities of all persons involved in the
decision to terminate Plaintiff, and the factors that went into
deciding whether to terminate the Plaintiff.”
#1.

Pl.’s Interrog.

In answer to this interrogatory,1 Defendants provide a three

page narrative of the events leading up to Plaintiff’s
termination.

Included in that narrative is the assertion that,

in the course of making a particular arrest, Plaintiff used
1

Defendants also incorporate this answer into the other
interrogatory answers to which Plaintiff takes issue.

pepper spray, struck the individual in the face, and thrust his
knee into the arrestee’s ribs.

Plaintiff then, in Defendants’

view, incorrectly filled out a “Use of Force Report” concerning
the incident and then refused several requests from his
supervisors to correct the report, instead simply submitting
unhelpful supplements.

Only when faced with the threat of

suspension for insubordination did Plaintiff finally withdraw
those supplements.

After one of his supervisors told Plaintiff

that Plaintiff’s strong use of force on an individual who
neither assaulted him nor resisted arrest could constitute a
criminal act, Plaintiff submitted a supplemental report that
was, in Defendants’ view, “in complete contradiction to his
original report.”

Plaintiff then sent communications of

confidential personnel and investigative matters, including
“derogatory, slanderous and inflammatory remarks made towards
Sheriff Jones and his staff,” to several outside agencies and to
the press.

After recounting this history, Defendants state that

Sheriff Jones decided to terminate Plaintiff “in the best
interest of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office and the
citizens of Somerset County.”

Defendants also supported this

narrative with citations to the record of a two-day hearing
conducted in accordance with the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill
of Rights, Md. Code Ann., Pub. Safety § 3-101 to 3-113, and

2

included a copy of the hearing record with their interrogatory
answers.
In moving for sanctions, Plaintiff deems Defendants’
narrative “an immaterial history of the dispute,” and posits
that “[n]o one has ever been terminated because it was in the
‘best interest’ of a government entity.”

ECF No. 40 at 1-2.

He

also complains that the submission of the hearing record was
“more in the nature of a document dump.”

ECF No. 37 at 5 n.1.

Rather than an “immaterial history,” the Court sees
Defendants’ account of the events leading to Plaintiff’s
termination as providing the reasons for their decision.2

While

Defendants could have stated that, “in light of the
aforementioned conduct,” we deemed it in the best interest of
the department to terminate Plaintiff, that connection is
certainly implied.

Perhaps, Defendants could have specified

which particular aspect of the alleged conduct was the stronger
factor in their decision but it is also implied in the answer
that the decision was the culmination of the entire series of
events.

The Court finds that Defendants’ interrogatory answers

are sufficient.

2

The Court, of course, renders no judgment as to whether this
was a valid reason for terminating Plaintiff, or even whether
this was the true reason for that termination.
3

The Court also finds nothing inappropriate in Defendants’
submission of the hearing record.

Defendants did not, as

Plaintiff’s motion implies, simply turn over a one thousand page
record and say, “our answer is in here, you find it.”

Their

narrative summarized Defendants’ view of the events and cited to
particular pages and exhibits within the record for support of
that view.
For these reasons, IT IS this 5th day of October, 2011, by
the United States District Court for the District of Maryland,
ORDERED:
1) That Plaintiff’s Motion for Sanctions, ECF No. 37, is
DENIED; and
2) That the Clerk of the Court shall transmit a copy of
this Memorandum and Order to all counsel of record.

_______________/s/________________
William M. Nickerson
Senior United States District Judge

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