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Arroyo v. Board of Education of Howard County6/10/2004
of the administrative decision), where the administrative agency may have primary jurisdiction, and where the plaintiff invokes the judicial remedy prior to exhausting the administrative procedures, it has been held that the trial court may retain jurisdiction pending exhaustion of the administrative procedures. Once the administrative procedures are exhausted, the trial court may proceed; the plaintiff whose case is meritorious may be entitled to whatever relief is available under either the independent judicial action or the administrative/judicial review remedy."
Id. at 18, 511 A.2d 1087-88 (citations omitted).
Thus, we perceive that there is no prohibition against filing an independent judicial action while primary administrative proceedings are under way, but, that there is a prohibition against deciding, i.e., adjudicating, the issue in the independent judicial case until a final administrative determination is made. We specifically so noted in our holding in Bell Atlantic of Maryland, Inc. v. Intercom Systems Corporation, 366 Md. 1, 782 A.2d 791 (2001), a recent case discussing this issue, that "consumers, such as Intercom, do have the ability to pursue an independent judicial action in addition to the administrative remedies . . . provided that they exhaust their administrative remedies prior to adjudication of an independent judicial action." Id. at 28, 782 A.2d at 807 (emphasis added). We most recently indicated that independent judicial actions could be filed so long as the independent judicial action was not "permitted to proceed to judgment" pending the final determination of the administrative agency. Fosler v. Panoramic Design, Ltd., 376 Md. 118, 137, 829 A.2d 271, 282 (2003).
Petitioner claims that the statute of limitations on his tort claim for wrongful termination did not begin to run until he had exhausted his administrative remedies, which he claims included his appeal to the Court of Special Appeals from the judicial review of the administrative determination. Therefore, petitioner's contention is that the three- year statute of limitations on his tort claim did not begin to run before he had appealed the decision of the Circuit Court for Howard County to the intermediate appellate court and that court rendered its decision. In essence, petitioner is claiming that the administrative remedy provided to an educational employee contesting his or her termination is not exhausted upon a final decision by the State Board, but is only exhausted upon a final decision by a court pursuant to judicial review of final administrative agency action. This contention, for the reasons discussed herein, is wrong.
The exhaustion of administrative remedies doctrine requires that a party must exhaust statutorily prescribed administrative remedies, generally evidenced by a "final decision" by the administrative agency, before the resolution of separate and independent judicial relief in the courts. See, e.g., Bell Atlantic of Maryland, Inc. v. Intercom Systems Corp., supra (holding that public utility consumers "must exhaust the statutory remedies provided [in the Public Utilities Article] before pursuing [to conclusion] available independent judicial relief in the form of common law actions") (alteration added). This Court explained the rationale for this doctrine in Soley v. State Commission on Human Relations, 277 Md. 521, 526, 356 A.2d 254, 257 (1976), where we stated:
" he rule requiring exhaustion of administrative or statutory remedies is supported by sound reasoning. The decisions of an administrative agency are often of a discretionary nature, and frequently require an expertise which the agency can bring to bear in sifting the information presen
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