A New York City firefighter who was fired after failing a random drug test has filed suit against the FDNY and the city for improper termination.
During an Article 78 hearing filed late last month, Firefighter Peter Peltonen said that the post-traumatic stress he endured after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 led to his drug use.
Although he admits to using drugs, he said that he shouldn’t have been terminated, and instead should have been given help.
The FDNY and Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta’s determination to terminate his employment was “affected by an error of law” and was “an abuse of discretion as to the measure or mode of penalty or discipline imposed.”
In the motion filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Peltonen, of Ladder Company 51 in the Bronx, was assigned to the World Trade Center to help in rescue and recovery efforts on September 12, 2001 the day after the terrorist attacks.
He said that the daily stresses of that work took its toll and he soon became an alcoholic. He then turned to cocaine, using the drug several times a month when “alcohol wasn’t working enough.”
He sought treatment for the abuse both through the FDNY and privately and soon learned that he might be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), he claimed.
In 2007 Peltonen submitted to a random drug test with members of his Ladder Company.
When he tested positive for cocaine, he did not challenge the validity of the results and had his employment terminated.
After weighing all the evidence, including statements from a doctor who testified that the PTSD would have acerbated his drug abuse, not caused it and that his alcohol and drug abuse was brought on by depression, Judge Arthur Schack dismissed Peltonen’s petition, claiming that he had not made a case linking the PTSD to his drug abuse.
A judge shot down the city’s attempt to get out from under a lawsuit involving a sunken manhole cover in downtown Brooklyn.
Judge Robert Miller wouldn’t let the city squirm out from under the suit filed by Anthony Clark, who rolled over the manhole cover back in 2001.
Clark claimed that he was driving a motorcycle down Tillary Street near Jay Street back on November 10, 2001 when he hit the sunken manhole cover.
Clark was reportedly thrown from his bike and suffered substantial injuries.
He soon filed suit against the city, as well as Verizon, KeySpan (now National Grid) and Con Edison — the utilities that would have used the manhole and been responsible for its upkeep.
Verizon managed to get the case against them dismissed by proving that they were not utilizing the manhole at the time of the accident. The case against Con Edison was also dismissed for similar reasons.
The city tried to follow their lead, claiming that the “sunken manhole was a telephone manhole” that the city was not responsible for.
City attorneys said that they were told about the sunken manhole cover before Clark’s accident but inspectors determined that it was not owned by the city. A “kill ticket” was ordered meaning that “no further action” on the city’s behalf was warranted.
Judge Miller didn’t see it that way, stating that the city has a duty to tend to all New York roadways.
“Even if it was a non-City manhole cover, where, as here, the City receives notice of an allegedly dangerous condition on a public roadway that the City is required to maintain, the written acknowledgement is sufficient to give the City notice of the condition,” Miller wrote in his decision. “To hold otherwise would allow the City license to ignore dangerous street conditions.
Judge Miller also had something to say about the “Kill Ticket” designation.
“The term utilized aptly describes what the result of the City policy may cause,” he wrote.