Appeals Court Rejects Allegation Of 'Political Discrimination'

Court Rejects Allegation Of 'Political Discrimination'
The New York Law Journal by Daniel Wise  -  June 16, 2011

A unanimous appeals panel in Brooklyn has dismissed, as a matter of law, a "political discrimination" suit by a Nassau County woman who was laid off by the county in 1992 as it was attempting to deal with a $115 million deficit. In 2009, a jury concluded that Roberta Miller, a supervisor in the Nassau County Department of Senior Citizen Affairs had been laid off in "bad faith" because she was a Democrat and the county executive, Thomas Gulotta, was a Republican.  Justice Ute Wolff Lally (See Profile) set aside the liability verdict after finding that Ms. Miller had failed to provide statistical evidence that on a countywide basis the Gulotta administration had laid off a disproportionate number of Democrats and ordered a re-trial. Both sides appealed Justice Lally's order in Miller v. Nassau County Civil Service Commission, 28936/92: Ms. Miller opposing the re-trial order and the county defendants cross-moving to dismiss because Ms. Miller had failed to establish bad faith as a matter of law. A unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, Second Department, which heard argument on May 6, last week agreed with the Nassau defendants that a jury could only have found that Ms. Miller had been "singled out for layoff due to her political affiliation" through "speculation" rather than "logical inferences drawn from the evidence." Ms. Miller's lawyer, Louis D. Stober of Garden City, said that Ms. Miller will seek leave to take the case to the Court of Appeals. The panel consisted of Justices Willaim F. Mastro, John M. Leventhal, Cheryl E. Chambers and Jeffrey A. Cohen.