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AELE Monthly Law Journal

Public Safety Employee Right to "Name-Clearing" Hearings

View at http://www.aele.org/law/2018all11/2018-11MLJ201.pdf

Fire, Police & Corrections Personnel Reporter

This issue has cases on age discrimination, arbitration procedures, collective bargaining, Fair Labor Standards Act: overtime in general, handicap/abilities discrimination: in general, handicap/abilities discrimination: “regarded as” disabled, retaliatory personnel actions, and union activity. View at: http://www.aele.org/law/2018all11/FP2018NOV.html

Disciplinary probation

Disciplinary probation

Reillo v New York State Thruway Auth., 2018 NY Slip Op 02170, Appellate Division, Second Department

New York State Thruway Authority employee Anthony Reillo was served with  disciplinary charges alleging certain misconduct.

Reillo and the Thruway Authority then entered into a stipulation settling the disciplinary action whereby Reillo agreed to a one-year period of "disciplinary probation" which provided that the Thruway Authority could summarily terminate Reillo from his employment for any similar act or acts of misconduct. 

In addition, settlement stipulation provided that the determination that Reillo had engaged in such misconduct was to be at the sole discretion of the Thruway Authority.

In February 2016, the Thruway Authority terminated Reillo's employment based on incidents that occurred while he was still serving as a  disciplinary probationer. Reillo file an Article 78 petition seeking a court order directing the Thruway Authority to reinstate him to his former position with back salary.

Supreme Court denied the petition and dismissed the proceeding on procedural grounds, finding that Reillo failed to serve the notice of petition on the Attorney General as required by CPLR §7804(c). Reillo appealed but the Appellate Division affirmed the Supreme Court's determination.

CPLR §7804(c) provides that when a CPLR Article 78 proceeding is commenced against a "state body or officers" by a notice of petition, the notice of petition must be served upon the Attorney General. Following a "particularized inquiry" into the nature of the Thruway Authority and the statute claimed to be applicable to it, the Appellate Division concluded  that the Thruway Authority is a "state body" for the purposes of CPLR §7804(c). Thus, said the court, as the Attorney General had not been timely served, Supreme Court properly dismissed Reillo's petition.

Although the merits of Reillo termination was not considered in this action, it should be noted that frequently a settlement of a disciplinary action provides for the employee to serve a disciplinary probationary period and, as in Reillo, the individual is subject to being summarily terminated "without notice and hearing" if he or she violates the terms or conditions of his or her "disciplinary probation" settlement.

If, however, an employee is to be dismissed for violating the conditions of the disciplinary probation, the appointing authority must to make certain that the actions, or omissions, cited for triggering the termination of the employee serving the disciplinary probationary period do indeed violate the specific terms or conditions enumerated in the disciplinary settlement agreement as the decision in Taylor v Cass, 122 AD2d 885, demonstrates.

Taylor, a Suffolk County employee, won reinstatement with full retroactive salary and contract benefits after he was summarily, and as was ultimately determined, improperly, dismissed from his position while serving a disciplinary probation period.

In Taylor's case the terms of the disciplinary probation provided that Taylor could be terminated without any hearing if, in the opinion of his superior, his job performance was “adversely affected” by his “intoxication on the job during the next six months." Taylor was subsequently terminated without a hearing for “failing to give a fair day’s work” and “sleeping during scheduled working hours.”

The Appellate Division said the dismissal was improper because Taylor was not terminated for the sole reason specified in the settlement of the disciplinary action agreement: intoxication on the job.

As the court noted in  Matter of Sepulveda, 123 AD2d 703, even employees who would otherwise be entitled to the benefits of Section 75 of the Civil Service Law or a similar statute, an employee's agreement to be placed on probation pursuant to terms set out in a settlement of a disciplinary action agreement sacrifices the notice and hearing requirements that would otherwise be available to the employee by such statute for the duration of his or her disciplinary probationary period.

Additionally, it is good practice make certain that the employee’s acceptance of disciplinary probation is set out in settlement of the disciplinary action agreement is made openly, knowingly and voluntarily and be memorialized to that effect in the written agreement signed by the parties.

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2018/2018_02170.htm

Challenging a hearing officer's determination following a §3020-a disciplinary hearing

Challenging a hearing officer's determination following a §3020-a disciplinary hearing

Appeal of Douglas S. White, Decisions of the Commissioner of Education, Decision No. 17,521

Douglas S. White submitted an Education Law §3020-a hearing officer's decision finding him guilty of 6 of 7 specifications set out in two Charges filed against him by the Roosevelt Union Free School District Board of Education [Roosevelt] and the penalty imposed by the Arbitrator, suspension without pay for 42 school days, to the Appellate Division for judicial review.

The Appellate Division vacated portions of the hearing officer’s findings and remanded the matter to the hearing officer for a review and determination of the penalty to be imposed on White in consideration to the court's decision in the matter.*

The hearing officer, in consideration of the Appellate Division's decision, reduced the penalty to be imposed on White. White thereupon appealed the reduced penalty to the Commissioner of Education, contending, among other things, that the hearing officer erred by imposing a penalty upon on remand. 

Roosevelt challenged White's appeal, contending that it must be dismissed because [1] White failed to make proper service of his appeal; [2] the Commissioner lacked jurisdiction to consider White's appeal; and [3] White's appeal had been untimely filed.

Citing 8 NYCRR 275.8(a), the Commissioner said that the appeal must be dismissed for improper service, explaining that the Commissioner’s regulations requires that [1] the petition be personally served upon each named respondent and [2] if a school district is named as a respondent, service upon the school district is to be made personally by "delivering a copy of the petition to the district clerk, to any trustee or any member of the board of education, to the superintendent of schools, or to a person in the office of the superintendent who has been designated by the board of education to accept service."

Turning to Roosevelt's claim that the Commissioner "lacked jurisdiction to review the decision of a hearing officer in a §3020-a proceeding," the Commissioner noted that Education Law §3020-a was amended by Chapter 691 of the Laws of 1994 to divest the Commissioner of jurisdiction to review determinations of hearing officers, both final and non-final.

Addressing Roosevelt's argument claiming "untimeliness," the Commissioner said that "[w]eighing the parties’ submissions," she found that Roosevelt had met its burden of proving its affirmative defense that service was improper and that White failed to rebut the evidence provided by Roosevelt with respect to its claim of the lack of proper service.

Finally, the Commissioner noted that the only relief sought by White in this appeal is that "the charges be overturned and expunged from his record and that he be awarded reimbursement for his expenses resulting from the charges, including attorneys’ fees and lost wages." However, explained the Commissioner, "...  even if [White's] appeal had been properly served, it would be dismissed as [the Commissioner of Education has] no jurisdiction over [White's] claims and lack the authority to grant the relief sought."

* See White v Roosevelt Union Free Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 147 AD3d 1071, posted on the Internet at http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2017/2017_01371.htm

The Commission's decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.counsel.nysed.gov/Decisions/volume58/d17521