Hearsay evidence may be the basis for an administrative disciplinary determination

Hearsay evidence may be the basis for an administrative disciplinary determination
Matter of Hughes v New York State Unified Ct. Sys., Off. of Ct. Admin., 2010 NY Slip Op 07932, Decided on November 3, 2010, Appellate Division, Second Department

Thomas Hughes, an Office of Court Administration [OCA] court officer, was served with disciplinary charges alleging, among other offenses, failing to keep his uniform in proper condition, failing to keep his weapon properly loaded, and keeping an impermissible metal-jacketed round in his weapon.

The disciplinary hearing officer found that Hughes was guilty of “engaging in acts of misconduct and incompetency prejudicial to the good order and efficiency of the New York State Unified Court System and adversely reflecting on his fitness to continue as a court office.” OCA accepted the hearing officer’s recommendation that Hughes be dismissed from his position.

Hughes filed a petition pursuant to CPLR Article 78 seeking a court order vacating OCA’s decision to terminate him.

The Appellate Division dismissed Hughes petition noting that “appellate review of an administrative determination made after a hearing required by law is limited to whether that determination is supported by substantial evidence.” In this instance, said the court, the hearing officer’s findings were supported by substantial evidence.*

Addressing another issue concerning the evidence presented in the course of the disciplinary hearing, the Appellate Division commented that “Hearsay evidence may be the basis for an administrative determination,” citing Gray v Adduci, 73 NY2d 741.

As to the penalty imposed, dismissal, the court said that “termination of employment was not so disproportionate to the misconduct as to shock the conscience.”

* Substantial evidence has been defined as "such relevant proof as a reasonable mind may accept as adequate to support a conclusion or ultimate fact."

The decision is posted on the Internet at: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2010/2010_07932.htm
NYPPL

Termination during probation

Termination during probation
Rigney v Nassau Co. CSC, NYS Supreme Court, [Not selected for publication in the Official Reports]

The Rigney decision illustrates that individuals who complain that their employer acted in bad faith in terminating them prior to the end of their probationary periods must demonstrate that their probationary performance was otherwise satisfactory in order to prevail.

Rigney, a former Nassau County probationary police officer, complained that her supervisor, Sergeant Daniel P. Flanagan, arbitrarily decided that she would not successfully complete her training at the Police Academy. According to her complaint, Sergeant Flanagan told Rigney “that the decision was already made and that it was only a matter of time before she was terminated.”

Ultimately the Academy’s Deputy Inspector, George Gudmundsen, recommended that Rigney be terminated because she had not maintained a 75 percent average, which constituted “unsatisfactory performance during her probationary period including a failure to satisfy the minimum academic criteria” The report also said that Rigney “repeatedly argues with Academy staff members”; “failed simulations training”; and “repeatedly failed to address Academy staff members in [the] prescribed manner.”

Rigney sued, seeking a court order annulling her dismissal. She contended that her termination was made in bad faith because “Sergeant Flanagan arbitrarily determined that she would be terminated notwithstanding [her attaining] a passing (i.e., 75 percent or higher average) grade.”

State Supreme Court Justice McCaffrey pointed out that a probationary employee, unlike a tenured public employee, has no property rights in the position and can be discharged without a hearing and without a stated specific reason, provided that: (1) the employee has completed the minimum but not yet served the maximum period of probation, (2) the discharge is in good faith, and (3) the action is not in violation of constitutional, statutory, or decisional law. [See McKee v. Jackson, 152 AD2d 547].

Justice McCaffrey dismissed Rigney’s petition, commenting that even assuming that Nassau County had predetermined that Rigney was to be terminated irrespective of her final grade, her unilateral failure to acquire the minimum passing average (75 percent) provided an independent lawful predicate for terminating her employment.

Significantly, the employee has the burden of proof in actions challenging his or her dismissal during the probationary period. As the Appellate Division recently stated in dismissing an appeal filed by a former probationer at the Town of Brookhaven, the employee has a burden to present “legal and competent evidence to show a deprivation of his rights, bad faith, or other arbitrary action constituting an abuse of discretion” by the employer [Iannuzzi v Town of Brookhaven, 258 AD2d 651].

In Iannuzzi’s case, the Appellate Division said that Iannuzzi’s termination “was based upon his unsatisfactory performance and was not arbitrary and capricious, but had a rational basis and was carried out in good faith.”
NYPPL

A public employer may discipline an employee for refusing to support employer’s change in its operation

A public employer may discipline an employee for refusing to support employer’s change in its operation
Lewis v Cowen,165 F.3d 154

J. Blaine Lewis, head of Connecticut’s lottery, was fired for refusing to publicly support a change in the lottery’s operations. Lewis was an unclassified employee and served at the pleasure of the Executive Director of the Connecticut Division of Special Revenue and the Gaming Policy Board.

Lewis had national prominence in the public gaming community. He served as President of the National Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, an association of public gaming executives in the United States and Canada, and had been featured on the cover of Public Gaming International, a trade magazine.

Problems began in 1988, when the state awarded a contract to install a statewide computer system for the sale of lottery tickets to General Instrument Corporation (GIC). Lewis opposed this move. After GIC’s system malfunctioned and created a system-wide breakdown of on-line sales, Lewis criticized GIC to the press. The board ordered him and other unit heads to stop all media contact, but this gag order was eventually lifted.

Another change Lewis opposed was increasing the pool of numbers from which the winning Lotto numbers were picked was from 40 to 44. Lewis believed that revenues would decrease and suspected that GIC had recommended the change merely to cover up problems with on-line ticketing.

His superior, the Executive Director, ordered him to present the change to the Board at a public meeting and to cite “all positives and no negatives.” Lewis balked and was fired by the board one day after it unanimously approved the change.

Lewis sued, contending that his termination constituted a violation of his First Amendment rights. He won a substantial jury verdict in U.S. District Court -- $2 million in compensatory damages and punitive damages plus $380,000 in attorney’s fees.

On appeal, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed. While “it is by now well established that public employees do not check all of their First Amendment rights at the door upon accepting public employment,” the court said that Lewis’ case involves a different issue: may a public employer discipline an employee for refusing to speak?

Connecticut argued that it was entitled to terminate Lewis pursuant to the standard announced in cases such as Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), and Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), and in the alternative, that its decision to terminate Lewis is shielded by a qualified immunity. The Circuit Court applied the so-called Pickering balancing test typically used in considering free-speech cases involving public employees in resolving the issue.

The Pickering test has two elements. The court must first decide whether the speech addresses a matter of public concern. If so, the court then must balance the interests of the employer in providing “effective and efficient” public services against the employee’s First Amendment right to free expression. The court addressed two key questions:

1. Did Lewis’s refusal to speak to the Board touch on a matter of public concern?; and

2. Did the potential disruptiveness of Lewis’s refusal to speak outweigh his First Amendment-based interest in not speaking?

Reviewing the evidence, the circuit panel concluded that as a matter of law Connecticut’s interest in the effective and efficient operation of its Lottery Division outweighed Lewis’s First Amendment interest in refusing to present the proposed Lotto change before the Board in a positive manner.

State officials testified that Lewis’s speech would “potentially interfere” with the Division’s operations and that his refusal to promote the proposed change would result in negative publicity and decreased morale, in turn impairing the profitability of the lottery. Concluding that under the circumstances Lewis’s termination was justified, the Court ruled that:

1. The lower court should have dismissed the action on the ground of qualified immunity.

2. The state defendants are immune from liability on Lewis’s state law wrongful discharge claim.

The decision also considered “the exceptional significance of a government employee’s interest in testifying truthfully before a legislative committee,” referring to Piesco v City of New York, 933 F.2d 1149,. In Piesco, the Second Circuit “refused to force employees like Dr. Piesco to choose between answering questions honestly and risk being fired on one hand, and committing perjury on the other” holding that there was no evidence that Dr. Piesco’s testimony interfered with government operations in a manner outweighing Dr. Piesco’s strong interest in testifying truthfully.

In contrast, the court said although Lewis had a strong First Amendment interest in testifying truthfully before the Board, it “did not believe that interest to have been implicated here because Lewis was directed to present the Division’s views, not his own.”

NYPPL

Employee has the burden of showing the abolishment of his or her position was not made in good faith

Employee has the burden of showing the abolishment of his or her position was not made in good faith
Belvey v Tioga County, 257 AD2d 967

In January 1998 the Tioga County legislature abolished its position of Director of Data Processing and, implementing recommendations by both a private consultant and the Governor’s Task Force on Information Resource Management regarding future data processing needs for the county, created a new position -- Director, Division of Information Technology and Communication Services.

Richard J. Belvey, the then Director of Data Processing was terminated when that position was abolished. Efforts to find Belvey alternative employment with the County were unsuccessful. He sued, seeking reinstatement to either his former position or the new position or appointment to a similar one within Tioga County’s public service.

Belvey alleged that characterizing the abolition of his position as being undertaken for the purpose of economy or efficiency was a “subterfuge to avoid the statutory protection afforded to civil servants [by Civil Service Law Section 75].”

The Appellate Division disagreed, and dismissed his appeal. The court noted that the record demonstrated that the county had undertaken a needed expansion of its computer operations and required an individual “with qualifications far greater than that previously required.”

The decision also stated that the new position was in the noncompetitive class and required either a master’s degree in computer science and three years of experience or a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience. Presumably Belvey could not meet either of these requirements of training and experience.

The Appellate Division held that the county met its burden of showing that the former director of data processing position was abolished for economic or efficiency reasons. Accordingly, the burden shifted to Belvey to demonstrate that the county did not act in good faith or that his termination was based upon his job performance.

Belvey, said the court, failed to show that there the county’s decision was arbitrary or capricious by demonstrating that there were no bona fide reasons for the elimination of his position or that someone was hired to replace him as Director of Data Processing. Thus Belvey did not demonstrate that the protections afforded by Civil Service Law Section 75 were triggered when his position was abolished and he was laid off [Section 80 of the Civil Service Law].

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Retirement benefits based on only an employee’s regular salary and termination pay or other compensation paid in anticipation of retirement excluded

Retirement benefits based on only an employee’s regular salary and termination pay or other compensation paid in anticipation of retirement excluded
Davies v NYS LPFRS, 259 AD2d 912, motion for leave to appeal denied, 93 NY2d 810

A Taylor Law contract negotiated by the City of Corning and its police officers allowed unit members to elect to participate in a “senior officer” program. This program permitted police officers electing to participate to give up 20 percent of their accumulated sick leave credits in exchange for a salary increase equal to 30 percent of the value of his or her remaining sick leave accruals. This increased hourly rate applied to a participant’s base salaries, overtime credits and holiday pay.

The Local Police and Fireman Retirement System [LPFRS] subsequently advised retired participants of the “senior officer” program that the increase in their base salaries resulting from their participation in the program should not have been included in determining their “final average salary” for purposes of calculating their retirement allowance.

As a result, the retirement allowances of such retired officers were recalculated and reduced. LPFRS than made arrangements to recoup the overpayments that it had made to such retirees. Terrance Davies appealed this ruling by LPFRS to the Comptroller seeking reinstatement of their initial retirement benefit.

The Comptroller denied their appeal, concluding that Corning’s senior officer program “was nothing more than an attempt to circumvent the prohibition contained in Retirement and Social Security Law Section 431.” Section 431, said the Comptroller, prohibits the Retirement System from using accumulated sick leave credits in calculating an applicant’s final average salary.

Unhappy with this ruling, Davies, together with other retirees affected by the Comptroller’s decision filed an Article 78 [Article 78, Civil Practice Law and Rules] seeking reversal of the Comptroller’s determination and an order reinstating their former level of retirement benefits.

The Appellate Division commenced its analysis of Davies’ appeal by commenting that “it is well settled that the Comptroller is vested with exclusive authority to determine applications for retirement benefits and such determination, if supported by substantial evidence, must be upheld. Based upon its review of the record as a whole, the panel said that “we cannot say that such determination is not supported by substantial evidence.”

The decision noted that in Tooley v McCall, 676 NY2d 259 the Appellate Division ruled that, “retirement benefits are to be computed on the basis of an employee’s regular salary and not on any kind of termination pay or other form of additional compensation paid in anticipation of retirement.”

The court rejected Davies’ argument that the “senior officer” program did not violate Section 431 because the participants had not received a lump-sum payment of accumulated sick leave credits.

The Appellate Division said that such an argument “misses the mark.” In determining what constitutes termination pay or compensation paid in anticipation of retirement, the panel said that it “must look to the substance of the transaction and not to what the parties may label it.” Concluding, as did the Comptroller, that the senior officer program was designed to circumvent the provisions of Retirement and Social Security Law Section 431, the Appellate Division dismissed the appeal.

The clear lesson here is that courts will not allow parties to obtain a benefit otherwise prohibited by law by including the benefit in a collective bargaining agreement negotiated pursuant to the Taylor Law.

One issued not addressed in the opinion was whether the election to participate in the “senior officer” program had an adverse impact on the benefits otherwise available to participants as a result of the Comptroller’s determination and, if so, what remedy, if any, the retired police officers had available to them.
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