Craig Royal is a lieutenant with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). He was suspended twice for alleged misconduct. First, in February 2015, MPD alleged that Royal failed to follow proper procedures when he investigated potential domestic violence while off-duty. He received a 15-day suspension as a result, which Royal appealed to the Office of Employee Appeals (OEA).
While that appeal was pending, Royal had an off-duty, physical dispute in April 2015 with two construction workers who parked in his apartment building’s private lot. MPD recommended Royal’s dismissal, citing six charges relating to the off-duty dispute, and one charge for inefficient performance. The inefficient performance charge was based on Royal’s prior suspensions, which included the February 2015 incident, a three-day suspension in 2014 for failure to timely complete an investigation, and a two-day suspension from January 2015 for improper conduct with a subject while off-duty.
Royal challenged his termination before the MPD’s adverse action panel, which sustained two of the original seven charges and issued a 20-day suspension. Royal received a 10-day suspension for his conduct during the incident with the construction workers, and another 10-day suspension for inefficient performance based on past conduct and discipline. Royal then appealed the 20-day suspension to the OEA, where it was consolidated with his appeal from the February 2015 suspension and heard by an Administrative Law Judge.
The ALJ found that Royal had disproven every claim against him stemming from the February 2015 incident and reversed the 15-day suspension. Turning to the April 2015 discipline, the ALJ also reversed the charge relating to Royal’s conduct during the off-duty dispute with the construction workers. The ALJ upheld Royal’s discipline stemming from his past performance issues, despite overturning the February 2015 discipline. The ALJ also re-evaluated the other claims of which Royal was cleared by MPD stemming from the construction worker incident. The ALJ found that two of those claims were supported by a preponderance of the evidence and upheld the 20-day suspension on that basis. Had the ALJ not done so, Royal’s discipline for the April 2015 incident would have been reduced to a 10-day suspension.
Royal petitioned the Superior Court to review the ALJ decision and was denied. He appealed again to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which reversed his 20-day suspension. The Court agreed with Royal that the ALJ exceeded his authority by “reviving” two charges against him for which he was internally cleared by MPD. The ALJ was empowered to review a “final agency decision,” itself defined under D.C. law as “a written document from a District agency which contains the cause of action taken by the District agency against an employee.” The written document that Royal received in connection with his 20-day suspension did not cite either of the charges which the ALJ imposed against him, and accordingly, the ALJ’s review of those charges was impermissible. The Court found that “in its brief before the OEA, the MPD took the position that the adverse action panel’s conclusions regarding a charge on which it found Royal not guilty were ‘irrelevant to this appeal.’”
The Court also found that the ALJ improperly upheld the inefficient performance charge based, in part, on the February 2015 discipline which he reversed in the same decision. “Inefficiency” is given two definitions under MPD General Orders, one of which being “three sustained Adverse Actions within a 12-month period upon charges involving misconduct.” Since the ALJ reversed the February 2015 charges, Royal only sustained two adverse actions within a 12-month period. The Court found that the MPD could nonetheless prove inefficient performance if it could prove that Royal was subject to “repeated and well-founded complaints from superior officers, or others, concerning the performance of police duty, or the neglect of duty.” The two earlier suspensions – for an untimely investigation and improper conduct with a subject while off-duty – did not rise to the level of “repeated and well-founded complaints.” The ALJ’s conclusion that Royal was guilty of inefficient performance was not supported by the record, and the Court modified the ALJ’s award to reverse the 20-day suspension stemming from the April 2015 discipline.
Royal v. District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, No. 22-CV-0220, 2024 WL 1918393 (D.C. Ct. App., 2024).