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Montgomery County v. Broadcast Equities9/8/2000
[Concerns The Necessity For Exhausting Administrative And Judicial Review Remedies]
The petitions for a writ of certiorari in this action for a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief present three questions pertaining to the authority of a charter county to prohibit employment discrimination. Montgomery County's petition seeks review of the Court of Special Appeals' holding that the Montgomery County employment discrimination ordinances, which allow the County's Commission on Human Relations to award monetary damages in addition to back pay, conflict with the state statute prohibiting employment discrimination, which restricts the type of damages that can be awarded by the Maryland Commission on Human Relations. Broadcast Equities, Inc.'s cross- petition asks us to decide whether our holding in McCrory Corp. v. Fowler, 319 Md. 12, 570 A.2d 834 (1990), invalidated the entire Montgomery County statutory scheme prohibiting employment discrimination or merely invalidated the provision which purported to create a new cause of action in the circuit courts. Alternatively, Broadcast Equities contends that, even if the McCrory holding was limited to the provision relating to a new circuit court cause of action, the entire Montgomery County statutory scheme concerning employment discrimination violates Article XI-A of the Maryland Constitution because it does not constitute a "local law."
The instant dispute between Montgomery County and Broadcast Equities also involves numerous other issues which have not been presented to us and which are to be resolved in a separate adjudicatory administrative proceeding now pending before the Montgomery County Commission on Human Relations.
We shall not, under the circumstances of this case, reach the three questions that have been presented by the certiorari petitions. Instead, all of the issues should be resolved in a single case, namely in the administrative proceeding now pending before the Montgomery County Commission on Human Relations and in any circuit court action that may be filed seeking judicial review of a final decision by the County's Commission on Human Relations.
I.
Before setting forth the facts and arguments in the present controversy, it would be useful to review some of the Montgomery County and the state statutory provisions concerning employment discrimination.
Article I, Chapter 27, of the Montgomery County Code (1994 ed.), establishes the Montgomery County Commission on Human Relations and provides for its jurisdiction. The initial sections of Article I, Chapter 27, §§ 27-1 through 27-7B, recite the County's general anti- discrimination policy and set forth the administration, procedures, and duties of the Commission. The remainder of Article I is divided into four divisions, with each addressing a specific area of discrimination, namely in places of public accommodation, in real estate matters, in employment, and racial and religious intimidation. The case at bar concerns the third division, employment, which is codified at §§ 27-17 through 27-26.
Section 27-18(b) of the Montgomery County Code defines "employer" as "any person, wherever situated, who employs more than six (6) employees within the county, . . . or who recruits individuals within the county to apply for employment within the county or elsewhere. . . ." Section 27-19(a) makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to "fail or refuse to hire or fail to accept the services of or to discharge any individual or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment" because of, inter alia, the "sexual orientation of any indi
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