A Need for FDNY Compassion

Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta's zero tolerance policy when it comes to firefighters abusing drugs or alcohol is bumping up against a case where it seems compassion should take precedence.

Certainly an Administrative Law Judge thought so when he recommended that Firefighter John Schroeder be allowed to retire with a disability pension rather than being fired because he tested positive for cocaine.

Mr. Schroeder is a decorated firefighter who responded to the World Trade Center bombings in both 1993 and 2001. After the first bombing, he helped rescue a colleague who fell into a huge hole in the Trade Center's sub-basement. On 9/11, he was briefly trapped in rubble after a stairwell collapsed before making it out of the North Tower shortly before it imploded. He subsequently spent several weeks searching for survivors and remains at Ground Zero until he was traumatized by the discovery of a friend's remains. Five members of his firehouse died at the Trade Center.

Fire Department doctors subsequently found that he was suffering from both severe lung damage and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Before his application for a disability pension was ultimately confirmed by the FDNY Medical Board, however, he tested positive for cocaine in October 2004, and the department sought to fire him.

During a hearing before the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, FDNY officials argued that Mr. Schroeder should be denied the disability pension to deter other firefighters from abusing drugs.

ALJ Kevin Casey rejected that punishment as "unduly harsh." The hearing made clear that department officials agreed that he had legitimate physical and psychological ailments stemming from 9/11 and its aftermath.

"He has literally sacrificed his mental and physical well-being for his job and the City of New York," Mr. Casey wrote in his decision.

Mr. Scoppetta has final say in the case. The ALJ's ruling makes clear why he should rethink his position.

It would be a more-complicated matter if Mr. Schroeder was seeking a return to active duty. He is not. He is merely seeking the dignity of being able to retire rather than be fired, and with the disability pension and continued health benefits that he would receive if granted that status.

His disabilities occurred prior to his drug abuse. To deny this decorated firefighter a pension he sadly earned would stand as an act of cruelty, a heartless goodbye to someone who served the department courageously until he encountered something that traumatized dozens of his colleagues as well. Rather than serving as a deterrent to would-be drug abusers in the ranks, firing him would likely embitter many firefighters and make them less inclined to go the extra mile for the department.

Mr. Scoppetta should know that even stringently enforced rules cannot be so inflexible that they strangle a sense of fairness.