Jeez, it just gets worse and worse and worse around these parts...
Bob Ingle, in Sunday's Asbury Park Press, lets us in on a recent New Jersey Supreme Court ruling - no, not the one instituting gay marriage, this one:
The Supremes recently reinstated a Garden State Parkway toll collector to his old job, reversing an appeals court ruling that the collector was properly fired for shooting a paint-ball gun at a moving car while the collector was leaving work.
The collector's excuse — he was feeling stressed and annoyed. An arbitrator reinstated him, but the appeals court reversed that, saying he deserved to be fired. The high court bench warmers reversed that. It must have been too logical for them
So according to this Supreme Kangeroo Court, it is permissible for state employees to blast automobiles passing through toll plazas with paint guns in the State of New Jersey if said employees are feeling annoyed that day. And who can blame them? After all, making almost $45K/year (see this grade-school level article printed by a "toll collector advocates" group of some sort) collecting change from passing cars is certainly a mentally challenging, and extremely stressful job, is it not? Sweet Jeebus, what do you do if you have to make change for a twenty???
As we have always said, New Jersey is simply a welfare state for lazy government employees who earn their undeserved salalry via the Democratic Party's gleeful rape of the middle class.
And Ingle calls a spade a spade when referring to the union cronies and political appointees on the State Supreme Court (who are currently clamoring for a raise, if you can believe it):
If they don't like their salary, let them go get one of those better-paying jobs they claim they sacrificed to be on the court. Most of them are political hacks. There certainly is no shortage of hacks to replace them.
These are the same hacks whom, in order to placate a key New Jersey Democratic constituancy (here it comes), ordered that illegal aliens are entitled to uninsured drivers benefits when they get into car accidents within the state. Yup - sneak into the country, drive without a licencse or insurance, get into an accident, and get paid. With my money, of course.
What a racket. Methinks even Tony Soprano would blush...
3 comments:
It's time to move to a state with a more common-sense economic and criminal justice system...like Russia!
This screwy result arose because of the law of arbitration. It is legally very difficult to successfully reverse an arbitrator's decision.
In a nutshell, the rule is that the parties "bargain for the decision of the arbitrator", even if the arbitrator makes mistakes in fact and/or the law.
Here the Appellate Division apparently substituted its own view of the facts and/or the law for that of the arbitrator, and that is a legal no no.
So, what you're left with is an apparently stupid ruling by the arbitrator that was upheld in accordance with New Jersey law (which is virtually the same in other jurisdictions, including the Federal Courts).
Alas, you are correct, Jim - thanks for being the sober "yin" to my raging "yang"!
The arbitrator's decision should be final; I am assuming it was appealed via the courts due to its utter stupidity. If the appeals court had no jurisdiction, why would they even take the case, I wonder?
I guess the question remains, did the Turnpike folks make their case in such a poor fashion that the arbitrator had no choice but to rule in favor of our paintball-blasting friend, or is this arbitration panel so heavily skewed towards the union employees (what a shock that would be!), that the decsion to let this schmuck off the hook was a forgone conclusion?
Either way, just another day's travesty in the great state of New Jersey...
But thanks for your input and clarification!
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