In Rosado-Ciriello, et al, [Plaintiffs] v Yonkers City School District, et al, [District], the Appellate Division considered a proceeding pursuant to CPLR Article 78 to review a determination of the District, and to compel the District to consider "telework" as a viable work accommodation for the Plaintiffs' members in the collective bargaining unit.
Supreme Court had granted the District's cross-motion, in effect denying the Plaintiffs petition and dismissed the proceeding. Plaintiffs appealed the Supreme Court's ruling.
The Appellate Division noted "a proceeding under [Article 78] shall not be used to challenge [an administrative] determination ... which is not final," explaining that an administrative determination must be final, and thus justiciable, i.e., ripe "for judicial review."
Quoting Matter of Village of Kiryas Joel v County of Orange, 181 AD3d at 685 [internal quotation marks omitted], the Appellate Division explained "[ripeness] is a justiciability doctrine designed to prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative policies, and also to protect the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging parties". Further, said the court, an administrative determination becomes "final and binding" when two requirements are met: "completeness (finality) of the determination and exhaustion of administrative remedies."
Finding that the alleged determination was not final and binding "because it did not inflict concrete harm" and further steps, including the submission of applications with supporting documents, were available to the Plaintiffs who were seeking the "telework accommodations," the Appellate Division held that Supreme Court "properly granted the [District's] cross-motion," in effect, denying the Plaintiffs' petition, and dismissing the Article 78 proceeding.
The exhaustion of administrative remedies rule, however, "is not inflexible and need not be followed where an agency's action is challenged as either unconstitutional or wholly beyond its grant of power" [see Watergate II Apartments v Buffalo Sewer, 46 NY2d 52] or where it is alleged that the administrative agency or process followed by the administrative agency violates the individual's constitutional rights to due process [see Levine v Board of Education, 173 A.D.2d 619]."
Further, as the decision in Walton v New York State Department of Correctional Servs., 25 AD3d 999, modified, 8 NY3d at 191, notes, "an individual is not required to exhaust the available administrative remedy where such action would constitute an exercise in futility."
In deciding the point at which petitioner's administrative remedies are exhausted, "courts must take a pragmatic approach and, when it is plain that 'resort to an administrative remedy would be futile' ... an Article 78 proceeding should be held ripe, and the statute of limitations will begin to run."
Click HERE to access the Appellate Division's decision posted on the Internet.