Court directs the reopening of the disciplinary hearing after finding that a key witness recanted the testimony he gave at the hearing

Court directs the reopening of the disciplinary hearing after finding that a key witness recanted the testimony he gave at the hearing

Matter of Alarcon v Board of Educ. of S. Orangetown Cent. School Dist., 2011 NY Slip Op 05055, Appellate Division, Second Department

The Board of Education of the South Orangetown Central School District adopted the findings and recommendation of the disciplinary hearing officer who found Marco Alarcon guilty of certain charges of misconduct and incompetence, and terminated Alarcon's employment. 

Alarcon appealed and the Appellate Division annulled the Board’s determination on the law and remitted the matter to the Board “for a hearing at which the evidence of recantation of testimony by witness” against Alarcon is to be received and considered and a new determination made.

The Appellate Division found that the hearing officer's recommendation was largely based upon the testimony of the eyewitness, one Ramon Reyes, who, after testifying, but prior to the issuance of the hearing officer's report and recommendation, recanted his testimony.

Reyes alleged, in a sworn affidavit, that the testimony he had given at the disciplinary hearing was false and that he gave such false testimony because his supervisor directed him to lie.

The court said that under the circumstances Alarcon should be given the opportunity to recall Reyes to testify and directed that the Board receive “this newly discovered evidence” and make a new determination thereafter.

The decision is posted on the Internet at:
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2011/2011_05055.htm

Limitations on collective bargaining under the Taylor Law

Limitations on collective bargaining under the Taylor Law

City of New York v Uniformed Fire Officers Asso. App. Div., First Dept., 263 AD2d 3, Affirmed, 95 NY2d 273

Sometimes an investigation into criminal activities by a governmental agency is claimed to have violated the rights of employees in a negotiating unit set out in a collective bargaining agreement. Do the employee's rights under negotiated agreement's provisions trump the procedures being employed by the investigating body?

This was one of the critical issues in the Uniformed Fire Officers Association case. The conclusion of the Appellate Division: parties to a collective bargaining agreement may not limit the powers or authority vested in a governmental agency not a party to the agreement.

The other significant issue: which is the employer for the purposes of negotiating and administering a collective bargaining agreement with a city department -- the city or its constituent department? Here the Appellate Division concluded that the City of New York was not the employer insofar as a collective bargaining agreement between a union and the New York City Fire Department was concerned.

New York City's Department of Investigation (DOI) was conducting criminal investigations involving New York City Fire Department personnel. One investigation focused on allegations that firefighters had attempted to obtain greater pension benefits by falsely claiming that he or she had suffered a disabling injury while on duty.

According to the opinion of the Appellate Division, the alleged “scheme” involved one firefighter calling in a false alarm to give a second firefighter, who had suffered an injury that was not work related, an opportunity to claim that the injury was, in fact, sustained while he or she was responding to the alarm.

DOI's investigation included interviewing members of Uniformed Fire Officers Association, Local 854 [union], who were questioned pursuant to subpoena. The union filed a grievance contending that DOI had violated terms and conditions of its collective bargaining agreement with the New York Fire Department. It demanded arbitration, contending that the interviews with its members were conducted in violation of the employee rights under its Taylor Law contract.

The union's theory ran as follows:

DOI was a City agency. Since the City was the employer, DOI was bound by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement it had negotiated with the City's Fire Department.

The union charged that DOI investigators violated the collective bargaining agreement when it did not provide its members with the contractual protections it had negotiated such as:

1. Giving the unit member prior written notice of the matter being investigated;

2. Providing unit members with the statement of “Miranda” type rights set out in the Taylor Law contract;

3. Although the unit member could be represented by an attorney, he or she was not permitted to have a union representative present; and

4. The unit members were not given “use immunity” with respect to any information DOI obtained in a subsequent criminal proceedings.

The City contested the arbitrability of the dispute before the City's Office of Collective Bargaining [OCB], arguing that it never agreed to arbitrate the procedures used by DOI. OCB was not persuaded and issued a determination, Decision No. 46-97, holding that the dispute was arbitrable.

The City objected and filed a petition in State Supreme Court seeking to have OCB's determination annulled. It contended that:

1. A collective bargaining agreement cannot, as a matter of public policy, supplant or impair DOI's investigatory procedures; and

2. Public policy considerations prohibit the negotiation of the DOI's criminal investigation procedures.

Justice Harold Tompkins agreed and vacated OCB's order. The union appealed.

The Appellate Division commenced its review by noting that “[n]ormally, a party to a valid arbitration agreement is required to submit to arbitration and to defer any challenge to the proceeding until an award is rendered, either by way of an application to vacate the award or in opposition to an application to confirm the award.”

Where, however, a statute, court rulings or public policy considerations preclude arbitration, the question of whether the dispute is within the scope of the arbitration provision is not reached.

Here, said the court, public policy and decisional law prohibit any interference with the authority of DOI to require a public employee to answer questions regarding activities that bear upon the performance of his or her official actions.

Accordingly, the extent to which provisions of a collective bargaining agreement apply to interviews conducted by the DOI is not an issue that may be submitted to arbitration.

The Appellate Division said that the union's theory that the City of New York was the “employer” insofar as its bargaining agreement with the Fire Department was concerned was incorrect.

According to the decision “while the Fire Department may bargain away certain of its own management prerogatives in reaching a labor accord with the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, it has no power to defeat or impair rights conferred upon another City agency by statute.”

In other words, the Fire Department, rather than the City of New York, was the “employer” for the purposes of negotiating and enforcing the collective bargaining agreement under the Taylor Law.

The union conceded that the employee rights provision of its labor contract should not be read to restrict investigations into the activities of union members that are conducted by the New York City Police Department, another City agency.

According to the Appellate Division's decision, Section 803(b) of the City Charter assigns broad duties to DOI to investigate “the affairs, functions, accounts, methods, personnel or efficiency of any agency.”

The court said that adopting the union's position would impermissibly compromise DOI's authority by limiting its examination of witnesses by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the Fire Department.

The Appellate Division concluded that because DOI's prerogative to employ such investigative procedures as it deems appropriate may not be bargained away, there is no reason to submit to arbitration the question of whether the employee rights provisions of the union's collective bargaining agreement are binding upon the DOI.

The court affirmed Justice Tompkins' order annulling OCB determination directing the union and the City arbitrate their dispute over whether their collective bargaining agreement governs the DOI's investigatory procedures.

When the appeal reached the Court of Appeals, it sustained the Appellate Division’s determination.

Filing a notice of claim as required by law a condition precedent to maintaining the lawsuit

Filing a notice of claim as required by law a condition precedent to maintaining the lawsuit

McKie v LaGuardia Community College/CUNY, 2011 NY Slip Op 04755, Appellate Division, First Department

In this employment discrimination action, Supreme Court dismissed Shirley A. Zuri McKie, finding that she had failed to file a notice of claim within 90 days of the events giving rise to the lawsuit she had filed against LaGuardia Community College and the City University of New York as required by Education Law § 6224[1],[2].

The Appellate Division affirmed the lower court’s ruling, holding that contrary to McKie’s contention to the contrary, the requirement of filing a notice of claim within 90 days as a condition precedent to bringing suit against a community college of the City University of New York and applies to all claims asserted against such community college, not just tort and wrongful death claims.”

In addition, the court rejected McKie’s claim that Education Law §6224 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the New York State Constitution “because it affords less protection to employees of junior colleges than it does to similarly situated employees of senior colleges.”

The Appellate Division noted that similar constitutional challenges have been rejected in prior cases, citing Guarrera v Lee Mem. Hosp., 51 AD2d 867, Leave to appeal denied, 39 NY2d 942. In this instance, said the court, it was not persuaded that the two classes of employees at issue here are similarly situated, or that the distinctions drawn between employees of junior colleges and those of senior colleges are not rationally based.

The decision is posted on the Internet at: 

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2011/2011_04755.htm

Essentially there are not to be any “Star Chamber” proceedings for Section 75 hearings without a court order*

Essentially there are not to be any “Star Chamber” proceedings for Section 75 hearings without a court order*

A footnote to “Testifying in a court room closed to the public, Bobb v Senkowski, CA2, 196 F.3d 350,” concerns the issue of holding Civil Service Law Section 75 disciplinary hearings that are closed to the public.

The basic rule: Unless the employee asks that it be closed and that request is granted by the hearing officer or agreed to by the appointing authority, the public may not be barred from the proceeding.

As to any application to close the hearing to the public, in the absence of the employer's agreement to do so, the employee must obtain a court order closing the proceeding to the public. By the same token, should the appointing authority wish the disciplinary hearing to be closed to the public, it must obtain a court order to that effect absent the employee's agreement to have the hearing closed to the public.

In contrast, the Commissioner of Education, in implementing Section 3020-a, adopted a rule [see 8 NYCRR 82-1.9] mandating that the hearing be closed to the public unless the accused individual makes a timely request to the hearing officer to have the hearing open to the public.**

The courts, however, have taken a somewhat different view in cases involving disciplinary action taken against a "professional" by an "oversight" or licensing agency for alleged professional misconduct. As the Court of Appeals noted in McBarnette v Sobol, 83 NY2d 333: ... even though the complaints are submitted to the physician, because these proceedings have traditionally been regarded as confidential (see, Doe v Office of Professional Med. Conduct of N.Y. State Dept. of Health, 81 NY2d 1050; Matter of Johnston Newspaper Corp. v Melino, 77 NY2d 1, 10; Matter of Capoccia, 59 NY2d 549, 553), the complainants' interests in privacy regarding these matters have not been abandoned. The policy of confidentiality that we would recognize absent the statute, because such policy "serves the purpose of safeguarding information that a potential complainant may regard as private or confidential and thereby removes a possible disincentive for filing complaints," remains intact (Matter of Johnston Newspaper Corp. v Melino, supra, at 10-11). This confidentiality also protects the accused physician by preventing any unwarranted mar upon that professional's reputation (id. at 11).

The confidential and safeguarded nature of proceedings involving potential discipline of licensed professionals has been reaffirmed by our recent holding that disciplinary proceedings should not be open to the public and disclosure should not occur before the proceedings have been finally determined (see, Doe v Office of Professional Med. Conduct of N. Y. State Dept. of Health, supra; see also, Matter of J.P. Chassin, 82 NY2d 694 [proceedings involving ophthalmology specialist must remain confidential until finally determined]).

The courts [and in the case of educators, the Commissioner of Education] have apparently decided to treat professional disciplinary matters, i.e., those involving physicians, engineers, lawyers and other "licensed" professionals differently than employees in the public service, with a then finer distinction drawn between those in the classified service such as those whose disciplinary action is subject to Civil Service Law Section 75 and those employed in education [serving in an unclassified service position] who must be licensed to teach or perform administrative duties in the public schools with respect to disciplinary action taken pursuant to Education Law Section 3020-a.

It appears that in a McBarnette situation the courts take the position that a "professional's reputation" could be irreparably injured notwithstanding the individual's acquittal or exoneration of the allegations made while in an employee disciplinary action the acquittal of the individual typically results in reinstatement with back salary by the same employer. The Commissioner seems to fall between these two views, permitting an open hearing only in those instances where the accused demands the hearing be open to the public.

* The Star Chamber Court, located in Westminster Palace, London, England, is so named because its sky-like ceiling was painted with stars. Initially it conducted its proceedings in public. Through political evolution, by the reign of Charles I it “had become a byword for misuse and abuse of power,” frequently conducting its sessions in secret. In 1641 the court was abolished by the so-called “Long Parliament.” Today Star Chamber is a euphemism for arbitrary proceedings conducted in secret to the detriment of personal rights and liberty.

** The genesis of this rule may reflect the fact that the disciplinary files of the Department of Education are “confidential and not subject to disclosure at the request of any person, except upon the order of a court in a pending action or proceeding” (Education Law § 6510 [8]), and thus a Section 3020-a disciplinary hearing should not be automatically open to the public.

The Bobb decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://federal.court.com/f.3d/196/196.F3d.350.99-2259.html

 

Termination of a probationer

Termination of a probationer

Morgan v Kerik, 305 AD2d 288 [2003], lv denied 1 NY3d 507

The New York City Department of Corrections terminated Steven Morgan, a probationary correction officer, without a hearing. Morgan sued in an effort to annul his dismissal, contending that he was terminated in bad faith.

According to the record before the court, Morgan was discharged after having twice violated the department’s sick leave rules.

On one occasion, he failed to report for a scheduled appointment with its Health Management Division while on “medical monitored return status.” The second violation occurred when Morgan neglected “to log in” with the Health Management Division’s Sick Desk upon returning to his residence while on sick leave status.

These violations, said the Appellate Division, were sufficient to demonstrate that Morgan’s termination during his probationary period was not made in bad faith. The court sustained the lower court dismissal of his petition.

It well settled that a probationer may be discharged without a hearing after completing his or her minimum probationary period. The only limitations: such a dismissal cannot be made in bad faith or in violation of a law, rule or regulation.

A probationer who is dismissed after completing his or her minimum period of probation may be entitled to a “name clearing hearing” if he or she believes that the dismissal adversely affects his or her reputation in the community or his or her future employment opportunities. Prevailing in a name clearing hearing, however, does not give the individual any right to reinstatement to his or her former position or back salary.

In addition, a collective bargaining agreement may provide a probationer with “due process rights,” or set out pre-termination procedures to be followed prior to dismissing a probationer, not mandated by the Civil Service Law.

In any event, if an appointing authority wishes to dismiss a probationer before he or she has completed the minimum period of probation set for the appointment, case law indicates that the employee is entitled to due process and may not be discharged without first being given “notice and hearing” as though he or she held a tenured appointment.

A probationer may allege that he or she was disciplined or terminated in retaliation for “whistle blowing.” In such a situation, Section 75-b of the Civil Service Law requires that the individual be given a due process hearing and if he or she prevails, reinstated to his or her former position with back salary. Such a hearing is to be provided pursuant to Section 75 or, where appropriate, pursuant to the “disciplinary grievance procedure” set out in a collective bargaining agreement.