Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In 2002, the City of Yonkers and Yonkers Fire Fighters entered into a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Pursuant to the CBA, the City offered its firefighters the option of enrolling in retirement plans in which the City would bear the complete cost of contributions. In the CBA terminated in June 2009. In 2010, the Legislature enacted N.Y. Retir. & Soc. Sec. 22, which required new members of the state and local fire retirement system to contribute three percent of their salaries toward their pensions. Thereafter, the City required firefighters who were hired after June 2009 to pay three percent of their wages toward retirement benefits. The Union protested to the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), alleging that the City erred in failing to apply the CBA to firefighters hired by the City after the CBA's termination date. PERB referred the matter to arbitration. The City requested a permanent stay of arbitration on the ground that arbitration was statutorily barred. The Court of Appeals found that the arbitration sought by the Union was barred as an impermissible negotiation of pension benefits, as the non-contributory pension benefits to which firefighters were entitled pursuant to the CBA were prohibited by article 22. View "City of Yonkers v. Yonkers Fire Fighters, Local 628" on Justia Law

Claimant sustained a back injury while employed by Respondent. Claimant applied for and received workers' compensation benefits. Later, Claimant entered a plea of guilty to insurance fraud in the fourth degree by entering an Alford plea. At a subsequent workers' compensation hearing, Respondent's workers' compensation carrier sought to preclude Claimant from further benefits based on the guilty plea. The Workers' Compensation Board gave preclusive effect to Claimant's guilty plea and found Claimant violated the Workers' Compensation Law. The appellate division reversed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that it was impossible to conclude that Claimant's conviction was based upon the same circumstances alleged to be fraudulent in the workers' compensation proceeding, and therefore, the plea did not prohibit Claimant from challenging the workers' compensation violation alleged. View "Howard v. Stature Elec., Inc." on Justia Law

The Bath Volunteer Fire Department (BVFD), a not-for-profit fire corporation, obtained its own financing for the construction of a new firehouse and hired Petitioner as the general contractor. The Department of Labor subsequently concluded that the firehouse project was a public work subject to the prevailing wage law. BVFD agreed to indemnify Petitioner and its subcontractors against any liability resulting from their failure to pay the prevailing wages, and thereafter, the project was completed. The Appellate Division confirmed the determination that the project was subject to the prevailing wage law. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that because no public agency, as contemplated by N.Y. Labor Law 220, was a party to the contract, the prevailing wage law did not apply. View "M.G.M. Insulation, Inc. v. Gardner" on Justia Law

These three cases stemmed from a residency policy that called for employees of the City of Niagara Falls School District hired or promoted after the policy's effective date to reside in the City and maintain residency there during their employment. Here the District's Administrator for Human Resources notified three employees that they were suspected of violating the residency policy. The Board then terminated the employees' employment for failure to comply with the policy. On appeal, the Appellate Court (1) found that the District did not meet its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the employee had changed her domicile in the first case; (2) found the Board's determination was not arbitrary and capricious in the second case; and (3) determined that the third employee's termination was arbitrary and capricious. The Court of Appeals reversed in the first case, affirmed in the second case, and reversed and remanded in the third case, holding (1) the residency policy and its implementing regulations were clear and unambiguous; (2) the District's notice-and-hearing procedures easily complied with due process; and (3) in the majority of these cases, the Board's determinations were not arbitrary or an abuse of discretion. View "Beck-Nichols v. Bianco" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a national satellite television provider, purchased equipment used to deliver programming to its customers. Between March 2000 an February 2004, Petitioner did not pay sales or use taxes on its equipment purchases from manufacturers, and instead, collected sales taxes from its customers at the time the equipment was leased to them. Following an audit in 2005, the Department of Taxation and Finance issued a notice of determination assessing Petitioner an additional $1.8 million in use taxes in use taxes for the same period on the basis that Petitioner owed taxes at the time it purchased the equipment from manufacturers. The Tax Appeals Tribunal upheld the notice of determination. The Appellate Division confirmed the Tribunal's determination. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Petitioner's purchases of equipment used to deliver programming to its customers were exempt from sales and use taxes under New York's Tax Law. View "EchoStar Satellite Corp. v. State Tax Appeals Tribunal" on Justia Law

Each of these consolidated appeals involved a police officer who responded to provide assistance at the World Trade Center following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Two officers sought accidental disability retirement benefits (Bitchatchi and Macri), and the surviving spouse of another officer made a claim for line-of-duty death benefits (Maldonado). The primary issue was whether the pension fund Respondents produced competent evidence to rebut the statutory World Trade Center (WTC) presumption accorded to Petitioners' claims. The WTC presumption states that an officer's disability or death as a result of a qualifying condition is presumed to be caused by his or her exposure at the WTC site for purposes of benefit upgrades. The Supreme Court held that Respondents in these cases did not meet their burden of disproving that the officers' disabilities or death were causally related to their work at the WTC and related sites, thus affirming in Bitchatchi and Macri and reversing in Maldonado. View "Bitchatchi v. N.Y. City Police Dep't Pension Fund Bd. of Trs." on Justia Law

A town and county squabbled in and out of court for five years over whether the county's department of human resources was required to provide the town with documentation of an employee's fitness to resume work before the town reinstated him to his position under N.Y. Civ. Serv. Law 71. On the employee's second visit to the appellate division, the court concluded that section 71 did not require the department to provide the town with medical certification or an underlying medical report. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that when a civil service commission or department directs a municipal employer to reinstate an employee pursuant to a medical officer's determination of fitness under section 71, the municipal employer must immediately reinstate the employee, and a challenge to such a determination must take the form of a N.Y. C.P.L.R. 78 proceeding. View "Lazzari v. Town of Eastchester" on Justia Law

East Midtown Plaza Housing Company, a limited-profit housing company organized under the Mitchell-Lama Law, sought to withdraw from the Mitchell-Lama program and become a private cooperative apartment complex. A vote was taken on a revised privatization plan, and the proposal would have been approved if the votes were tallied using a one-vote-per-share rule, but not if counted under a one-vote-per-household formula as directed by the certificate of incorporation and City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Following the vote, East Midtown filed a proposed second amendment stating that the plan had been adopted by the affirmative vote of at least two thirds of the outstanding shares of East Midtown. The Attorney General refused to accept the amendment. East Midtown responded by commencing this N.Y. C.P.L.R. 78 proceeding seeking to compel the Attorney General to accept the second amendment declaring the plan effective and to direct HPD to recognize that the plan achieved the necessary two-thirds shareholder vote. Supreme Court denied the petition. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the courts below correctly held that the vote should be calculated using the one-vote-per-apartment formula, and therefore, the necessary two-thirds approval was not met. View "E. Midtown Plaza Hous. Co. v. Cuomo " on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a credit union, commenced this declaratory judgment action against Defendants, the state department of taxation and finance, its commissioner, and the state. The credit union asserted it was not required to pay the mortgage recording tax (MRT) on mortgage obligations issued to members because (1) the Federal Credit Union Act (FCUA) exempts federal credit unions and their property from state taxation, and (2) as instrumentalities of the United States, federal credit unions are immune from state taxation under the Supremacy Clause. Supreme court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint, and the appellate division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that, based on principles of statutory interpretation and the legislative history of the FCUA, federal credit unions are not exempt from the state's MRT. View "Hudson Valley Fed. Credit Union v. Dep't of Taxation & Fin." on Justia Law

In this appeal, the Court of Appeals considered whether a written letter from the assistant commissioner of the fire department of the city of New York to Petitioner firefighter advising him that he violated the department's code of conduct and equal employment (EEO) policy may be made part of Petitioner's permanent EEO file without affording him an opportunity for a hearing. The supreme court annulled the department's determination that Petitioner made racially offensive remarks and expunged the letter from Petitioner's EEO file. The appellate division affirmed, concluding that the department did not comport with the requirements of due process. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the department denied Petitioner his right to due process by placing the letter in his file without conducting a hearing, and thus the letter was properly expunged from Petitioner's permanent EEO file. View "D'Angelo v. Scoppetta" on Justia Law