The New York Court of Appeals Weighs In -- Again -- on Police Discipline
November 29, 2012
The New York Court of Appeals recently found that a municipality’s unique and local interest in maintaining strong disciplinary authority over its police force outweighs the policy of the State to support public employees’ collective bargaining rights. This means that critical issues involving the manner in which police disciplinary investigations, charges, and hearings are conducted may not be subject to either the negotiation process or, perhaps more importantly, interest arbitration. These matters are prohibited subjects of bargaining.
In Town of Wallkill v. Civil Service Employees Association, which was decided on October 25, 2012, the Court of Appeals upheld a local law passed by the Town of Wallkill in 2007 under authority provided by New York Town Law Section 155. The local law gave the Town Board the power to make a final determination on police disciplinary charges and to impose a disciplinary penalty. The local law was adopted without the agreement of the Town of Wallkill Police Officers' Benevolent Association ("PBA"). The PBA preferred to maintain the neutral arbitrator disciplinary process which had been in its collective bargaining agreement with the Town since 1995.
The Court of Appeals found its 2006 decision in Matter of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of City of New York v. New York State Public Employment Relations Board to be dispositive in the Town of Wallkill case. In Matter of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the Court of Appeals held that "police discipline may not be a subject of collective bargaining under the Taylor Law when the Legislature has expressly committed disciplinary authority over a police department to local officials.” Prior to Town of Wallkill, the Court of Appeals' 2006 decision had been mainly applied to special State law disciplinary constructs that pre-dated the enactment of New York Civil Service Law Sections 75 and 76 -- the general statutory mechanism for public employee (including police officer) discipline.
In Town of Wallkill, however, the Court of Appeals utilized its rationale and policy from Matter of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, as well as statutory language found in Civil Service Law Section 76(4), to hold that New York Town Law Section 155, a general State law that was enacted prior to Civil Service Law Sections 75 and 76, gives towns "the power and authority to adopt and make rules and regulations for the examination, hearing, investigation and determination of charges, made or preferred against any member or members of such police department."
Thus, where, as in Town of Wallkill, a town enacts a local law which sets forth disciplinary procedures for members of its police force, such enactment can take place without negotiation with the local union and/or without regard to procedures which may already exist in a collective bargaining agreement. A question can now be raised as to whether the rationale of the Court of Appeals’ decision in Town of Wallkill can also be applied to many New York State villages, as New York Village Law Section 8-804 is nearly identical, in relevant part, to New York Town Law Section 155.
