Turner v. Horn

69 A.D.3d 522, 893 N.Y.2d 58

• Court: Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
• Decided: January 26, 2010
• Status: Published

Opinion

A probationary employee may be discharged without a hearing or a statement of reasons, in the absence of a demonstration that her termination was made in bad faith, for a constitutionally impermissible purpose, or in violation of statutory or decisional law (see Matter of York v McGuire, 63 NY2d 760, 761 [1984]; Matter of Cipolla v Kelly, 26 AD3d 171 [2006]). Respondent terminated petitioner’s probationary employment following an investigation which concluded, based on substantial evideuce in the record, that she had failed to comply with departmental rules and regulations pertaining to “undue familiarity” with current or former inmates (see Matter of Medina v Sielaff, 182 AD2d 424, 427-428 [1992]). In this proceeding, petitioner submitted evidence challenging the investigators’ conclusion, but did not submit any evidence raising a substantial issue as to respondents’ bad faith in investigating the alleged violation or in deciding to terminate her employment, which would require a hearing (see Matter of Bradford v New York City Dept. of Correction, 56 AD3d 290 [2008], lv denied 12 NY3d 711 [2009]). Accordingly, there is no basis to interfere with respondents’ determination and no issue requiring a hearing. Concur—Tom, J.P., Saxe, Nardelli, Renwick and Freedman, JJ.