Title: In the Matter of Andrew S. Criscolo v. Nicholas J. Vagianelis, as Director of the Division of Classification and Compensation of the Department of Civil Service

State: new-york

Issuer: New York Appellate Court

Document:

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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 20  
In the Matter of Andrew S. 
Criscolo, et al., 
            Appellants, 
        v. 
Nicholas J. Vagianelis, as 
Director of the Division of 
Classification and Compensation 
of the Department of Civil 
Service, et al., 
            Respondents.
Edward J. Aluck, for appellants.
Julie M. Sheridan, for respondents.
READ, J.:
Inmates incarcerated in prisons operated by the New
York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) must comply
with standards of conduct (7 NYCRR part 270), which are enforced
through issuance of inmate misbehavior reports in those instances
where a rule violation endangers life, health, security or
property (7 NYCRR 251-3.1).  These reports are subject to review
at an administrative hearing at which a hearing officer
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determines the truth of the allegations and imposes penalties
accordingly.  There are three levels of these administrative
hearings -- tier I (violation hearing), tier II (disciplinary
hearing) and tier III (superintendent's hearing) -- with
differing requirements for each (7 NYCRR 270.3; 7 NYCRR parts
252, 253, 254). 
Tier III hearings, which address the most serious
inmate misbehavior implicating the most severe punishment (7
NYCRR 251-2.2 [b] [3]), may be conducted by the superintendent of
the correctional facility, the deputy superintendent, a captain,
a commissioner's hearing officer employed by DOCS's central
office, or "some other employee" designated by the correctional
facility's superintendent "in his or her discretion" (7 NYCRR
254.1).  On this appeal, we conclude that it was not irrational
for the Division of Classification and Compensation (the
Division) in the New York State Department of Civil Service (DCS)
to revise the classification standards for the civil service
titles of Education Supervisor, Plant Superintendent (A and B)
and Assistant Industrial Superintendent (A and B) so as to
require DOCS employees in these titles to conduct tier III
hearings at a superintendent's behest. 
 
I. 
DOCS employees occupying positions in these civil
service titles began conducting tier III hearings at least as
early as the late 1990's; however, this particular work was not
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listed in the classification specifications and duties for the
titles at that time.  Consequently, in 1998, the New York State
Public Employees Federation (PEF), the union representing the
DOCS employees, grieved the assignment of tier III hearing work
to them.  In 2001, additional grievances were filed to protest
this practice.  Also in 2001, the Appellate Division concluded
that there was no rational basis for DOCS's decision to assign
tier III hearing work to an employee in the title of Senior
Correction Counselor.  This was because "presiding over quasi-
judicial adversarial proceedings, hearing and receiving evidence,
making appropriate findings of fact and conclusions of law and
imposing punishment simply [could not] be said to be reasonably
related to or viewed as a logical extension of" the employee's
primary duty of counseling inmates, as set out in DCC's
specifications for this position (see Matter of Woodward v
Governor's Off. of Empl. Relations, 279 AD2d 725, 727 [3d Dept
2001]).
In August 2006, the Governor's Office of Employee
Relations (GOER) sustained the 1998 and 2001 grievances, and
directed DOCS to "cease and desist from" assigning tier III
hearing work to employees in the civil service titles at issue
here.  GOER acted upon the Division's determination that
conducting tier III hearings constituted out-of-title work for
these employees "based upon . . . review of the subject
grievance[s] within the context of those applicable New York
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State Classification Standards in effect when the grieved work
was performed and the grievances were filed" (emphasis added). 
In making its determination, the Division recognized that the
tier III hearing work assigned to these DOCS employees was
routine in nature, and did not make up the bulk of their job
duties and responsibilities, or consume a great deal of their
working time; and that the employees received training and
written materials with step-by-step instructions. 
In conjunction with its consideration of the 1998 and
2001 grievances, the Division engaged in what it describes as a
long overdue and comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the
civil service titles in question, the classification
specifications for which had not been updated for at least 25 --
and in some cases as many as 40 -- years.  As part of this
analysis and evaluation, the Division examined the tier III
hearing process as well as the nature of informal hearings
conducted at other executive branch agencies; reviewed and
compared the specific job duties of employees (both attorneys and
non-attorneys) who conduct informal hearings; and specifically
looked at the job duties of an Inmate Disciplinary Hearing
Officer (IDHO) (M-1), a civil service title unique to DOCS. 
IDHOs, who must be licensed attorneys, preside over the most
complex tier III hearings, and also carry out specialized
managerial, policymaking and appellate review functions.  There
are only 10 IDHOs statewide, all of whom work out of DOCS's
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central office.
The Division concluded that "within the universe of
administrative adjudicatory hearings, Tier 3 Hearings are, in
general, less formal, more routine, and less complex."  Inmates
are not represented by counsel, have limited rights to call and
may not cross-examine witnesses.  Briefs and memoranda of law are
generally not submitted; decisions are usually issued in a short,
standardized form.  Observing that "[n]ot all Tier 3 Hearings are
of equivalent complexity," the Division found that, in practice,
DOCS "limit[ed] the assignment of non-attorney personnel to those
less complex Tier 3 Hearings which are considered to be
'routine,' without involved, difficult, or unusual questions of
fact or law, and which will not set precedent."  Further, "DOCS
non-attorney personnel . . . only conduct[ed] Tier 3 Hearings
after appropriate training by an [IDHO] or other appropriate DOCS
personnel"; their decisions were subject to administrative and
judicial review.      
Finally, the Division identified "a core set" of
knowledge, skills, and abilities that every non-attorney
conducting a routine tier III hearing needed to possess.  The
Division concluded that the requisite knowledge, skills and
ability were general in nature, consisting of, for example,
knowledge of the standards of inmate behavior, and the ability to
understand written instructions, guidelines and procedures and to
communicate clearly both orally and in writing.  As a result,
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many DOCS employees were qualified, with training, to conduct a
tier III hearing, including employees holding positions in the
civil service titles at issue in this litigation.
In October 2006 the Division amended the classification
specifications for these titles to bring them into line with its
analysis and evaluation.  The following task was added under the
heading "Illustrative Duties": "May assist with, conduct, and/or
make determinations on inmate disciplinary hearings."  In
implementing this new classification specification, the Division,
in practice, adopted limitations identified in the 1998 and 2001
grievances: non-attorney DOCS employees were only to conduct
routine tier III hearings after being trained and with proper
supervision, and this work was not to be their primary duty.
In January 2007, petitioners commenced this article 78
proceeding in Supreme Court, alleging that the Division's
revision of their civil service titles to include tier III
hearing work was arbitrary and capricious because they were not
educated or trained to carry out this task, which, in any event,
conflicted with the primary functions and duties of their
positions.  They also contended that the revision was contrary to
GOER's disposition of the 1998 and 2001 grievances, and the
Appellate Division's decision in Woodward.  According to
petitioners, tier III hearing work should be confined to
employees occupying positions as Hearing Officers (grade 25), a
civil service title found in other state agencies, or to IDHOs. 
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Both titles require admission to the New York State Bar as a job
qualification.
On May 15, 2007, Supreme Court dismissed the petition. 
In light of the limited standard of judicial review, the court
concluded that "[t]he addition of the duty of conducting inmate
disciplinary hearings to the disputed job titles is not wholly
irrational or without rational basis considering the other duties
of these titles."  The Appellate Division, with two Justices
dissenting, subsequently affirmed.
Noting the highly deferential standard of review and
the "comprehensive study and analysis" that "undergirded" the
Division's revisions, the Appellate Division was "unpersuaded"
that these classification determinations could be "characterized
as wholly arbitrary or without any rational basis" (Matter of
Criscolo v Vagianelis, 50 AD3d 1283, 1285 [3d Dept 2008]). 
Further, the court distinguished Woodward on the ground that the
conflict faced by senior correction counselors -- between
counseling inmates and weighing their credibility in a tier III
hearing that might result in punishment -- was not present in the
civil service titles at issue.  The dissenters faulted the
Division for "utiliz[ing] reclassification as a means of
validating out-of-title work" (id. at 1286), citing Matter of
Gavigan v McCoy (37 NY2d 548, 552 [1975]), Matter of Niebling v
Wagner (12 NY2d 314, 319 [1963]), and Matter of Mandle v Brown (4
AD2d 283, 286 [1st Dept 1957], affd 5 NY2d 51 [1958]). 
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Petitioners appealed to us as of right (CPLR 5601 [a]), and we
now affirm.
II.
As the lower courts recognized, "[a]dministrative
determinations concerning position classifications are . . . 
subject to only limited judicial review, and will not be
disturbed in the absence of a showing that they are wholly
arbitrary or without any rational basis" (Cove v Sise, 71 NY2d
910, 912 [1988]).  Here, the Division demonstrated a rational
basis for adding tier III hearing duties to the civil service
titles at issue.
Before revising the classification standards, the
Division analyzed the tier III hearing process; the knowledge,
skills and abilities required to conduct these hearings; and the
knowledge, skills and abilities required for the identified civil
service titles, each of which requires the performance of
administrative, supervisory, and managerial tasks, good
communication skills, and decisionmaking on issues of consequence
to DOCS, including the operation of the physical plant and
industrial and educational programs.  We cannot say that the
Division acted irrationally when it decided that tier III hearing
work was no more complex than duties already encompassed within
these titles, and that employees in these titles were qualified
to conduct tier III hearings.  
As petitioners point out, the Appellate Division in
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Woodward (involving a title no longer at issue in this
litigation) and the Division and GOER in their disposition of the
1998 and 2001 grievances found that tier III hearing duties
comprised out-of-title work.  These decisions were, however,
based on the content of the classification specifications then in
effect for the titles at issue.  The Division may always rework
classification specifications to reflect management's needs and
available resources; a prior finding of out-of-title work does
not foreclose the Division from revising a classification
specification to include this work, so long as its decision to do
so is rationally based.  And here, there was a demonstrable need
for suitable non-attorney hearing officers at DOCS: while there
are thousands of tier III hearings that need to be scheduled and
completed on a timely basis each year, many of them run-of-the-
mine and lacking precedential value, the number of IDHOs is
limited.  Given these realities, DOCS must assign tier III
hearing work to employees who possess -- or could successfully
obtain with proper instruction and guidance -- the knowledge,
skills, and abilities necessary to carry out this task.
Finally, Gavigan, Niebling, and Mandle do not call for
a different result.  The New York Constitution and the Civil
Service Law require that promotions be made after competitive
examination (see NY Const art V, § 6; Civil Service Law §§ 44,
52).  In these cases, we pointed out that "reclassification may
not be employed as a device to sanction the performance of out-
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of-title duties and thereby avoid the requirement of a
competitive examination for promotion" (Niebling, 12 NY2d at 319;
see also Gavigan, 37 NY2d at 552 ["one may not deliberately
manipulate a reclassification simply by first imposing or by
assuming new duties and responsibilities, and then thereby avoid
the necessity for filling vacancies by promotion by reclassifying
the added duties and responsibilities"], quoting Mandle, 4 AD2d
at 286 [emphasis added]).  In Gavigan, we explained why, despite
the general flexibility given to agencies in reclassifying civil
service positions, certain reclassifications have been held
invalid:
"For over 75 years it has been the avowed purpose of
civil service laws to promote the good of the public
service; and it should be readily apparent that the
well-established rule we enforce today (as it has been
for decades) is designed to and does safeguard the
graded positions of civil service and thus insulates
their status from political manipulation" (37 NY2d at
552-53 [emphasis added]).
In short, Gavigan, Niebling and Mandle stand for the
proposition that an employee cannot achieve a higher grade or
salary by being assigned or engaging in out-of-title work because
this would violate the fundamental civil service tenet of
advancement through competitive examination.  That is not what
happened here.  Petitioners' titles have not been reclassified to
a higher grade or salary.  Indeed, the Division explicitly found
that the tier III hearing duties at issue did not constitute out-
of-grade work (i.e., a de facto promotion without competitive
examination); specifically, the Division concluded that the level
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of compensation appropriate for performance of these duties was
equivalent to job titles allocated at Salary Grade 18, whereas
petitioners' civil service titles were allocated to Salary Grade
18 or above.  As a result, the revised classification standards
in this case do not implicate the constitutional and statutory
limits on reclassification, which are grounded in the New York
Constitution's requirement of merit selection for civil service
positions.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be affirmed, with costs.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 
Order affirmed, with costs.  Opinion by Judge Read.  Judges
Ciparick, Graffeo, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.  Chief Judge
Lippman took no part.
Decided February 24, 2009