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Limit on questioning by hearing officer

Limit on questioning by hearing officer
Bretton v State of New York, App. Div., 1st Dept 294 A.D.2d 226

An administrative hearing officer has great latitude in his or her conducting a hearing but there are limits as the Bretton decision demonstrates.

James C. Bretton, a Senior Administrative Law Judge employed by the New York State Labor Department, was suspended for 60 days without pay after being found to have exceeded his authority in conducting a hearing involving a claim for unemployment insurance benefits.

The Department disciplined Bretton after it determined that in the course of conducting the hearing he asked the claimant questions "so unnecessarily detailed and repetitive as to cross the line of appropriate questioning" and thus his actions constituted misconduct.

Bretton contended that his questions to the claimant were for the purpose of probing the credibility of her claim that she had been sexually harassed in her employment and there­fore had good cause for leaving it, i.e., she was constructively discharged from her posi­tion.

The Department rejected Bretton's explanation, holding that the questions he asked "went far beyond the range of relevancy to [his] fact-finding duties" as an administrative hear­ing officer.

The Appellate Division, dismissing Bretton's appeal, agreed. The court said that Bret­ton's duties did not include conducting "a sexual harassment inquiry of the type one would find before EEOC or [the Division of Human Rights]."

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).