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Ability to manage daily activities defeats employee?s claim that mental stress prevented him from making a timely request for a disciplinary hearing

Ability to manage daily activities defeats employee?s claim that mental stress prevented him from making a timely request for a disciplinary hearing
Siegel v Board of Education of the City School Dist. of the City of New York, 58 AD3d 474

Brian Siegel filed an Article 78 petition in an effort to annul the determination terminating him from his position as a tenured teacher with the New York City School District and reinstatement to his position with back pay, interest and lost benefits.
The genesis of Siegel?s petition was the School District?s rejecting his ?belated request for a hearing pursuant to Education Law § 3020-a(2)(c).?*

The Appellate Division sustained the Supreme Court?s decision that the School District action dismissing Siegel was neither arbitrary nor capricious notwithstanding the fact that he had not been accorded a hearing pursuant to Education Law § 3020-a.

According to the decision, during the period in which he claimed he was too stressed to properly function and thus failed to submit a timely request for a Section 3020-a hearing he was able to perform his day-to-day activities, ?including reporting to his assigned work location, and signing time sheets so he could be paid.?

Accordingly, said the court, the District had a rational basis for rejecting Siegel's explanation that his mental condition was the reason he failed to make a timely request a hearing on the grounds that it did not constitute a valid excuse under the circumstances.

* Section 3020-a (2)(c), in pertinent part, provides that ?Within ten days of receipt of the statement of charges, the employee shall notify the clerk or secretary of the employing board in writing whether he or she desires a hearing on the charges?.?

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on March 06, 2010 (boomark / email).