Preventing a court's judgment or order which is unreviewable for mootness from "spawning any legal consequences or precedent"

The Petitioner discontinued efforts to enforce the judgment of Supreme Court and obtain the documents it had requested pursuant to New York State's Freedom of Information Law [FOIL] from Respondents. This rendered Respondents' instant appeal challenging Supreme Court's judgment and the report of the Referee moot. Further, Respondents did not establish an exception to the mootness doctrine.

The Appellate Division, noting the Respondents had not establish an exception to the mootness doctrine* and that the general rule in New York State is simply to dismiss an appeal that has been rendered moot, opined that "vacatur of an order or judgment may be an appropriate exercise of [the discretion of the court] when necessary to prevent a judgment or order which is unreviewable for mootness from spawning any legal consequences or precedent."

Explaining that a Supreme Court's orders could be used as precedent in future cases, "causing confusion of the legal issues raised", the Appellate Division found that "the circumstances presented in this case warrant the exercise of [its] discretion" and vacated the orders and judgment of Supreme Court and sealed the Referee's report.

* The Merriam-Webster.com Legal Dictionary defines the mootness doctrine as "A doctrine in judicial procedure: a court will not hear or decide a moot case unless it includes an issue that is not considered moot because it involves the public interest or constitutional questions and is likely to be repeated and otherwise evade review or resolution."

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

 

Applicant for accidental disability retirement benefits has the burden of showing the claimed disability was causally connected to the alleged line of duty injury

Plaintiff challenged the Board of Trustees of the New York City Police Pension Fund [Trustees] denial of her application for accidental disability retirement benefits. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the Trustees' decision,  dismissing Plaintiff's CPLR Article 78 petition.

The court said that the Trustees' determination that "there was no causal connection" between Plaintiff' line of duty injury and her disability was supported by credible evidence. The Appellate Division then observed that the Pension Fund's Medical Board recommended that Plaintiff receive ordinary disability retirement benefits rather than accidental disability retirement benefits.

The Appellate Division's decision noted that Plaintiff "was on full duty" for most of the period after experiencing her line of duty injury; had qualified with a firearm until her service retirement; and her "subjective complaints did not match the objective medical findings."

Further, said the court, although Plaintiff's surgeon stated that her disability resulted from a work-related accident, the Trustees' Medical Board disagreed, and conflicts in the evidence are to be resolved solely by the Medical Board and the Trustees.

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

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Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)

 

Matter of Digital Forensics Unit v Records Access Officer

2023 NY Slip Op 01476

Decided on March 21, 2023

Appellate Division, First Department

Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.

This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.

Decided and Entered: March 21, 2023
Before: Manzanet-Daniels, J.P., Singh, Kennedy, Shulman, JJ.

Index No. 100836/19 Appeal No. 17552 Case No. 2021-03350

In the Matter of Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society, Petitioner-Appellant,

v

Records Access Officer, New York City Police Department, Respondent-Respondent.

Twyla Carter, The Legal Aid Society, New York (Benjamin S. Burger of counsel), for appellant.

Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, Corporation Counsel, New York (Julie Steiner of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol R. Edmead, J.), entered August 26, 2021, denying the petition to compel respondent to disclose "all current NYPD rosters of officers (of all ranks) in all precincts" pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), granting respondent's cross motion to dismiss the petition, and dismissing this proceeding brought pursuant to CPLR article 78, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The court committed no procedural error in granting respondent's cross motion to dismiss the petition. Initially, petitioner's contention that the court improperly considered the affidavit of respondent's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism (the Miller affidavit) is unpreserved (see Islam v City of New York, 111 AD3d 493, 494 [1st Dept 2013]). In any event, respondent was entitled to submit the affidavit on its cross motion, and the court properly considered it in evaluating the merits of petitioner's claim (see Basis Yield Alpha Fund [Master] v Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., 115 AD3d 128, 134-135 [1st Dept 2014]; see also Guggenheimer v Ginzburg, 43 NY2d 268, 275 [1977]).

The parties' submissions established that respondent's denial of petitioner's FOIL request based on the public safety exemption was not "affected by an error of law" (CPLR 7803[3]; see also Public Officers Law § 87[2][f]; Matter of Barry v O'Neill, 185 AD3d 503, 505 [1st Dept 2020]). Respondent satisfied its burden of showing that the requested information fell "squarely" within the exemption (see Matter of New York Comm. for Occupational Safety & Health v Bloomberg, 72 AD3d 153, 158 [1st Dept 2010]), by making a "particularized showing" that publicly releasing the information would create "a possibility of endangerment" to the safety of the public (Matter of Empire Ctr. for Pub. Policy v New York City Off. of Payroll Admin., 187 AD3d 435, 435 [1st Dept 2020] [internal quotation marks omitted], lv denied 36 NY3d 906 [2021]; see also Matter of Bellamy v New York City Police Dept., 87 AD3d 874, 875 [1st Dept 2011], affd 20 NY3d 1028 [2013]). As articulated in respondent's determination denying petitioner's FOIL request, the disclosure of the rosters of all the NYPD precincts could permit individuals intent on causing harm to deduce which precincts have less resources and manpower, and tailor their conduct by targeting those areas. Further, the Miller affidavit described the potential harm to police officers as well as their families from the publication of their full names. Whether petitioner intends to publish the information on a publicly available website is irrelevant to the applicability of the exemption since "access to government records does not depend on the purpose for which the records are sought" (Matter of Gould v New York City Police Dept., 89 NY2d 267, 274 [1996]; see also Matter of Bellamy v New York City Police Dept., 59 AD3d 353, 355 [1st Dept 2009]). Further, although respondent has since separately published the full names and precinct locations of NYPD officers, the court properly considered the record that was before the records access officer in 2019.

The advisory opinion of the Committee on Open Government concluding that the denial of the FOIL request was "unsupportable" is not binding, especially given that it did not address respondent's expressed concern regarding the risk to public safety arising from the exposure of the availability of police resources and manpower in the different precincts (Matter of Buffalo News v Buffalo Enter. Dev. Corp., 84 NY2d 488, 493 [1994]; Matter of Thomas v New York City Dept. of Educ., 103 AD3d 495, 498 [1st Dept 2013]).

Respondent's disclosure of disciplinary information on its website in response to the repeal of Civil Rights Law § 50-a (see Uniformed Fire Officers Assn. v De Blasio, 846 Fed Appx 25, 29 [2d Cir 2021]) has no bearing on the propriety of the denial of petitioner's FOIL request, since respondent's creation of the online database occurred after the determination.

We have considered petitioner's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.

ENTERED: March 21, 2023

 

Challenging the disqualification of a candidate for failure to meet the psychological requirements for appointment to the position

A candidate for appointment to a position of police officer [Plaintiff] was disqualified by the responsible civil service commission [Commission] for failure to meet the psychological requirements of the position. Plaintiff appealed the Commission's determination. Supreme Court denied Plaintiff's appeal, dismissed the proceeding and denied Plaintiff's motion for leave to reargue the petition. Plaintiff appealed Supreme Court's ruling.

The Plaintiff had passed the written portion of the County Police Officer Examination and his name was placed on eligible list. Plaintiff was subsequently given a conditional offer of employment, subject to his successful completion of physical and psychological screenings, among other things. Following a complete psychological screening, the Commission's staff psychiatrist concluded that Plaintiff was not capable of performing the duties of a police officer and the Commission disqualified Plaintiff "for failure to meet the psychological requirements of the position."

Plaintiff appealed the Commission's determination, submitting an independent evaluation by a psychiatrist, who disagreed in detail with the conclusions of the prior evaluators, and numerous letters of recommendation. The Commission referred Plaintiff to another staff psychiatrist for an additional interview and review of his file. This second staff psychiatrist also concluded that Plaintiff was not capable of performing the duties of a police officer. The Commission affirmed its original determination disqualifying Plaintiff for appointment as a police officer and denied Plaintiff's request to administratively reargue his appeal the Commission's determination.*

Supreme Court denied the Plaintiff's petition challenging the Commission's decision and dismissed the proceeding. Petitioner appealed the Supreme Court's ruling.

The Appellate Division, noting that reinstating Plaintiff's name to the subject eligible list is no longer possible as the eligible list had expired. The court then explained that an "appointment of an individual from a constitutionally valid expired list violates Article V, §6 of the NY Constitution" citing Matter of City of New York v New York State Div. of Human Rights, 93 NY2d 768.**

Nevertheless, in light of the conditional offer of employment given to Plaintiff, and his request for back pay, the Appellate Division denied the Respondents' request that the Appellate Division dismiss Plaintiff's appeal as academic. It then held Supreme Court had properly denied the petition and dismissed the proceeding, explaining "An appointing authority has wide discretion in determining the fitness of candidates, and this discretion is particularly broad in the hiring of law enforcement officers, to whom high standards may be applied," citing Matter of Coyle v Kampe, 185 AD3d 1028, and other decisions.

In the words of the Appellate Division, "So long as the administrative determination is not irrational or arbitrary and capricious, this Court will not disturb it". Further, opined the court, in determining whether a candidate is medically qualified to serve as a police officer, "the appointing agency is 'entitled to rely upon the findings of its own medical personnel, even if those findings are contrary to those of professionals retained by the candidate'" and it is not for the courts to choose between the diverse professional opinions."

In response to Plaintiff's request for copies of the underlying psychological reports for review and challenge by his own expert, the Appellate Division ruled that Plaintiff was not entitled to such documents and opined that Supreme Court had been provided with sufficient material to be able to determine that the Commission's determination was neither irrational nor arbitrary and capricious.

The Appellate Division, in affirming Supreme Court's ruling, and awarded the Respondents one bill of costs.

*  The Appellate Division noted "no appeal lies from an order denying reargument"

** See, also, Cash v Bates, 301 NY 258, in which the Court of Appeals held that an appointment to a civil service title from an expired civil service eligible list is a "legal impossibility."

Click HERE to access the text of the Appellate Division's decision.