Court Opinion

ID: 9859648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 22:15:29.635615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:59:50.267499
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
dissenting.
Since 1986, appellant Yey has sought to become a full-time police officer, applying for appointment both to the New Jersey State Police and her home-town police department in North *545Wildwood City. Vey declined an offer of appointment to the State Police’s 106th class, preferring to pursue employment with the North Wildwood Police Department (NWPD). The NWPD refused to appoint her to its January 1987 class because of a negative psychological report from an independent consultant. Vey sought possible appointment to NWPD’s January 1988 class, requesting a new evaluation that was performed by a psychologist employed by the consultant that had evaluated her previously. As the majority notes, the second evaluation found Vey
to be friendly, cooperative, and verbal; average to low-average in intellectual functioning; open and frank during personality assessment; above average in interpersonal skills; positive in her outlook on life, with good reality testing; more likely than the average person to become emotional and frustrated; impulsive and suspicious; and assertive and bold, with the suggestion of likely conflict between herself and supervisory personnel. The evaluator concluded that “while Ms. Vey has many strengths, her potential for functioning well in the long term in law enforcement as a police officer are below average.”
[Ante at 537-538, 591 A.2d at 1334]
The NWPD then proposed to remove Vey from its eligibility list for appointment on the basis of the second psychological evaluation. Vey appealed the proposed removal to the Merit System Board (Board) of the Department of Personnel, relying in part on highly-favorable evaluations from supervisors and commanding officers at NWPD concerning her service as a summer police officer from 1982 to 1985 and also on a favorable psychological report that had been rendered in respect of her possible appointment to the New Jersey State Police.
The Board’s Medical Review Panel (Panel) rejected Vey’s appeal, concluding that the NWPD had met its burden of establishing that Vey was mentally unfit to be a police officer. Vey filed exceptions to the Panel’s report, and the Board remanded the matter for reconsideration by the Panel. The Panel again recommended Vey’s removal from the eligibility list, and the Board accepted the Panel’s findings. The Appellate Division affirmed the Board’s determination by a divided court.
*546The Court today remands the matter to the Merit System Board to afford it and the Panel a third opportunity to establish a record that sustains the heretofore unsupportable finding that appellant Vey is “psychologically unfit” to perform effectively the duties of a police officer. In my view a remand is redundant, because the evidence in the record describing Vey’s personality traits is irredeemably deficient to establish that Vey is psychologically unfit.
The Court is charitable when it describes the case as one that “contains a gap in the administrative record,” ante at 544, 591 A.2d at 1338, justifying a remand on the ground that the Court is “unable to determine how the specific findings in the record demonstrate * * * unfitness to serve.” Ante at 535, 591 A.2d at 1333. The reality is that the evidence in this record, fairly characterized by the psychologist’s finding that Vey is “impulsive and suspicious; assertive and bold, with the suggestion of likely conflict between herself and supervisory personnel,” ante at 536-538, 591 A.2d at 1334, is patently insufficient to support the finding of psychological unfitness that is a prerequisite to Vey’s removal from the eligibility list. Vey’s personality traits, to the extent revealed by the record before the Board, might be viewed as highly suitable for police work by some, marginal by others. But there is nothing in the record that suggests, much less demonstrates, psychological unfitness for appointment. This applicant has waited long enough for a decision on her application to the NWPD. Accordingly, I would reverse the Board’s order and restore Vey to the eligibility list for appointment to the North Wildwood Police Department.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN and GARIBALDI — 6.
Dissenting — Justice STEIN — 1.