Alteration of State Employee's Job Duties Was Not a Demotion Under State Law and Therefore Not a Deprivation of a Property Interest
AKANDE v. GROUNDS (February 9, 2009)
Adetunji Akande was employed by the Illinois Department of Corrections. He served as a clinical casework supervisor in the clinical services division at the Robinson Correctional Facility (“RCF”). His job was subject to the Illinois Personnel Code. The Code provided that he could not be fired or demoted except for cause. The division was responsible for counseling and disciplinary activity at RCF. The division was run by a clinical services supervisor. The casework supervisors were intermediate managers. Their responsibilities included: resolving and reporting on serious disciplinary matters, supervising the delivery of services by the correctional counselors, evaluating correctional counselors, and performing other like duties. As of late 2003, Akande was the only supervisor. A new warden, Randall Grounds, arrived in early 2004. He came to doubt Akande’s job performance, particularly as it related to inputting disciplinary reports. He instructed Akande to personally input all data at the end of each day. Akande delegated the task. Grounds repeated his instructions. Akande continued to delegate the task. Ground referred Akande for discipline. His position that he was allowed to delegate the assigned tasks notwithstanding Grounds’ instructions was rejected. He received oral and written reprimands and a three-day suspension. In early 2004, Grounds removed Akande’s supervisory responsibilities. Shortly thereafter, Grounds presented Akande with a formal memorandum of responsibilities stating that all data entry for serious discipline was the supervisor’s responsibility. Akande left RCF with a “headache,” went on disability and never returned. Akande brought this action, alleging that he was effectively eliminated from his position, in which he had a property interest. The court granted summary judgment to defendants, holding that they were entitled to qualified immunity. Akande appealed.
In their opinion, Judges Flaum, Wood and Williams affirmed. The Court identified the threshold question as whether Akande has been deprived of a constitutionally protected property interest. The Court agreed that state law gave Akande a property right not to be removed from his job or demoted without cause. Under the Illinois Code, “demotion” is defined as the assignment of an employee to a job of a lower grade because of the employee’s performance in the higher grade job. Here, Akande was not terminated, not told to leave, not assigned to a different job – his duties were simply altered. Therefore, he was not deprived of a property interest. Since he failed to show the deprivation of a property interest, the Court did not need to the “clearly established” prong of the qualified immunity test.
Michael Rigney practices in the law offices of GVC Ltd. in Chicago. In this blog, he reports on select