Cunningham v. New York State Department of Labor

Petitioner, a state employee since 1980, was respondent’s *1348Director of Staff and Organizational Development for nearly 20 years. In the last 10 years, he had been disciplined on several occasions for various workplace misconduct. In 2008, respondent suspected that petitioner was engaging in a pattern of taking unauthorized absences from work as well as falsifying time records. Respondent had an investigator attempt to tail petitioner when he left his office during work hours in April 2008, but the effort was thwarted when petitioner realized he was being followed. Thereafter, respondent…