King v. Personnel Appeal Bd.

• Decision Date: 19 May 1978
• Docket Number: No. 130194,130194
• Citation: 35 Conn.Supp. 45,393 A.2d 520
• Court: Connecticut Court of Common Pleas
• Parties: J. Philip KING v. PERSONNEL APPEAL BOARD et al.

Page 520

393 A.2d 520

35 Conn.Supp. 45

J. Philip KING v. PERSONNEL APPEAL BOARD et al.

No. 130194.

Court of Common Pleas of Connecticut, Hartford County.

May 19, 1978.

Arnold I. Menchel, Manchester, for plaintiff.

Carl R. Ajello, Atty. Gen. and Christina G. Dunnell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the named defendant.

SATTER, Judge.

The plaintiff has appealed from a decision of the defendant personnel appeal board, dated June 1, 1976, which upheld the action of the employment security division of the department of labor laying off the plaintiff.

The facts are as follows: The plaintiff on April 18, 1975, was employed in the employment security division of the labor department as an employment service technology reemployment specialist. He was, on that date, notified that he was being terminated on May 8, 1975, "as a result of termination of the MDTA program of the Federal Government coupled with elimination of related funding." On May 16, 1975, he was approved to be placed on the reemployment list as a manpower specialist and on May 28, 1975, he was placed on that list. The action of being so placed implied that the plaintiff was qualified for that position and that the position was in a class comparable to that of his former position. The defendant, in its brief, concedes this implication. Vacancies existed in the position of manpower specialist before the plaintiff's layoff and, although the plaintiff applied for the job after being notified of his layoff, he was not transferred or hired. He filed a grievance based on the failure of the labor department to transfer or reemploy him as a manpower specialist. Ultimately a hearing was held by the personnel appeal board on February 17, 1976, on the basis of which that board reached the decision of June 1, 1976, from which the appeal to this court has been taken.

The personnel appeal board found that the plaintiff "was laid off in accordance with § 5-241" of the General Statutes and that while he had "an absolute entitlement to be rehired from the reemployment list in the classification from which he had been laid off," i. e., employment service technology reemployment specialist, "he has no absolute entitlement to be rehired from the reemployment lists of those classes which contain his name," i. e., manpower specialist, even though "a determination has been made that he has the ability to qualify for such classes."

In that finding and conclusion the defendant personnel appeal board erred. Section 5-241(b) provides that when a state employee in the classified service has been laid off as a result of insufficient appropriation or abolition of position, "(t)he personnel commissioner shall arrange to have the employee transferred to a vacancy in the same or a comparable class or in any other position the employee is qualified to fill in any department, agency or institution."

While it is conceded by the defendant that the plaintiff was qualified as a manpower specialist and that vacancies did exist in that position at the time the plaintiff was terminated, the personnel commissioner did not arrange to have the plaintiff transferred to that position. Rather, the personnel commissioner placed the plaintiff on a reemployment list for that position along with two other persons and the plaintiff was not chosen from the list for hire.

Section 5-241(b) states specifically, however, that only "(i)f there is no vacancy available or the employee refuses to accept the transfer" to the position for which he is qualified shall the personnel commissioner place the employee's name on the reemployment list. The personnel commissioner failed to arrange for the plaintiff's transfer to the then vacant position of manpower specialist and also failed to offer him the position. Instead the commissioner put him...