The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed, without costs, a ruling by Supreme
Court which denied the Plaintiff’s petition to annul a determination of the
City of New York Reasonable Accommodation Appeals Panel [Citywide Panel]
denying [1] Plaintiff’s request for a reasonable accommodation from the New York
City Board of Education’s [DOE] COVID-19
vaccine mandate, [2] Plaintiff’s motion for limited discovery, and [3] dismissed
the proceeding brought pursuant to CPLR Article 78.
The court said the Citywide Panel’s finding — that the DOE demonstrated that granting
petitioner an accommodation of masking, testing, and social distancing, or
alternatively teaching remotely, when the DOE was returning to in-person
instruction, would impose an undue hardship — was not arbitrary and capricious
or made in violation of lawful procedure.
Opining that it “need not limit [its] review to the language in the
Citywide Panel’s decision, as the Panel noted that it had ‘carefully reviewed (the
DOE’s) determination’ as well as ‘all of the documentation submitted to the
agency,’ and that it had based its decision on that review”, the Appellate
Division found “The DOE’s Position Statement explained in detail why
granting the accommodation would create an undue hardship for the DOE, in
conformity with the factors listed in the New York City Human Rights Law (City
HRL) including ‘identifiable cost of the accommodation’ due to, among other
things, ‘retaining or hiring employees or transferring employees … in
relation to the size and operating cost of the employer,’ and ‘(t)he
number of individuals who will need the particular accommodation’,” citing the
“Administrative Code of City of NY §8-107(3)(b).
Noting Matter of Gray v Adduci, 73 NY2d 741, and other decisions, t