Sedgwick v. New York City Dept. of Educ.

Sedgwick v New York City Dept. of Educ. (2023 NY Slip Op 02194)

Sedgwick v New York City Dept. of Educ.

2023 NY Slip Op 02194

Decided on April 27, 2023

Appellate Division, First Department

Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.

This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.

Decided and Entered: April 27, 2023
Before: Webber, J.P., Moulton, Scarpulla, Mendez, Rodriguez, JJ.
Index No. 300073/19 Appeal No. 135 Case No. 2022-04135

Andrew Sedgwick, appellant pro se.

Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, Corporation Counsel, New York (D. Alan Rosinus, Jr. of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Paul L. Alpert, J.), entered on or about July 15, 2022, which granted defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff pro se's first amended complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

We affirm, but for reasons different from those provided by the motion court. Plaintiff's claim, which he filed in June 2017, was untimely filed and dismissal was appropriate on that basis alone. Plaintiff styles his claim as a Labor Law § 198 claim concerning the underpayment of wages and seeking the primary relief of monetary damages, which would be subject to a six-year limitations period (CPLR 213[6]). However, the direct claim that plaintiff seeks to assert here is, in fact, a challenge to the administrative determination by defendant the New York City Department of Education (DOE) in April 2014 not to issue an enhanced starting salary retroactive to 2010, plaintiff's initial date of DOE employment, but rather, to make the enhanced salary retroactive only to April 1, 2014. Thus, plaintiff's claim should have been raised in an article 78 proceeding, which is subject to a four-month limitation period (see e.g. Hughey v Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 159 AD3d 596, 597 [1st Dept 2018]).

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER

OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.

ENTERED: April 27, 2023