Fourth Circuit Rejects Claims Of Former Assistant Federal Public Defender

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of claims brought by a former Assistant Federal Public Defender

Caryn Devins Strickland is an attorney who formerly worked at the Federal Public Defender’s Office (FDO) for the Western District of North Carolina. She alleges that her supervisor sexually harassed her, following which the response of both the Fourth Circuit and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts purportedly violated her due process and equal-protection rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The district court ruled in favor of the government on all of Strickland’s claims after a bench trial.

Strickland now appeals that ruling, as well as the district court’s previous summary judgment ruling in favor of two of the individually named defendants. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM both district court decisions. We also DENY Strickland’s motion to unseal certain materials that she filed on the appellate docket, as well as her motion for summary reversal of the district court’s decision based on the early withdrawal of her pro bono counsel.

Proceedings below

Following a six-day bench trial, the district court issued a 127-page decision. The gist of the court’s factual findings is as follows: While working at the FDO, Strickland made a good-faith claim of sexual harassment against her immediate supervisor, J.P. Davis. Anthony Martinez, Davis’s supervisor and the FDO Unit Executive, responded by rearranging the organizational chart so that Strickland no longer reported to Davis and instructing Davis to cease contacting her. He also converted Strickland’s sick leave to administrative leave so that she would not suffer financial harm from having taken sick leave to avoid contact with Davis, authorized full telework, and followed through on a previous plan to promote her to Assistant Federal Public Defender. Martinez later offered Strickland his own office at the unit’s Asheville site. In parallel with this response, various Fourth Circuit and other judiciary employees became involved in the procedures outlined in the Employee Dispute Resolution (EDR) Plan that was applicable at the time. The Fourth Circuit since has revised its Plan, but all references in this opinion are to the applicable version.

The EDR Plan contained two distinct dispute-resolution pathways. Chapter IX allowed an employee to file a wrongful-conduct report, which led to an investigation and, if appropriate, discipline of the accused wrongdoer. Under Chapter X, an employee could request counseling and mediation to resolve the dispute. If counseling and mediation were unsuccessful, the employee could then file a formal Chapter X complaint, which would trigger a full evidentiary hearing conducted by a presiding judicial officer and which could result in a wide range of potential remedies.

Strickland formally reported to Martinez, in August 2018, that Davis was sexually harassing her. Martinez initiated a wrongful-conduct proceeding against Davis shortly thereafter. District Court and Probation Office Human Resources Specialist Heather Beam was subsequently appointed to complete the investigation required under Chapter IX. A month later, Strickland filed her own wrongful-conduct report, which included allegations against Martinez for retaliation and discrimination, along with a Chapter X request for counseling. Beam was then instructed to complete a unified investigation that would inform both the Chapter IX and Chapter X proceedings. Strickland later participated in the mediation phase of Chapter X. But she left the FDO and voluntarily withdrew from the EDR process before proceeding to the next stage of Chapter X—the filing of a formal complaint.

Several judiciary employees behaved imperfectly before and during the EDR process. In particular, “Davis was a controlling manager who . . . [took] actions that reasonably made Strickland uncomfortable.” Strickland, 744 F. Supp. 3d at 563. Martinez, too, made thoughtless comments to Strickland—most notably, his use of a “marriage metaphor”—that she understandably believed was dismissive of her good-faith complaint. See id. at 509.

Judiciary employees who were responsible for the EDR process also made various missteps. Beam disrespected Strickland’s expectations of confidentiality and failed to complete a thorough EDR investigation in a timely manner. Other well-intentioned employees, such as Fourth Circuit Chief Mediator Ed Smith and former Judicial Integrity Officer Jill Langley, carried out their duties with professionalism and integrity, but were at times stymied by structural imperfections or a lack of clarity in the Plan. 

Merits

the district court found that Martinez took the following steps to remedy the harassment alleged by Strickland: He promptly initiated a Chapter IX investigation, removed Davis as Strickland’s supervisor, instructed Davis not to contact Strickland, implemented a “gatekeeper” to ensure that Strickland would not be assigned work from Davis, took Strickland out of Davis’s chain of command, and granted her request to telework. Martinez later, during mediation, offered Strickland his own office space at the Asheville unit. As a result, Strickland and Davis had “no further meaningful contact,” and Strickland “did not see Davis again” once she began teleworking. Strickland, 744 F. Supp. 3d at 574. The court properly concluded that, on this record, Martinez’s actions were not a “clearly unreasonable” response to Strickland’s sexual-harassment complaint. See Feminist Majority Found., 911 F.3d at 702…

None of the actions by Martinez or the others mentioned by Strickland undermined the reasonable, concrete steps that Martinez took to protect Strickland from the alleged harassment. The district court accordingly did not err in concluding that Strickland failed to meet her burden on the third prong of the deliberate-indifference test. And to the extent that the court did not appropriately consider the actions of other employees in its analysis, that error was harmless.

Withdrawal of trial counsel

Strickland’s husband, a licensed attorney, has represented her throughout this case, and Strickland herself argued this case on appeal. During discovery and the proceeding with regard to the government’s motion to dismiss, a pro bono team, including Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, provided additional representation. Strickland claims that, at a deposition, a lawyer for the government “raised a sensational insinuation” about Strickland. Shortly thereafter, her pro bono lawyers filed a joint motion to withdraw. They represented that a “conflict ha[d] arisen” such that they could no longer continue their representation and that there were “irreconcilable differences in the attorney-client relationship.”

Strickland did not timely oppose the motion to withdraw.

Error

The district court’s stated reason for granting pro bono counsel’s motion to withdraw in the present case was Strickland’s failure to file an opposition to the motion. It plainly did not conduct a good-cause analysis of any kind. Because that reasoning is at odds with the requirements of LCvR 83.1(f), the court abused its discretion in summarily granting withdrawal.

The government responds by pointing out that the district court had especially broad discretion in this case because Strickland remained represented by counsel. As the government notes, “it is not clear what sort of extreme circumstances would need to be present to provide a colorable basis for reversing a district court’s order that allowed some (but not all) of a civil plaintiff’s lawyers to withdraw their appearances.”

There is no question that Strickland’s remaining representation would reduce any concerns about prejudice and could have factored into a good-cause analysis. But the local rules governing withdrawal do not impose a different standard when a plaintiff is represented by other counsel. Instead, the standard for any withdrawal, absent client consent, is good cause. A district court’s failure to analyze good cause is therefore a valid basis for the reversal of its order granting withdrawal. Accordingly, the district court erred in granting pro bono counsel’s motion to withdraw.

Nonetheless

Furthermore, a finding that the withdrawal prejudiced Strickland at trial necessitates an assumption that the district court would have required counsel to continue representing Strickland in a pro bono capacity through the end of the case despite counsel’s protestations of irreconcilable differences. Any such requirement would have been clearly unreasonable. Moreover, Strickland has not cited a single civil case in which this court or any other has vacated a judgment on the basis of an improper withdrawal of counsel. Because we conclude that no reversible error occurred, we deny the motion for summary reversal.