Court Opinion

ID: 9763155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:37:46.203597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.598508
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
The Court labors mightily to convert this into some sort of first cousin to an employment-discrimination case, embellishing its opinion with an impressive array of citations to our cases interpreting and applying the Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -42, see ante 127 N.J. at 510-512, 606 A.2d at 341-342 — this, despite plaintiff’s thrice-voiced insistence at oral argument that this “is not in any sense an employment-discrimination case.” Relying heavily on cases of that ilk, the Court substitutes its judgment for the considered determination of the people on whom the Legislature has conferred responsibility for the training, education, and safety of police officers who must undergo a statutorily-required training program. The Director of Training at the State Police Training Center in Sea Girt, and the Police Training Commission (PTC) determined, on the basis of more-than-ample evidence flavored with a healthy dash of good sense, that Greenwood’s eye condition exposed him to an unacceptable risk because of the consequences to his total vision should he injure his good eye.
*516The Appellate Division, correctly treating the case as presenting an unexceptional, garden-variety weight-of-the-evidence issue, upheld the decision of the PTC, which dismissed plaintiff from the training program for medical reasons. Greenwood comes to this Court with but a single question as set forth in his petition for certification: whether the PTC’s determination that plaintiff’s eye condition exposed him to an unacceptable risk was reasonably supported by medical evidence in the record such as constitutes “good cause” under N.J.A.C. 13:1-7.2(a)(8). We are not presented with questions involving the legitimacy or rationality of the statutory requirement that sheriffs’ officers, given the nature of their duties, must attend a PTC, or of the curriculum requirement of mandatory participation in a self-defense program. Rather, the heart of plaintiff’s argument as set forth in his brief is that “[t]he Appellate Division ignored [Dr. Lawrence J. Zazzo’s] finding of fitness, and instead focused on a collateral discussion regarding the inappropriateness of the head gear worn during boxing,” and that the court below “erred in not giving sufficient weight to the medical opinion expressed in plaintiff’s favor.”
I would£prefer to vacate our Order granting certification of the appeal; but if we are to be recorded on the merits, I would vote to affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division. That court’s discussion of the boxing phase of the training program and its potential effect on plaintiff is hardly “collateral” as plaintiff suggests; rather, that discussion is an essential basis of the court’s decision. The Appellate Division described the program and plaintiff’s circumstance as follows:
As a part of the training program, Greenwood was required to participate in a 41 hour self-defense program which requires boxing, police judo, karate, and baton training. In the 12 hour boxing session, the trainee wears full leather head gear and 16 ounce leather gloves. In view of Greenwood’s condition, Captain Challender [, Director of Training,] became concerned for “his safety and fitness to perform in the other areas of training, specifically the self defense program which requires physical contact.” For that reason, he asked Dr. Zazzo, the physician who certified that Greenwood was “medically fit” to participate in the program, for further explanation.
*517Dr. Zazzo’s reply to Captain Challender was not, as Greenwood argues, an unequivocal reaffirmation of his medical fitness. Rather, the letter acknowledged the severe “medical consequences” if, during the training, there was an injury to “the good unaffected eye.” The "worst case scenario” was described by Dr. Zazzo as “legal blindness in both eyes.” The letter acknowledged a need to protect Greenwood’s good eye from injury. In that respect Dr. Zazzo observed: “[pjresent gear used by your Academy for his protection certainly would not afford him safety to the good eye.” Although Dr. Zazzo suggested that appellant wear plastic protective lenses, he was not sure whether such lenses would be appropriate while wearing head gear during the boxing trials.
The Appellate Division therefore viewed as “warranted” Captain Challender’s continuing concern for plaintiffs safety in light of Dr. Zazzo’s ambiguous reply. As the court below observed, Dr. Zazzo’s comment that plaintiff had been informed that any injury resulting to the normal eye from training would be at his own risk “begged the issue from the point of view of the training center.”
Exactly. Although the evidence does not establish that plaintiff is at greater risk of injury because of his eye condition than is any other trainee, it does establish beyond question that should plaintiff suffer injury to his good left eye, the consequences — total blindness — are far greater for him than for any other candidate. Plaintiff’s willingness to run that risk may be viewed as admirable by some, foolhardy by others; but quite apart from that irrelevancy is the undeniable fact that the training center would have to take steps to ensure plaintiff’s safety that are not required for other candidates. That circumstance surely was a legitimate consideration for those who have to run the program.
Concerns for plaintiff’s physical integrity and for the adequacy of safety measures might not move the members of this Court to make the same decision as that reached by the knowledgeable and experienced authorities responsible for the training program — that is, to dismiss plaintiff from the program. But in the area of training of law-enforcement officers, including sheriffs’ officers, we should be particularly sensitive and deferential to the judgment of those who run the program. The qualifications of the members of this Court to second-guess *518the Director and the PTC on a narrow issue of the risk encountered in the martial arts as part of a police training program run the gamut from the well-concealed to the nonexistent.
I would affirm.
Justice POLLOCK joins in this dissent.
For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD and POLLOCK — 2.
For reversal — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 5.