Bronx Legal Services Challenges Suspension of Disruptive Student
In a case decided April 18, 2002, the Supreme Court
of New York, Appellate Division, Third Department, affirmed a lower court's
ruling that "use of the substantial and competent evidence standard in
student suspension hearings was constitutional." The case arose when
a student and his mother turned to the Bronx Legal Services and challenged
the student's suspension as being "unconstitutional." The grounds
for their appeal was that the lower court, in their minds, erred in not
recognizing that a "student's interests are paramount to those of the government
in the educational setting." The court unequivocally rejected this
line of reasoning, pointing out that the government has an interest in
"providing a safe and orderly environment - maintained by necessary discipline
- in which students and staff may learn and work without disruption."
Moreover, the court concluded that the school district's procedures for
suspension did "not violate a student's constitutional right to due process."
See: New York City Board of Education v. Richard P.
Mills, New York State Commissioner of Education (N.Y. App. Div., April
18, 2002)
LSC Grantee Tries to Keep Teenage Girl in "Intolerable Situation"
Desperately seeking to escape her mother's destructive
lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and sexual excesses, a 15-year-old girl sought
refuge with her grandparents, who petitioned for guardianship. According
to official court documents, the daughter testified that her mother "was
abusing drugs and alcohol, providing them to her, staying out all night
drinking, and engaging in sexual activity in front of her." She further
testified that she herself "had been sexually molested several times,"
and that her mother, when informed, did nothing. After reviewing
the evidence, the Waldo County Probate Court granted the grandparents temporary
and then permanent guardianship. Not willing to let her daughter
live in the more stable and loving home of her former parents-in-law, the
mother turned to the Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc., a grantee of the
federally-funded Legal Services Corporation. The LSC grantee
appealed, challenging Maine's jurisdiction in the matter as well as the
supposed lack of evidence (thus calling into question the testimony of
the abused daughter), but the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine didn't buy
it. On June 6, 2001, it ruled that the lower court, Waldo County
Probate Court, could assert jurisdiction, given the family's ties to Maine
and the mother's transient lifestyle (which had placed the daughter in
27 different schools by the eighth grade, when she eventually dropped out).
The court also rebuffed Pine Legal Assistance's argument concerning the
daughter's testimony, declaring that the "evidence was compelling that
the daughter fled an intolerable situation."
See: In Re Amberley D., 2001 ME 87, 775 A.2d 1158
(Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, June 6, 2001)
New York LSC Grantee Contends Fired Candy Thief Deserves Unemployment
Benefits
In June 1999, a client of Westchester/Putnam Legal
Services, a grantee of the Legal Services Corporation, lost his appeal
of the New York Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board's ruling that he was
"disqualified from receiving unemployment insurance benefits because his
employment was terminated due to misconduct." A salesperson in the
tire department of a New York area store, Westchester/Putnam's client was
caught eating the store's candy from an opened bag in the retail area of
the store. Incredibly, he sought to cover up his offense by putting
the bag back where he found it, obviously with fewer pieces of candy in
it than before. His employer was understandably not amused, and discharged
him for violating the company's zero-tolerance anti-theft policy.
The unemployment office determined that the fired employee was not eligible
to receive unemployment benefits as his employment had been terminated
for misconduct. The appeal board upheld the decision, as did the
court which ruled that the claimant's actions "constituted disqualifying
misconduct."
See: In The Matter of the Claim of Errol L. Williams,
262 A.D.2d 903; 692 N.Y.S.2d 504 (N.Y. App. Div. June 24, 1999)