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Labor & Employment Law

New York Public Personnel Law

Summaries of and commentaries on, selected court and administrative decisions and related matters affecting public employers and employees in New York State.

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Last Entry: November 05, 2020 at 10:02:02

Videotape used in disciplinary hearing to rebut employee?s testimony

Posted on December 27, 2010
Videotape used in disciplinary hearing to rebut employee?s testimonyNYC Department of Corrections v Saint-Phard, OATH Index #172/11OATH Administrative Law Judge Faye Lewis found that Stanley Saint-Phard, a New York City correction officer, used impermissible force by dispersing a chemical agent in an inmate's face and placing him in a chokehold...

Dissatisfaction with an employer's drug testing procedure is not ?good cause? for resigning for the purposes of claiming unemployment benefits

Posted on December 27, 2010
Dissatisfaction with an employer's drug testing procedure is not ?good cause? for resigning for the purposes of claiming unemployment benefitsMatter of French v Town of Lyndon, 2010 NY Slip Op 09451, Decided on December 23, 2010, Appellate Division, Third DepartmentKevin M...

Arbitrator?s refusal to hear employee?s ?whistle blower? defense in the course of disciplinary hearing requires the vacating of the award

Posted on December 22, 2010
Arbitrator?s refusal to hear employee?s ?whistle blower? defense in the course of disciplinary hearing requires the vacating of the awardMatter of Kowaleski v New York State Dept. of Correctional Servs., 2010 NY Slip Op 09379, Decided on December 21, 2010, Court of AppealsBarbara Kowaleski, a correction officer employed by the New York State Department of Corrections, was served with disciplinary charges alleging that she violated provisions of the employees' manual on three separate occasions when she "made inappropriate comments of a personal nature about another staff member in the presence of staff and inmates"; argued with a fellow employee; and was "disrespectful and insubordinate" when she ignored a superior's order...

Appointment to Positions in NYS's Civil Service

Posted on December 22, 2010
Appointment to Positions in NYS's Civil ServiceSource: Adjunct Law Prof Blog; http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2010, Mitchell H. Rubinstein, Esq., Adjunct Professor of Law, St. Johns Law School and New York Law School, All rights reserved...

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Vacating a Section 3020-a arbitration award

Posted on December 22, 2010
Vacating a Section 3020-a arbitration awardWesthampton Beach UFSD v Ziparo, 275 AD2d 411It is not unusual for a party to decide to challenge the determination of the hearing officer or panel following a Section 3020-a disciplinary action. Essentially a Section 3020-a decision is treated as an arbitration award and thus the provisions of Article 75 of the Civil Practice Act and Rules [CPLR] control any attempt to vacate such an award...

Governor David A. Paterson fined $62,125 after being found guilty of charges that he received complimentary tickets to Game 1 of the 2009 World Series

Posted on December 22, 2010
Governor David A. Paterson fined $62,125 after being found guilty of charges that he received complimentary tickets to Game 1 of the 2009 World SeriesSource: The New York State Commission on Public IntegrityOn December 21, 2010, the New York State Commission on Public Integrity announced that it had fined Governor David A...

Teacher placement and the ADA

Posted on December 22, 2010
Teacher placement and the ADAArbitration between the United Educators of San Francisco and San Francisco [California] Unified School District, Arbitrator William E. RikerIn 1997 a hearing impaired California teacher, certified to teach deaf students at the high school level and regular students from kindergarten through eighth grade, was laid off when her position was eliminated...

Absence of the name of an individual on a list of members as required by law deemed evidence that the individual is not a member of the organization

Posted on December 21, 2010
Absence of the name of an individual on a list of members as required by law deemed evidence that the individual is not a member of the organizationMurphy v Town of Ramapo, 2010 NY Slip Op 09233, Decided on December 14, 2010, Appellate Division, Second DepartmentDennis Murphy, Jr...

Employee may be terminated on the grounds that he or she make a material false statement of his or her application for employment

Posted on December 21, 2010
Employee may be terminated on the grounds that he or she make a material false statement of his or her application for employmentMatter of Walsh v Kelly, 2010 NY Slip Op 09346, Decided on December 16, 2010,* Appellate Division, First DepartmentNew York City Civil Service Commission, after a hearing, affirmed the determination of the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services to disqualify and terminate Gary Walsh as a New York City police officer...

Violating the employer?s ?Use of the Internet Policies? while at work

Posted on December 21, 2010
Violating the employer?s ?Use of the Internet Policies? while at workSchnaars v Copiague Union Free School District, 275 AD2d 462Public employers are adopting policies dealing with its employees using the agency?s computers to access the Internet for personal business and transmitting and receiving personal e-mail...

Burden of proof in disability claims

Posted on December 21, 2010
Burden of proof in disability claimsMusa v Nassau County Police Dept., 276 AD2d 851The Musa decision demonstrates the burden place on an applicant seeking workers? compensation death benefits. Musa, a Nassau County police officer, committed suicide while at home...

Criminal investigations and the Taylor law

Posted on December 21, 2010
Criminal investigations and the Taylor lawNew York City v Uniformed Fire Officers Asso., 95 NY2d 273With increasing frequency, procedures addressing employee rights in the course of an employer-initiated investigation are being included in Taylor Law agreements...

Appointment to positions in New York State?s Civil Service

Posted on December 20, 2010
Appointment to positions in New York State?s Civil ServiceSource: New York State Bar AssociationI am pleased to announce that the Municipal Law Section of the New York State Bar Association and the Edwin G. Michaelian Municipal Law Research Center of Pace University have jointly published my article, Appointment to Positions in New York State?s Civil Service, in the Fall 2010 issue of Municipal Lawyer, [Vol...

Employee serving a disciplinary probationary period may be dismissed prior to the expiration of the probationary period without a hearing

Posted on December 20, 2010
Employee serving a disciplinary probationary period may be dismissed prior to the expiration of the probationary period without a hearingMatter of Bifolco v Kelly, 2010 NY Slip Op 09335, decided on December 16, 2010, Appellate Division, First DepartmentNew York City Police Commissioner Raymond W...

Compulsory interest arbitration

Posted on December 20, 2010
Compulsory interest arbitrationMatter of White Plains and White Plains PBA, 33 PERB 4588Section 209.4 of the Civil Service Law provides for resolving impasses in collective negotiations between a public employer and an employee organization representing police or fire personnel through arbitration...

Conflict of interest

Posted on December 20, 2010
Conflict of interestPeterson v Corbin, 275 AD2d 35*Gregory P. Peterson, the President of the Nassau OTB, sued Roger H. Corbin in an effort to prevent Corbin, a member of the Nassau County legislature, from voting on any appointment to the board of directors of the Nassau OTB...

Modifying a disciplinary penalty

Posted on December 20, 2010
Modifying a disciplinary penaltyBrown v Penn Yan CSD, 275 AD2d 931Knight v BOCES, App. Div., Fourth Dept., 275 AD2d 1038Courts are frequently requested to review disciplinary penalties imposed on employees found guilty in administrative disciplinary procedures...

Readers of NYPPL use a variety of operating systems to access its content

Posted on December 18, 2010
Readers of NYPPL use a variety of operating systems to access its contentReported by GoogleNYPER trivia for December 2010.Google Statistics reports NYPPL readers used the following means to access this LawBlog.Windows 47,266Macintosh 4,133Other Unix 3,706iPhone 339BlackBerry 295Linux 250iPad 177iPod 69Nokia 54Palm 38

Liquidation of employee leave credits upon separation

Posted on December 17, 2010
Liquidation of employee leave credits upon separationSource: A question of general interest submitted by a NYPPL readerA NYPPL reader asks: "Should an employee be separated from his or her public employment what happens to the employees leave accruals? Is the municipality allowed to keep the money? Where does they money go??The most common types of leave accruals or credits that may be credited to an individual at the time of his or her separation are 1...

Governor Paterson signs Executive Order on Record Keeping Procedures and Policies

Posted on December 17, 2010
Governor Paterson signs Executive Order on Record Keeping Procedures and PoliciesSource: Office of the GovernorOn December 14, 2010 Governor David A. Paterson issued an Executive Order addressing the development and implementation of a records management policy for the Executive Chamber, including an archives retention schedule...

Determining on-duty status

Posted on December 17, 2010
Determining on-duty statusCossifos v NYSERS, 275 AD2d 879Clearly an individual who is disabled in the course of performing his or her duties may be eligible for accidental disability retirement benefits provided by a public retirement system of this state as a result of his or her being injured while on-duty...

Discrimination complaints and discipline

Posted on December 17, 2010
Discrimination complaints and disciplineScroggins v Univ. of Minnesota, 8th Cir., 221 F.3d 1042An employee files a discrimination complaint pursuant to Title VII against his or her employer. A short time later the employee is brought up on disciplinary charges, found guilty, and terminated...

Modifying a disciplinary procedure

Posted on December 17, 2010
Modifying a disciplinary procedureNYC Transit Auth, v PERB, 276 AD2d 702, Motion for leave to appeal denied, 96 NY2d 713The New York City Transit Authority case demonstrates the fact that neither an employer nor an employee organization may unilaterally modify a statutory or negotiated disciplinary procedures...

Arbitrators generally permitted independent recourse to third-party sources when necessary to confirm technical information

Posted on December 16, 2010
Arbitrators generally permitted independent recourse to third-party sources when necessary to confirm technical informationMatter of Watt v Roberts, 2010 NY Slip Op 09171, decided on December 14, 2010, Appellate Division, First DepartmentAn arbitration panel selected by the Transport Workers Union of America, Local 100 and the New York City Transit Authority and the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority granted a 3% wage increase to employees of the Authorities and capped the formula for employees' contributions toward health insurance costs...

The statute of limitations for initiating a lawsuit is not extended by the individual?s pursuing his or her administrative remedies

Posted on December 16, 2010
The statute of limitations for initiating a lawsuit is not extended by the individual?s pursuing his or her administrative remediesKahn v New York City Dept. of Educ., 2010 NY Slip Op 09168, decided on December 14, 2010, Appellate Division, First DepartmentLeslie Kahn, a probationary social worker, was given an unsatisfactory evaluation and was not given a ?denying her a Certification of Completion of Probation...

Retirement incentives

Posted on December 16, 2010
Retirement incentivesBellanca v Grand Island CSD, 275 AD2d 944Sometimes the retirement incentives promised by the employer are not granted to the individual. This type of situation was the genesis of the Bellanca case.Peter Bellanca and nine other teachers sued the Grand Island Central School District in an attempt to have the court rescind their having previously decided to elect early retirement...

Section 207-c administrative hearings

Posted on December 16, 2010
Section 207-c administrative hearingsDoolittle v Broome County, 276 AD2d 863The Doolittle case involves a relatively unique issue: a hearing officer conducting a Section 207-c hearing* deciding the duration of a workplace stress situation that the employee claimed was the cause of her work-connected disability...

Union animus

Posted on December 16, 2010
Union animusCSEA Local 860 v PERB, 276 AD2d 967, Motion for leave to appeal denied, 96 NY2d 704Michael Holcomb, a probationary employee, was terminated from his employment as a maintenance laborer with the Westchester County Department of Environmental Facilities [DEF]...

Failure to serve notice of an appeal to the Commissioner of Education as set out in the Commissioner?s regulations a fatal procedural defect

Posted on December 15, 2010
Failure to serve notice of an appeal to the Commissioner of Education as set out in the Commissioner?s regulations a fatal procedural defectMatter of Blake v Mills, 2010 NY Slip Op 09057, Decided on December 9, 2010, Appellate Division, Third DepartmentShango Blake, a principal in the New York City School District, was charged with 14 counts of misconduct...

Ordering worker to report to agency?s medical clinic for an examination does result in liability if the employee?s injury is exacerbating as a result

Posted on December 15, 2010
Ordering worker to report to agency?s medical clinic for an examination does result in liability if the employee?s injury is exacerbating as a resultBonomonte v City of New York, 2010 NY Slip Op 09165, Decided on December 14, 2010, Appellate Division, First DepartmentDominic Bonomonte, a New York City Sanitation employee was on sick leave due to surgeries to his arm...

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