Labor & Employment Law

Reassignment to a lower grade position based on the employee?s ?lack of integrity? distinguished from disciplinary action

By Harvey Randall, Esq.

Reassignment to a lower grade position based on the employee?s ?lack of integrity? distinguished from disciplinary action
Schwartzbaum v Horn, 2008 NY Slip Op 02021, Decided on March 11, 2008, Appellate Division, First Department

Sidney J. Schwartzbaum, as President of Assistant Deputy Wardens/Deputy Wardens Association challenged the reassignment of an Association member from Warden Level II, where he served as respondent's Chief of Staff, to Warden Level I. The Appellate Division decided that this reassignment was a rational exercise of discretion and dismissed the appeal.

The individual was under investigation allegedly giving a Department of Correction (DOC) snow blower to a correction officer for the correction officer?s own use. However, testimony in the record established that the employee?s reassignment was not a disciplinary punishment, but one based on the assessment that individual ?lacked the requisite integrity and judgment to retain his position? after the employee admitted that as a result of the access he had to sensitive information in his position as Chief of Staff, he contacted the correction officer and instructed him to get rid of the snow blower.

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on April 15, 2008 (boomark / email).