Challenging a federal district court's granting the moving party's motion seeking summary judgment

Plaintiff alleged the Defendant unlawfully terminated him and discriminated against him on the basis of his religion. Following the federal District Court's denying Plaintiff's motion to compel discovery and granting the Defendant's motion for summary judgment, Plaintiff appealed both of the District Court's rulings. 

With respect to Plaintiff's motion to compel discovery alleging the federal District Court had abused its discretion, the Circuit Court of Appeals noted that Plaintiff's counsel failed to comply with the District Court’s scheduling orders and discovery deadlines and offered no compelling justifications for her admitted failure to do so.

Accordingly, said the Circuit Court of Appeals, the District Court acted well within its discretion when it denied Plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery and affirmed the District Court’s denial of that motion.

Turning to Plaintiff's appeal with respect to the District Court's granting the Defendant's  motion for summary judgment, the Circuit Court of Appeals explained that it reviewed the grant of summary judgment to Defendant de novo, drawing all inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, citing El Sayed v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 627 F.3d 931. 

Based on its de novo review of BOCES motion, the Circuit Court concluded that the District Court "properly granted summary judgment to Defendants" with respect to all of Plaintiff's claims. The Circuit Court opined that Plaintiff failed to point to “sufficient evidence" that would allow “a jury to return a verdict” for Plaintiff on any of Plaintiff's claims and affirmed the District Court’s granting summary judgment to Defendant. 

Click HERE to access the Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling.

The Doctrine of Legislative Equivalency

The Doctrine of Legislative Equivalency, applied by the Court of Appeals in deciding the Torre case [Torre v County of Nassau, 86 NY2d 421] sets out the principle that a position created by a legislative act can be abolished only by a correlative legislative act. 

 

Judicial review of a petition seeking the vacating of an arbitration award

The Long Beach Professional Fire Fighters Association [Union] and the City of Long Beach [City] entered into a collective bargaining agreement [CBA] covering the period from July 1, 2004, through June 30, 2010, and thereafter continued pursuant to the Triborough Law, Civil Service Law § 209-a[1][e].* Firefighters and any municipal employees assigned to the fire department were covered by the CBA.

City appointed several paramedics, and unilaterally set their terms of employment. Union filed a grievance and, when the grievance was denied, filed a demand for arbitration. City's efforts to stay the arbitration with respect to Union's grievance as related to the paramedics were unsuccessful.**  

Ultimately the arbitrator issued an award determining that City violated certain provisions of the CBA when it set contrary terms and conditions of the paramedics' employment. Union commenced this proceeding pursuant to CPLR Article 75 to confirm the arbitration award while City cross-moved pursuant to CPLR 7502(a)(iii) to dismiss the petition or, in the alternative, to reassign the petition to the Justice who presided over the prior proceeding, and to vacate the arbitration award. 

Supreme Court granted the Union's petition to confirm the award and denied the City's cross-motion. The City appealed.

The Appellate Division, noting that "Judicial review of arbitration awards is extremely limited", said a court may vacate an arbitrator's award that "violates a strong public policy, is irrational or clearly exceeds a specifically enumerated limitation on the arbitrator's power, citing (Matter of New York City Tr. Auth. v Transport Workers' Union of Am., Local 100, AFL-CIO, 6 NY3d 332, and other decisions. Additionally, the Appellate Division opined "an award may be vacated where 'it exhibits a 'manifest disregard of law'" and the burden is on the movant to establish grounds for vacatur by clear and convincing evidence.

Finding that the City failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the arbitration award should be vacated on the grounds that [1] it was irrational; [2]  exhibited a manifest disregard of the law; [3] that the arbitrator had engaged in misconduct or [4] that the award violated public policy, held that Supreme Court had properly granted Union's petition to confirm the arbitration award and had properly denied the City's cross-motion to vacate the award.

* See Matter of Professional Staff Congress-City Univ. of N.Y. v New York State Pub. Empl. Relations Bd., 7 NY3d 458).

** See Matter of City of Long Beach v Long Beach Professional Fire Fighters Assn., Local 287, 161 AD3d 855.

Click HERE to access the Appellate Division's decision posted on the Internet.