Retiring upon attaining the mandatory age of retirement bars claim for line of duty sick leave benefits

General Municipal Law §92-d provides for sick leave benefits to certain employees with qualifying World Trade Center conditions as defined by §2 of the Retirement and Social Security Law. 

A former fire chief [Chief] commenced this CPLR Article 78 proceeding against his former employer [City] in an effort to have the City's determination denying his application for line-of-duty sick leave pursuant to General Municipal Law §92-d annulled. Supreme Court granted the City's motion to dismiss the Chief's petition, agreeing with the City that the Chief's Article 78 action was moot. The Chief appealed.

The Appellate Division affirmed the Supreme Court's ruling, observing that after the Chief filed his Article 78 petition in this case he attained "the mandatory retirement age pursuant to Retirement and Social Security Law §370 (b) and retired with the maximum amount of accrued sick leave."

The court explained that it is "a fundamental principle of our jurisprudence that the power of a court to declare the law only arises out of, and is limited to, determining the rights of persons which are actually controverted in a particular case pending before the tribunal," referencing Matter of Hearst Corp. v Clyne, 50 NY2d 707, at page 713.

Opining that "[u]nder the circumstances here, Supreme Court properly dismissed the petition as moot," the Appellate Division held that this proceeding is "not of the class that should be preserved as an exception to the mootness doctrine."

The decision is posted on the Internet at http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2020/2020_05665.htm

 

 

OATH launches citywide text-messaging reminder system for all civil summonses

On September 4, 2020, the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings [OATH] announced a citywide launch of a text-messaging reminder system to remind respondents about their Hearings Division hearing dates. Respondents can register by simply texting "OATH reminder" to 474747, and then responding to the prompt with their summons number. 

"Every person who receives a summons should know that OATH's goal is to make it as convenient as possible for them to respond to that summons and direct text messages that explain our hearing process, the consequences for not responding to summonses, and remind people of important deadlines is just one way OATH is doing that," said Commissioner and Chief Administrative Judge Joni Kletter. 

For more information, read OATH's press release.

Salaries of undercover police officers not subject to disclosure pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law

§89[3][a] of the New York State (Public Officers Law)*, The Freedom of Information Law [FOIL], provides that "[n]othing in [the statute] shall be construed to require any entity to prepare any record not possessed or maintained by such entity."

In this CPLR Article 78 action the Empire Center for Public Policy [Empire] challenged the denial of its FOIL request seeking the aggregate gross salary of all individuals not included in the NYC Open Data Citywide Payroll Database for fiscal year 2017.

The Supreme Court's decision indicating that the information sought by Empire would include the salaries of "undercover police officers, whether aggregated or individualized," denied Empire's petition request for individualized salary information as to such individuals and Empire appealed.

The Appellate Division unanimously modified, on the law, part of the Supreme Court's order, vacating that part of the order requiring the disclose aggregate salary information, and otherwise affirmed the Supreme Court's ruling, indicating that:

1. Such information is exempt from disclosure under FOIL's public safety exemption;

2. The respondent, the New York City Office of Payroll Administration, met its burden of making a particularized showing that publicly releasing this information would create "a possibility of endangerment" to the public's safety; and

3. The New York City Office of Payroll Administration is not obligated to compile "aggregate data" "from the documents or records in its possession"** (See Matter of Reubens v Murray, 194 AD2d 492).

The Appellate Division opined that in the analysis of Empire's request not only the instant FOIL request for information as to fiscal year 2017 is to be considered but also future requests which could be made for equivalent information as to other years. Citing Matter of Grabell v New York City Police Dept., 139 AD3d 477, the court said that such information would allow members of the public to estimate the increases or decreases in the overall number of undercover officers, which could "undermine their deterrent effect, hamper NYPD's counterterrorism operations, and increase the likelihood of another terrorist attack." The New York City Office of Payroll Administration's past disclosure of salary and other information as to certain public employees not employed by NYPD is not dispositive.

* Public Officers Law §89[3][a], with exceptions not raised in this action.

** See Matter of Reubens v Murray, 194 AD2d 492.

The decision is posted on the Internet at: http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2020/2020_05449.htm