Luther Kirkwood v. Shelby County Government, d/b/a Shelby County Sheriff's Department, Jail Division

Employee of Shelby County Sheriff’s Department sought review of Civil Service Commission’s order upholding employee’s termination. The Chancery Court, Shelby County remanded the issue to the Civil Service Merit Review Board, and held that the Board’s failure to require any live testimony of Shelby County employees who made accusations against the former employee was a violation of employee’s due process rights to cross-examine his accusers, and that the obligation to call the accusers is that of the employer and not that of the employee. The matter came before this Court on a Rule 9 application for Interlocutory Appeal to consider only (1) whether the Civil Service Merit Review Board’s failure to require any live testimony of Shelby County employees who made accusations against former employee was a violation of former employee’s due process rights to cross-examine his accusers, and (2) whether the obligation to call the accusers is that of the employer, Shelby County, or that of the employee. We hold that the Civil Service Merit Review Board’s failure to require any live testimony of Shelby County employees who made accusations against former employee was not a denial of the employee’s due process rights due to the fact that the employee waived the opportunity to confront or cross-examine his accusers. Further, we find that there exist no obligation on the part of Shelby County to call the employee’s accusers, only that Shelby County must meet its burden of going forward and establishing a prima facie case against the employee. The chancery court order is vacated, and the order of the Civil Service Merit Board is
affirmed.