Source: https://www.mass.gov/decision/correia-charlene-v-state-board-of-retirement-cr-12-682
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 22:49:47+00:00

Document:
Appearance for Petitioner: James H. Quirk, Jr.
Appearance for Respondent: Kathryn Doty, Esq.
State Board of Retirement’s denial of Group 2 classification to a supervising nurse who directly cared for mentally ill patients more than 50% of the time during her last year of work is reversed.
The petitioner, Charlene Correia, appealed the denial by the State Board of Retirement (SBR) of her application to be reclassified in Group 2.
I held a hearing on September 6, 2017, which I recorded digitally. I reopened the record and held a second day of hearing on May 17, 2018, for reasons that I explain below. Ms. Correia testified on September 6, 2017. She called Susan L. Davis as a witness on May 17, 2018. MTRS called no witnesses.
I accepted into evidence 23 exhibits. On my own initiative, I admitted Exhibit 24, which is Ms. Correia’s appeal letter and the envelope that it arrived in. Both parties submitted post-hearing briefs.
Group 1 is for the majority of the Commonwealth’s employees. G.L. c. 32, § 3(2)(g). Group 2 is a more favorable category, once an employee retires, and is for employees, among others, “whose regular and major duties require them to have the care, custody, instruction or other supervision of…persons who are mentally ill.” G.L. c. 32, § 3(2)(g).
The “regular and major duties” requirement in G.L. c. 32, § 3(2)(g) has come to mean that an employee must spend more than half of his or her time engaged in those duties.
Peter Forbes v. State Board of Retirement, CR-13-146 (DALA 2016)(citations omitted). The period that matters is an employee’s last year of his employment. See e.g., Ernestine Gibbs v. State Board of Retirement, CR-11-754 (DALA 2016).
In three of Ms. Correia’s last 12 months, she cared for mentally ill persons significantly more than 50% of the time. In four of the last nine months of 2011, Ms. Correia cared for mentally ill persons more than 50% of the time. From Ms. Correia’s grid (Ex. 16), and her testimony and Ms. Davis’s testimony that she generally cared for patients more than 50% of the time, I conclude that in the last 12 months of her employment, Ms. Correia cared for mentally ill persons more than 50% of the time. Having done so, she is entitled to Group 2 classification. SBR’s decision to deny her Group 2 classification is reversed.
In the last year of Ms. Correia’s employment, she cared for mentally ill persons more than 50% of the time. She deserves classification in Group 2. SBR’s decision to deny her application to be reclassified to Group 2 is reversed.
1 When I initially began drafting this decision, I noticed that Exhibit 16 did not cover all of Ms. Correia’s last 12 months of employment. Because group classification must be based on the last 12 months of employment, e.g, Peter Forbes v. State Board of Retirement, CR-13-146 (DALA 2016), I reopened the record and gave Ms. Correia the opportunity to review the shift records and redo Exhibit 16. At the second day of hearing, Ms. Davis testified that the shift records summarized by Exhibit 16 are no longer available, and Exhibit 16 cannot be revised, but that Ms. Correia generally worked more than half of her time caring for mentally ill patients.
My reopening the record is not a procedural precedent. I do not commit myself or the Division of Administrative Law Appeals to reopening the record when I or a fellow Administrative Magistrate notices a deficiency in a petitioner’s appeal.

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