Ambrosino v Village of Bronxville

In 2007, the plaintiff, Joseph Ambrosino, was terminated from his job with the Village of Bronxville Department of Public Works (DPW). Plaintiff’s Union then filed a grievance which was denied by the DPW Superintendent, the first step of the grievance process, and then denied by the Village Administrator, the second step. The plaintiff then skipped the third and final step of advisory arbitration and went straight to commencing an instant action against the Village and the DPW Superintendent alleging discrimination and breach of contract. The Supreme Court dismissed his petition on the grounds that he did not exhaust his administrative remedies.

Plaintiff then commenced this appeal. The Court found that the original dismissal of the petition on the grounds of failure to exhaust administrative remedies was only partly acceptable. While plaintiff did fail to complete the entire grievance process he was not given the opportunity to plead his case concerning the allegations of discrimination. Therefore the second cause of action was properly dismissed but the first cause of action should not have automatically been denied due sua sponte.

Accordingly, the Court modified the order by deleting the provision, sua sponte, dismissing the first cause of action and affirmed the order as modified without costs or disbursements.

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