Court Opinion

ID: 9631405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:37:08.376468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:19.002060
License: Public Domain

Justice RIVERA-SOTO,
dissenting.
As the majority notes, “[tjhis appeal involves a claim under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), N.J.S.A. 34:19-1 to -8, by a police officer who alleges he was transferred from detective to patrolman in retaliation for his objections to the Chief of Police's decision to terminate enforcement of provisions of the Code of Criminal Justice prohibiting promotion of prostitution and restricting the location of sexually-oriented businesses.” Ante, 188 N.J. at 225, 903 A.2d at 1057 (2006). The Law Division dismissed plaintiffs complaint, the Appellate Division reinstated that complaint, and the majority affirms. Ante, 188 N.J. at 240, 903 A.2d at 1066 (2006). Because I concur with the well-reasoned judgment of the trial court in dismissing plaintiffs complaint, and because the majority appears to graft a new limitation on the discretionary governance prerogatives of an employer, I respectfully dissent.
*241I.
In this ease, a police officer alleges that his reassignment was precipitated by his complaints that the Atlantic City Police Department was not enforcing the laws against prostitution and related offenses to a degree that was personally satisfactory to that police officer. Principally relying on Dzwonar v. McDevitt, 177 N.J. 451, 828 A.2d 893 (2003), and Schechter v. N.J. Dep’t of Law & Pub. Safety, 327 N.J.Super. 428, 743 A.2d 872 (App.Div.2000), the trial court correctly framed the issue as follows: “did [plaintiff] reasonably believe that [defendants’] actions or inactions constituted ‘misconduct’ and ‘illegal’ or “wrongful’ activities that were incompatible with a ‘clear mandate of public policy?’ ” Highlighting the patent absurdity that results from allowing a rank-and-file police officer to determine law enforcement policy for an entire department, the trial court narrowed the inquiry to the decision-making discretion vested in the police officer on patrol and made the common sense observation that “[i]t is self-evident that no police officer can, without prioritizing, effectively prosecute every violation of the law that comes to his or her attention.” The trial court further noted that “[o]ne may reasonably conclude that a police officer should have the discretion to determine that there are legitimate priorities that would preclude the investment of the same level of resources in the enforcement of every provision of law.”
Extrapolating from the discretion necessarily vested in a single police officer to that which must reside in the decision-makers responsible for law enforcement policy judgments, the trial court observed:
The same discretionary judgment should apply to the decisions by supervising police personnel to prioritize, as they deem appropriate, the allocation of time, attention, personnel, and other resources to the investigation and prosecution of offenses such as those at issue here. It would be an unsupportable extension of the purposes and application of the [CEPA] statute, as interpreted by any reported decision, to afford to every police officer the ability, under the authority of a CEPA claim, to hold his or her department accountable to the officer for any discretionary determinations of resource allocation and law enforcement priorities solely because those determinations differed from the officer’s views.
*242Moreover, [plaintiffs] position raises as many problems as it “solves.” If he is correct, then any police officer could seek to hold a police department accountable pursuant to CEPA not only for [the] investigations or prosecutions it does not undertake, as is [plaintiffs] concern here, but also for complaints about how aggressively and with what resources the battle is fought in those instances where the department does determine to act. CEPA should not, and I believe does not, have this reach.
The trial court thus concluded that
[t]he alleged "misallocation” of resources and priorities by [defendants] and their “failure to enforce” the law, even if indeed that is what it was, did not violate any “clear mandate of public policy” because there is no such mandate that precludes this type of discretionary judgment----It would be manifestly inappropriate to substitute, for the City’s judgment, [plaintiffs] view or that of a court or jury with regard to the appropriate priorities for applying the law enforcement resources available to the City.
Inasmuch as the City had the discretionary authority to make the determinations that it made in the absence of a clear mandate of public policy to the contrary, and in view of the fact that [defendants’] actions were not “illegal” or “wrongful” in and of themselves, [plaintiffs] belief that [defendants’] actions constituted “misconduct” and were incompatible with a clear mandate of public policy was not “objectively reasonable” as a matter of law____
I cannot improve on the clear, logical and compelling thoughts expressed by the trial judge. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and reinstate the trial court’s dismissal of plaintiffs complaint. For that reason alone, I respectfully dissent.
II.
There is a further notion in the majority’s reasoning that is particularly troublesome. According to the majority, “[t]o prevail on a CEPA claim under 3c(3), plaintiff is not required to show that defendants’ alleged policy decision to cease enforcement of the provisions of the Code prohibiting the promotion of prostitution and restricting the location of sexually-oriented businesses actually violated or was incompatible with a statute, rule or other clear mandate of public policy.” Ante, 188 N.J. at 233, 903 A.2d at 1062 (2006) (citation omitted). The majority explains that “[pjlaintiff only has to show that he had an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of such a violation or incompatibility.” Ante, 188 *243N.J. at 233, 903 A.2d at 1062 (2006) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The majority then concludes that
[p]laintiff may carry this burden by demonstrating that there is a substantial nexus between the complained-of conduct — the cessation of investigations of promotion of prostitution and failure to enforce laws relating to the location of sexually-oriented businesses — and [the] law or public policy identified by ... plaintiff — in this case the provisions of the Code proscribing such criminal conduct.
[Ante, 188 N.J. at 233, 903 A.2d at 1062 (2006) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).]
Under the majority’s view, a municipality now must be governed by its lowest common denominator or risk the imposition of liability. Stripped to its essence, the majority rules that plaintiffs claim survives summary judgment not because of any wrongful municipal action, but because “[pjlaintiff was not told, and had no other reason to believe, that this alleged policy decision [to limit the resources assigned to combat the promotion of prostitution or sexually-oriented businesses] was due to budgetary constraints or an administrative determination that there was a need to assign additional officers to the investigation of more serious crimes.” Ante, 188 N.J. at 235, 903 A.2d at 1063 (2006). That turns the basis of the employer/employee relationship on its head, requiring that, in order to avoid a potential CEPA lawsuit, an employer must explain every discretionary decision to the satisfaction of every line employee. That was never CEPA’s purpose or intendment.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent.
For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, ALBIN, and SKILLMAN (t/a) — 6.
For reversal — Justice RIVERA-SOTO — 1.