Petition to Vacate Hearing Officer’s Decision Terminating Petitioner (a School Administrator) Was Not Properly Served Upon a “School Officer”

The petitioner, an elementary school administrator, was terminated for misconduct after a hearing.  Petitioner then filed a petition to vacate the hearing officer’s (HO’s) decision.  Supreme Court dismissed the petition as untimely and improperly served.  The Fourth Department, over a two-justice dissent, determined the petition was timely, but it was not properly served. The dissenters argued that the petition was not timely filed as well:

…[W]e conclude that the phrase “receipt of the hearing officer’s decision” in Education Law § 3020-a (5) (a) refers to the receipt of such decision from the SED [State Education Department]. We thus reject respondents’ contention that section 3020-a provides that the 10-day period in which to appeal runs from the receipt of the HO’s decision by email, not the receipt of the HO’s decision through mail sent by the SED. Rather, we agree with petitioner that, by concluding that the 10-day period to appeal commenced upon petitioner’s receipt of the HO’s decision by email, the court rendered the notification process contained in Education Law § 3020-a (4) superfluous.  * * *

…[W]e agree with the court that petitioner’s service of the petition was defective. The decision of the Second Department in Matter of Franz v Board of Educ. of Elwood Union Free Sch. Dist. (112 AD2d 934 …) is instructive. There, “[t]he notice of petition was personally delivered to [the] respondent [Board of Education]’s secretary,” whom the 2nd Department concluded was “not a school officer’ as set forth in . . . Education Law [§ 2 (13)]” (id. at 935). In support of that conclusion, the 2nd Department noted that “[t]he courts of this State have consistently required strict compliance with the statutory procedures for the institution of claims against the State and its governmental subdivisions, and where the Legislature has designated a particular public officer for the receipt of service of process, we are without authority to substitute another” … . We likewise conclude here that the payroll clerk employed in the District’s business office was not a “school officer” under the Education Law. Matter of Puchalski v Depew Union Free School Dist…, 2014 NY Slip Op 05271, 4th Dept 7-11-14