Individual whose new employer rescinded the offer of employment for good cause disqualified for Unemployment Insurance benefits under the circumstances

Individual whose new employer rescinded the offer of employment for good cause disqualified for Unemployment Insurance benefits under the circumstances

2013 NY Slip Op 03735, Appellate Division, Third Department

A public employee [Claimant] delivered his letter of resignation to the appointing authority indicating that he had been offered, and had accepted, a position at another facility.

Subsequently Claimant drove a motor vehicle after he had taken prescription medication and was arrested for “driving while ability impaired.” When his prospective employer learned of his arrest, it withdrew its offer of employment and Claimant’s former employer would not allow him to withdraw or retract his resignation.*

The Department of Labor initially disqualified Claimant from receiving unemployment insurance benefits, finding that he voluntarily left his employment without good cause.

Claimant appealed and after a hearing, an Administrative Law Judge overruled this determination. The Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board reversed the Administrative Law Judge’s decision and Claimant appealed the Board’s ruling.

The Appellate Division affirm the Board’s decision, explaining "A claimant's conduct . . . with regard to accepting a new position is a critical element in determining whether separation from employment was for good cause."

In this instance, said the court, Claimant had a valid offer of employment at the time he tendered his resignation but he lost this offer through his own poor judgment in driving a motor vehicle after taking prescription medication.

Under these circumstances, said the court, substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that good cause did not exist for Claimant's voluntary departure from employment and that he was disqualified from receiving benefits and it found

* Given that Claimant worked in the field of substance abuse prevention, the Appellate Division said that his former employer was justified in refusing to allow Claimant to rescind his resignation. 

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2013/2013_03735.htm

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo releases provisional open data guidelines to increase transparency among state agencies

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo releases provisional open data guidelines to increase transparency among state agencies

Source: Office of the Governor

On June 13, 2013, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo released provisional open data guidelines for state agencies and public authorities to participate in Open.ny.gov. New York is the first state in the nation to publish its provisional open data guidelines* and seek public comment on GitHub, an open source platform that allows for open collaboration and sharing. Public comment is open until September 1, 2013.

Governor Cuomo said. “This transparency website is a coordinated effort by all of state government, so today’s provisional open data guidelines will provide direction to state agencies and authorities on how to catalogue and share their data on Open.ny.gov. I encourage New Yorkers to submit their comments as we work to build a new level of openness in government.”

On March 11, 2013, the Governor issued Executive Order 95** along with launching Open.ny.gov. The Executive Order directed state agencies, for the first time, to review and catalogue data they collect, and take steps to make public data available on Open.ny.gov in accordance with guidelines developed by the NYS Office of Information Technology Services (ITS).

These guidelines are designed for use by both covered state entities and other government entities not covered by Executive Order 95 including localities. The guidelines will help with identifying, reviewing, and prioritizing state data for publication. The Executive Order directs ITS to encourage public input and finalize the guidelines in the coming months.

Robert Freeman, Executive Director of the Committee on Open Government, said, “The use of Github represents a first among the fifty states, and will serve as the equivalent of a chat room open to the world. It will enable thoughtful and creative people to make contributions and communicate in a manner that can only improve the operation of government.”

Open.ny.gov is a comprehensive state data transparency website that provides user-friendly, one-stop access to open data from New York State agencies, localities, and the federal government. "Open data" refers to data that is free from restrictions and can be released in a format that can be retrieved, downloaded, indexed, and searched by commonly used web search applications. Open.ny.gov provides "open data" access and transparency to the wealth of information collected and maintained by the state and local governments. It allows researchers, citizens, business, and the tech community direct, centralized access to high-value government data to search, explore, download, and share. 

 * The Provisional Open Data Handbook is posted on the Internet at:

http://nys-its.github.io/open-data-handbook/

** Executive Order 95 is posted on the Internet at: http://www.governor.ny.gov/executiveorder/95

Application to participate in the employer's “Vested Benefits Program” rejected because the individual was not an employee “in good standing” when he resigned from his position

Application to participate in the employer's “Vested Benefits Program” rejected because the individual was not an employee “in good standing” when he resigned from his position

2013 NY Slip Op 04102, Appellate Division, First Department

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey advised an employee that disciplinary action was being taken against him because he failed to obtain the Authority’s permission to engage in outside employment that was required to be so employed. 

Subsequently the employee submitted his resignation from his position with the Port Authority and then filed an application to participate in the Authority’s Vested Benefits Program “as a retiree.”

The Port Authority rejected the individual’s application to participate in its Vested Benefits Program because was not an employee “in good standing” when he submitted his resignation from his position. As a matter of policy the Authority deemed that “disciplinary action is pending” if the employee has been informed that disciplinary charges are being prepared.

According to the Appellate Division’s decision, the Authority’s rejection of the individual's application to participate in the Authority's "Vested Benefit Program" was based on its long standing policy that an employee who resigns while disciplinary charges are pending is not “in good standing and is therefore not entitled to such benefits.”

As the individual had been advised that disciplinary charges were being prepared prior to the effective date of his resignation, the Appellate Division ruled that the Authority’s rejection of his application to participate in the Authority’s Vested Benefits Program was  “not arbitrary and capricious or affected by an error of law.”

The court then indicated that the Authority had “reasonably complied with its own regulations when it determined that the lack of good standing disqualified petitioner from eligibility to participate in the Vested Benefits Program.”

The decision is posted on the Internet at:       

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2013/2013_04102.htm

Tenure by estoppel

Tenure by estoppel

2013 NY Slip Op 04006, Appellate Division, Second Department

Tenure by estoppel results "when a school board accepts the continued services of a teacher or administrator, but fails to take the action required by law to either grant or deny tenure prior to the expiration of the teacher's probationary term."

When a probationary teacher was denied tenure prior to the end of his probationary period, he claimed that he had attained tenure by estoppel.

According to the decision, the Board of Education had employed the teacher [Educator] as a per diem substitute teacher from September through the following June. Upon Educator’s completion of that academic year he appointed as full time teacher subject to the satisfactory completion of a two-year probationary period commencing July 1, 2008 through to June 30, 2010. The decision notes that Educator was entitled to a “one-year credit” toward the statutory three-year probationary period based on his prior tenure service in another district as provided by Education Law §3012[1][a].

What was ultimately to prove critical to the resolution of Educator’s claim that he had attained tenure by estoppel was a revised “letter of intent” he had signed that memorialized his probationary appointment and which specified that he would become eligible for tenure on July 1, 2010.

In May 2010, the superintendent of schools advised Educator that would be recommend the termination of his probationary appointment and on June 23, 2010 the Board voted to terminate Educator’s employment effective June 25, 2010.

Educator challenged the Board’s action and filed an Article 78 seeking a court order directing his reinstatement to his former contending that the Board did not have the authority to summarily terminate his employment because he had acquired tenure by estoppel.

Supreme Court denied Educator’s petition.

The Appellate Division sustained the Supreme Court’s decision, explaining that Educator had failed to demonstrate that the Board unduly delayed his formal appointment to his position or that he had otherwise acquired tenure by operation of law.

The court said that it was undisputed that Educator signed a revised letter of intent. This letter was held to have superseded all prior agreements and specified that Educator would become eligible for tenure on July 1, 2010.

Educator, however, had already discharged from his employment prior to that date.

Accordingly, ruled the Appellate Division, the Supreme Court properly denied Educator’s petition and dismissed the proceeding.

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2013/2013_04006.htm

Determining the back pay due an individual terminated from his or her employment upon reinstatement by court order

Determining the back pay due an individual terminated from his or her employment upon reinstatement by court order

Torpey v Town of Colonie, N.Y., 2013 NY Slip Op 04085, Appellate Division, Third Department

With respect to back pay to be awarded in the event a discharged employee is reinstated by action of a civil service commission or personnel officer or a court, prior to its amendment in 1985 Civil Service Law §§76 and 77 provided that the amount of back pay due an individual found to have been unlawfully terminated from his or her position was to be reduced by the amount of compensation he or she may have earned in any other employment or occupation following his or her termination, together with any unemployment insurance benefits he or she may have received during that period.

In 1985 §§76 and 77 of the Civil Service Law, which apply to certain employees in the classified service of a public employer, were amended [Chapter 851, Laws of 1985] and currently provide that an employee reinstated pursuant to either of these subdivisions is to receive the salary to which he or she would have otherwise been entitled, less the amount of any unemployment insurance benefit that he or she may have received during such period. The clause providing for a "reduction" in the amount to be paid for any compensation earned in other employment or occupation following his or her termination was eliminated.

The issue in Torpey: May the compensation due employees reinstated to their former positions in the classified service pursuant to a court order be “reduced by” their earnings in other employments during the period in question.

The employees involved had been terminated from their long-term employment with the Town of Colonie on the ground that they were public officers who were required to, but did not meet, the residency requirement set out in the Public Officers Law. Following their termination, they accepted other employment with the Town for which there was no residency requirement.

The employees then challenged their termination and asked Supreme Court to reinstate them to their former positions "with full back pay, benefits and emoluments of employment."

Supreme Court determined that the employees had been erroneously terminated, finding that the Town had not shown that they were public officers subject to the residency requirements. The court granted the employees’ petition, ruling that the employees were "entitled to be reinstated to their former positions and to all back pay and associated benefits to which they would have been entitled had they not been improperly terminated."

Subsequently a dispute arose between the employees and the Town regarding, among other things, the meaning of the court's directive that employees were entitled to "all back pay," i.e., whether the back pay awards was to be “reduced by” the employees' earnings while employed by the Town as laborers, as the Town claimed, or whether they were entitled to full back pay without any such offset, as the employees argued.

The employees then asked Supreme Court “to resettle and/or clarify the court's prior judgment regarding back pay.” Supreme Court denied their motion, finding it represented an improper attempt to amplify and expand upon the court's prior decision and the employees appealed.

The Appellate Division agreed with Supreme Court, concluding that the employees’ motion “was one to resettle and/or clarify Supreme Court's prior judgment regarding back pay.”  Such a motion, said the court, is designed "not for substantive changes [in, or to amplify a prior decision of, the court], but to correct errors or omissions in form, for clarification or to make the [judgment] conform more accurately to the decision.” Such motions rest on the inherent power of courts to "cure mistakes, defects and irregularities that do not affect substantial rights of [the] parties."

In this instance the Appellate Division decided that the employees’ motion in Supreme Court sought to amplify and substantively amend, not merely to clarify, Supreme Court's prior judgment relating to back pay, “by invoking for the first time Civil Service Law provisions* in support of their argument that the back pay award should not be offset by earnings as Town employees during the period in which they had been improperly terminated, points which should have been raised and argued before a determination was rendered on their petition.”

The Appellate Division’s rational: “Such an offset would directly affect the amount of back pay owed by the Town and, as such, would clearly have ‘alter[ed] [a] substantial right[] of the parties.’”

Holding that “Under established precedent, no appeal lies from the ‘denial of a motion to resettle [or clarify] a substantive portion of an order,'" the Appellate Division dismissed the employees’ appeal.

* Presumably the Appellate Division did not view the employees’ reinstatement by Supreme Court as being within the ambit of Civil Service Law §76.3 or  §77 and thus the provisions of neither §76.3 nor §77 were operative in this instance as a matter of law.

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2013/2013_04085.htm