State v. State Employees' Review Board

• Decision Date: 07 January 1997
• Docket Number: No. 15358,15358
• Citation: 687 A.2d 134,239 Conn. 638
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut et al., v. STATE EMPLOYEES' REVIEW BOARD et al.

Page 134

687 A.2d 134

239 Conn. 638

STATE of Connecticut et al., v. STATE EMPLOYEES' REVIEW BOARD et al.

No. 15358.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 6, 1996.

Decided Jan. 7, 1997.

Laurie Adler, Assistant Attorney General, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General, and Charles A. Overend and Maria C. Rodriguez, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellants (plaintiffs).

David A. Zipfel, for appellee (defendant Daniel Cawley).

CALLAHAN, C.J., and BERDON, NORCOTT, PALMER and PETERS, JJ.

CALLAHAN, Chief Justice.

The issue in this appeal is whether the Personnel Act, General Statutes §§ 5-193 through 5-269, grants the state employees' review board (board) jurisdiction to address misclassification claims in layoff appeals. The plaintiffs, the state of Connecticut, the state department of public safety (public safety) and the state department of administrative services (administrative services), appeal from the judgment of the trial court dismissing their appeal and concluding that the board possesses jurisdiction to entertain misclassification claims. We reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The factual circumstances were related in an earlier opinion of this court in State v. State Employees' Review Board, 231 Conn. 391, 650 A.2d 158 (1994). We will reiterate only those facts necessary for the proper consideration of the present appeal. In May, 1986, public safety hired the defendant, Daniel Cawley, ¹ as a data processing manager 3 (DPM 3). The job description for a DPM 3 required that the worker "direct a 'major' data processing installation and supervise an assigned staff of managers, supervisors, technical and clerical personnel." Id. at 394 n. 3, 650 A.2d 158. When he was initially hired, the defendant supervised thirty to thirty-four employees and all the activities of public safety's data processing unit. Over the next several years, the defendant's supervisory responsibilities were gradually diminished. By the spring of 1990, he supervised only eighteen to twenty employees. Effective November 30, 1990, the defendant was relieved of all supervisory responsibilities and was reassigned to special projects that he carried on largely by himself. The defendant's supervisory responsibilities were transferred to a data processing manager 1 (DPM 1), a position of lower rank and salary than DPM 3. This shift in duties was intended to be, and became in fact, permanent.

In early 1990, Deborah Fazzina, a classification specialist employed by administrative services, advised public safety to make changes in its data processing unit including abolishing or reclassifying the DPM 3 position to a nonmanagerial position once it was vacated. When the defendant was permanently reassigned to performing nonsupervisory tasks in November, 1990, public safety did not review the classification of his position, but instead allowed the defendant's DPM 3 classification to continue. The defendant also continued to be paid as a DPM 3 until public safety laid him off on May 31, 1991. ² At the time of his layoff, the defendant was the only public safety employee classified as a DPM 3.

The defendant appealed his layoff to the board pursuant to General Statutes § 5-202, ³ seeking a determination that the layoff was not in compliance with General Statutes § 5-241, ⁴ which requires that the least senior employee within a position classification slated for layoff be laid off first. He contended that his reassignment should have led administrative services to reclassify his position as a DPM 1 or a lesser classification, and that, because of his seniority over other DPM 1 and lesser classified employees in public safety, public safety should have retained him and laid off other employees first.

The board concluded that because public safety had not reviewed the defendant's position pursuant to administrative services' recommendation, the board could not determine either his proper classification or his relative seniority within that classification. Therefore, the board concluded that the layoff was improper as "arbitrary or taken without reasonable cause." The board ordered public safety, with the assistance of administrative services, to review the classification of the defendant's position as of the time when he was assigned new duties, and, on the basis of such duties, to determine the appropriate classification of the position. The board's order directed public safety, upon completion of the classification review and reclassification of the defendant, if that should be appropriate, to follow its normal procedures in determining which positions should have been abolished and which employees occupying those positions should have been laid off. The board ordered that if the result of the analysis indicated that the defendant had been improperly laid off, he was to be reinstated and awarded appropriate back pay, seniority and other benefits. The board did not retain jurisdiction over the dispute.

The plaintiffs appealed the board's decision to the trial court pursuant to General Statutes §§ 5-202 (l ) and 4-183. The trial court concluded that the board's decision was not a final judgment within the meaning of § 4-183 and, therefore, was not appealable. It did, however, sustain the appeal in part, and ordered a modification of the board's decision requiring the board to retain jurisdiction over the defendant's claim. We reversed the judgment of the trial court in State v. State Employees' Review Board, supra, 231 Conn. 391, 650 A.2d 158, concluding that the board's decision constituted an appealable final judgment, and we remanded the case for further proceedings.

On remand, the trial court concluded that the board's decision was within the scope of its statutory authority and dismissed the plaintiffs' appeal. The court agreed with the board's conclusion that it need not accept the state's classification of a position, but may properly order a state agency to review the classification of a position before ruling on whether a layoff was in accord with § 5-241. The plaintiffs appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c).

The plaintiffs argue that the board lacked jurisdiction over the present case because the statutory framework does not permit the board to address classification issues in layoff appeals. The plaintiffs assert that General Statutes § 5-200(n), which does not contemplate board review, constitutes the sole statutory avenue for employees to have the classifications of their positions reviewed. Additionally, the plaintiffs assert that General Statutes § 5-202(f), as amended by Public Acts 1994, No. 94-194 (P.A. 94-194), specifically excludes classification issues from the board's jurisdiction. They contend that P.A. 94-194, which was enacted after the present case arose, was a clarifying amendment that should be applied retroactively to causes of action arising before its effective date, and that its enactment serves to confirm their argument that the board never had jurisdiction over classification issues. The plaintiffs argue that the board should have denied the defendant's grievance pursuant to § 5-241(a) because the defendant was the only, and hence the least, senior public safety employee in the DPM 3 classification.

We agree with the plaintiffs that P.A. 94-194 was an amendment that served to clarify § 5-202(f) and, as such, should be applied retroactively. We therefore conclude that the board lacked jurisdiction to entertain the defendant's misclassification claim, and, a fortiori, lacked jurisdiction to order administrative services and public safety to review the classification of the defendant's position.

We first note the scope of our review of the board's decision. "Ordinarily, this court affords deference to the construction of a statute applied by the administrative agency empowered by law to carry out the statute's purposes.... [A]n agency's factual and discretionary determinations are to be accorded considerable weight by the courts." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Dept. of Administrative Services v. Employees' Review Board, 226 Conn. 670, 678, 628 A.2d 957 (1993). Cases that present pure questions of law, however, invoke "a broader standard of review than is ordinarily involved in deciding whether, in light of the evidence, the agency has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally or in abuse of its discretion." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.; see also Lieberman v. State Board of Labor Relations, 216 Conn. 253, 263, 579 A.2d 505 (1990). "Furthermore, when a state agency's determination of a question of law has not previously been subject to judicial scrutiny ... the agency is not entitled to special deference." Dept. of Administrative Services v. Employees' Review Board, supra, 226 Conn. at 678-79, 628 A.2d 957; see also Lieberman v. State Board of Labor Relations, supra, at 263, 579 A.2d 505. The board's determination that § 5-202 granted it jurisdiction to entertain misclassification claims has not been subject to judicial review and is a pure question of law involving the interpretation of the relevant statutory provisions. Consequently, we afford the board no special deference in our review of its decision.

We begin by sketching the statutory landscape pertinent to employee appeals of layoff decisions to the board. General Statutes § 5-201 ⁵ establishes the board and empowers it to hear and act upon appeals filed in accordance with § 5-202. Section 5-202(e) ⁶ affords employees who have been laid off for economic reasons the right to appeal the determination to the board. Section 5-202(e) provides that such an appeal may be based only on the ground that the order of layoff was not determined in accordance with the provisions of § 5-241. Section 5-241(a) ⁷ establishes a limited...