NY top court hears police discipline case

ALBANY -- A Hudson Valley town urged New York's highest court Thursday to uphold the town's authority to discipline police for misbehavior instead of turning cases over to an independent arbitrator under terms of a union contract.

In a case with possible implications for municipal police statewide, Wallkill officials maintain they have that authority, similar to New York City and Rockland County, under earlier statutes that supersede the state's Taylor Law.

The Taylor Law says police discipline provisions can be set by collective bargaining.

"There's a public policy favoring the strong control of police forces, or there's not," Joseph McKay, the town's attorney, told the Court of Appeals.

He said a midlevel court recently ruled that the neighboring city of Middletown couldn't negotiate police discipline terms as a matter of public policy.

John Crotty, lawyer for the Wallkill Police Benevolent Association, warned against upsetting public sector labor relations and union contracts established over decades under New York's Taylor Law.

Court papers cited more than 1,600 towns, villages and cities that could be affected.

Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said that police constitute a paramilitary group, asking whether it isn't good policy and makes sense for the municipalities that hire officers to determine their discipline and hold them responsible, rather than arbitration or collective bargaining.

"That policy choice should be made by the legislature," Crotty said. "They are the repository of the public policy." The Court of Appeals ruling is expected next month.

The Wallkill case involves apparently contradictory state statutes, in this case provisions of the Taylor Law and New York's Town Law.

It follows the top court's 2006 ruling that the New York City police commissioner has discipline authority not subject to union bargaining, as do local officials in Rockland County, under two other statutes.