Challenging a disciplinary determination based on allegations that it was not based on "substantial evidence"

Challenging a disciplinary determination based on allegations that it was not based on "substantial evidence"
Spry v Delaware Co., 253 AD2d 178

One of the most common of reasons set out in an appeal challenging an adverse Section 75 disciplinary determination is that the decision is not supported by substantial evidence. In deciding Spry, the Appellate Division considered the degree of precision with which the individual must identify his or her claims.

Spry was a ward clerk employed by the Delaware County Countryside Care Center. She was charged with numerous specifications of incompetence, insubordination, conduct unbecoming an employee, serious misconduct and unauthorized use of facility property. Following an 11-day administrative hearing conducted pursuant to Civil Service Law Section 75, Spry was found guilty of a great many of the charges.

Rejecting the hearing officer’s recommendation as to the penalty to be imposed, the appointing authority dismissed Spry from her position.

Spry appealed, contending that the findings of guilt were not supported by substantial evidence but her petition “made only conclusory assertions and stated no evidentiary facts in support of its claims.” A State Supreme Court judge dismissed her petition for “failure to state a cause of action.” The sole issue before the Appellate Division: does a petition in a CPLR Article 78 proceeding “raise” the substantial evidence issue within the meaning of CPLR 7804 (g) “by simply alleging that the challenged administrative determination is not supported by substantial evidence”?

First, the court noted that the hearing officer heard testimony over a period of 11 days, generating a record containing 2,664 pages of testimony and 300 pages of exhibits, and issued a 106-page decision finding petitioner guilty of over 100 separate specifications of misconduct.

Nonetheless, said the court, Spry’s petition failed to identify any of the challenged findings of misconduct or the manner in which the hearing evidence is claimed to have been deficient; rather, it merely alleges that “[t]he Hearing Officer’s Recommendation finding the Petitioner guilty of the charges is not supported by substantial evidence within the meaning and intent of CPLR 7803 (4)”.

The Appellate Division then commented that nothing in the record cites any legal authority for the proposition that in order to raise the substantial evidence issue, an Article 78 petition must set out the precise fashion in which the agency determination is not supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the court said that it would have to analyze the fundamental legal prerequisites of a petition within the context of the rather unique certiorari proceeding. It concluded that the absence of factual averments is not of itself fatal.

Next the Appellate Division observed that the challenged determination was judicial or quasi-judicial in nature and made on the basis of a hearing at which evidence was taken pursuant to direction by law (CPLR 7803 [4]). The court said that as is clearly the case here, an aggrieved party is entitled to have a court test the legal sufficiency of the evidence relied upon by the agency by simply requesting that it do so.

Finally, the court said that in a certiorari proceeding there is essentially nothing to be “proved”. All evidence has already been adduced at the administrative hearing and findings made thereon. The petitioner’s task is not to prove transactions or occurrences, but rather to present legal argument on the substantial evidence issue.

The bottom line: the claim that the administrative determination is not supported by substantial evidence did not “fail to state a cause of action” and was therefore it was incorrect for Supreme Court to dismiss Spry’s petition.
NYPPL