Federal Appeals Court rules against fired Carteret library director

A federal Appeals Court has upheld a trial judge’s decision favoring two Carteret County officials in their legal battle with the county’s fired library director. A unanimous decision Tuesday rejected Lesley Mason’s claims that the officials violated her constitutional rights.

After her dismissal in 2021, Mason sued Carteret County Manager Tommy Burns and Assistant Manager Eugene Foxworth. “According to Mason, the defendants violated her constitutional rights by terminating her public employment without procedural due process, infringing on property and liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment,” according to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals decision.

The unsigned opinion is unpublished, meaning that it has no value as a precedent for future cases.

US District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan dismissed Mason’s due process claim. “Mason’s claim that the defendants deprived her of a protected property interest, the court held, was barred by qualified immunity,” the 4th Circuit opinion continued. “Nor, the court concluded, had Mason alleged a deprivation of any liberty interest recognized under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

“Mason asserts, first, a protected property interest in her continued public employment,” appellate judges wrote. “Because North Carolina is an at-will employment state, Mason can have a property interest in continued employment only if some statute, ordinance or contract restricts what otherwise would be the government’s plenary authority to discharge her.”

“Mason relies primarily on a County personnel policy, arguing that it should be treated as an ‘ordinance’ requiring the County Manager to follow specific procedures before he can dismiss an employee,” the opinion continued. “As the district court observed, however, it is not clear that the personnel policy was passed as an ordinance or otherwise has the force of law.”

“Moreover, the policy includes language in tension with Mason’s reading, reaffirming that the County is an ‘at-will’ employer and that its ‘personnel policies do not constitute a guarantee or contract of employment.’ Under these circumstances, as the district court held, the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity because it would not have been clear to a reasonable official that the personnel policy created a protected property interest in continued employment with the County,” appellate judges wrote.

“The same goes for Mason’s alternative argument that her job was protected by an ‘implied contract’ formed when the County Manager promised in an email to ‘support and defend her’: A reasonable official need not have understood this nice but vague sentiment, offered for no consideration, as a binding contract giving rise to a property interest in continued employment,” the opinion continued.

Appellate judges also addressed Mason’s claim of a “protected liberty interest in her reputation, which she claims was sullied by the defendants’ false statements about her termination.”

“But as the district court explained, only communications implying ‘“serious character defects such as dishonesty or immorality”’ can give rise to a protected liberty claim; assertions of ‘simple incompetence’ are not enough,” the 4th Circuit explained.

“And here, Mason points only to her notice of termination, allegedly a public document, which says she was dismissed for ‘inefficiency, negligence, or incompetence in the performance of duties.’ Because Mason alleges only false assertions of incompetence – not dishonesty, immorality, or the like – we agree with the district court that she has failed to state a claim for deprivation of any protected liberty interest,” appellate judges concluded.

Appellate Judges Stephanie Thacker and Pamela Harris and US District Judge Elizabeth Hanes of Virginia made up the three-judge panel deciding the case.

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