Dep't of Corr. v. Lynn

306 A.3d 338

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, State Correctional Institution at Frackville

v.Ralph E. LYNN (State Civil Service Commission)

Appeal of: Governor’s Office of Administration

Governor’s Office of Administration, Appellant

v.Ralph E. Lynn (State Civil Service Commission), Appellee

No. 95 MAP 2022

No. 96 MAP 2022

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: May 23, 2023

Decided: December 19, 2023

West Codenotes

Prior Version Recognized as Unconstitutional

51 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§ 7103(a), 7104(b)

Appeal from the Order of the Commonwealth Court dated February 14, 2022, Reconsideration denied March 31, 2022, at No. 1203 CD 2020 Affirming the Order of the State Civil Service Commission dated October 26, 2020 at No. 30245, Renee Cohn Jubelirer, Anne E. Covey, Christine Fizzano Cannon, Judges

Appeal from the Order of the Commonwealth Court dated February 14, 2022, Reconsideration denied March 31, 2022, at No. 1286 CD 2020 Affirming the Order of the State Civil Service Commission dated November 25, 2020 at No. 30245, Renee Cohn Jubelirer, Anne E. Covey, Christine Fizzano Cannon, Judges

Brian Lee Hokamp, Esq., Anthony Ryan Holbert, Esq., Jennifer Creed Seiber, Esq., for Appellant Governor’s Office of Administration.

Edward Joseph Bohan, Esq., Elizabeth C. Lawson, Esq., Nicholas John Sidelnick, Esq., for Appellee State Civil Service Commission.

Timothy Andres Holmes, Esq., Jocelyn Grace Schultz, Esq., for Appellee Department of Corrections, State Correctional Institute at Frackville.

Ralph E. Lynn, Pro Se.

TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, JJ.

OPINION

JUSTICE WECHT

This case involves an arcane and convoluted intersection of two statutes related to public employment. The Civil Service Reform Act ("CSRA") establishes and governs the classified service, which is a merit-based system of public employment, and prohibits discrimination based upon nonmerit factors.¹ Chapter 71 of the Military and Veterans Code, commonly known as the Veterans’ Preference Act ("VPA"), provides veterans with certain advantages when seeking public employment.²

The CSRA divides employment by certain public entities into two categories of service: classified and unclassified.³ The CSRA requires that employers use a merit system to fill classified service positions, but not unclassified service positions.⁴ The merit system uses competitive examinations to determine the relative merit of candidates.⁵ The Office of Administration ("OA")⁶ administers the examinations and prepares an "eligible list" ranking each individual who has passed the examination.⁷ Generally, the CSRA requires the public employer to select an individual whose ranking is among the three highest on the eligible list, colloquially known as the "Rule of Three."⁸

Until it was amended in 2020,⁹ the VPA mandated that public employers apply preferences to veterans¹⁰ competing for an appointment or promotion to a classified service position.¹¹ Section 7103(a) directed the OA to add an additional ten points onto the score of a veteran who passed a classified service appointment or promotional examination.¹² Further, the OA had to use the total score to determine the veteran’s standing on the eligible list of candidates certified to the employer.¹³ Section 7104(b) required the public employer to select a veteran on the eligible list instead of a non-veteran candidate with a higher examination score.¹⁴ In our Hoffman ¹⁵and Chester¹⁶ decisions, however, this Court held that the veterans’ preference set forth in sections 7103(a) and 7104(b) was unconstitutional when applied to promotions. As a result, a veteran seeking an appointment is entitled under the VPA to extra points and a mandatory selection preference, but a veteran seeking a promotion is not.¹⁷

The instant dispute concerns two veterans employed by the Department of Corrections ("DOC") at the same correctional institution in the same pay range. Ralph E. Lynn was employed as a Corrections Officer 1, which was a classified service position. Aaron Novotnak was employed as a Corrections Maintenance Foreman, which was an unclassified service position.

Lynn and Novotnak each took and passed an examination for the classified service position of Correctional Welding Trade Instructor ("CWTI"). The pay range assigned to the CWTI position had a higher maximum salary than Lynn and Novotnak’s current pay range. Because Lynn sought to advance within the classified service, OA and DOC deemed the CWTI position a promotion for Lynn and did not apply veterans’ preference. Novotnak, on the other hand, sought to enter the classified service for the first time. As such, notwithstanding the pay increase, OA and DOC deemed the CWTI position an appointment for Novotnak. After applying veterans’ preference, DOC selected Novotnak for the position.

Lynn appealed his non-selection to the Commission. From the Commission’s perspective, treating Lynn differently from Novotnak because of Lynn’s classified service status constituted discrimination based upon a non-merit factor, which section 2704 of the CSRA prohibits. The Commission sustained Lynn’s appeal, ruling that the OA and the DOC should have treated Lynn as a veteran who "qualified for veterans’ preference for appointment to" the CWTI position.¹⁸ The Commission ordered the DOC to return Novotnak to his prior position and to place Lynn in the CWTI position.¹⁹ OA and DOC appealed, and the Commonwealth Court affirmed.²⁰

We granted allocatur to determine whether the decisions of the Commission and the Commonwealth Court conflict with Hoffman and Chester. To make this determination, we must decide whether the ascension of an unclassified service employee to a classified service position with higher pay with the same public employer is a promotion under the CSRA and the VPA. We hold that it is not. Rather, such an ascension via the merit examination process is an appointment. Thus, it is not discriminatory under section 2704 of the CSRA to award a veterans’ preference to an unclassified service employee seeking an appointment but not to a classified service employee seeking a promotion. We affirm the order of the Commonwealth Court in part and reverse in part.

I. Governing Law

Given the dense and overlapping legal landscape, we begin with an overview of the applicable law.

A. CSRA

[1] The objective of the CSRA’s merit-based system of public employment is to facilitate the hiring, retaining, and promoting of highly-qualified individuals to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of government services to the public.²¹ To that end, "candidates for classified service positions are required to pass a competitive classified service examination which measures their aptitude for the classified service position at issue."²² As this Court described long ago, the merit system was designed so that

employees in public service will be selected on the basis of their qualificationsand fitness and whereby competent and faithful service will be rewarded by making the employees’ tenure of office secure while they behave themselves well. It is intended that efficiency should be promoted by an assurance of continued employment, thereby serving the interests of employer and employee. Such relations are not to be imperiled by reason of the politics or religion of the parties concerned.²³

The CSRA defines "classified service" as a "position filled under the merit system of employment" that is not a "position included in the unclassified service."²⁴ "Unclassified service" is defined by examples of types of jobs.²⁵ One type of unclassified service job is "unskilled labor," which is "[a]n individual occupying or assigned to a position for which the principal job function is manual labor or work requiring limited or no prior education or training."²⁶

In general, to fill a classified service position, an appointing authority must select an individual from an "eligible list" certified by the OA using the classified service examination results.²⁷ With limited exception not applicable here, the CSRA requires an appointing authority to follow the Rule of Three by selecting an individual who is among the three highest-ranking individuals on the eligible list.²⁸

One type of eligible list is an "employment list," which is a "list of individuals who have been found qualified by an entrance examination for appointment to a position in a particular class."²⁹ Another type of eligible list is a "promotion list," which is a "list of individuals determined to be qualified by a promotion examination for appointment to a position in a particular class."³⁰ A "promotion examination," in turn, is an "examination for a position in a particular class, admission to which is limited to an employee in the classified service who has held a position in another class."³¹

The CSRA defines "promotion" as the "movement of an employee to another class in a pay range with a higher maximum salary."³² "Employee" and "class" are also defined terms: an "employee" is "an individual legally occupying a position in the classified service," and a "class" is a "group of positions in the classified service which are sufficiently similar in respect to the duties and responsibilities of the positions .... "³³ The CSRA specifies that "[a] transfer or reassignment of an employee from a position in one class to a position in a class for which a higher maximum salary is prescribed shall be deemed a promotion and may be accomplished only in the man- ner provided for in this part."³⁴ By comparison, "[n]o individual may be transferred or reassigned from a position in the unclassified service to a position in the classified service unless appointed to the classified service position after certification of the individual’s name from an eligible list in accordance with the provisions of this part."³⁵

The difference between classified and unclassified positions includes more than the manner of filling a position. The CSRA provides employees in the classified service with...