IN RE: Patrick EMEAGWALI (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Arlene P. Bluth, J.), entered on or about April 11, 2024, denying the petition to annul respondents’ determination, dated October 10, 2019, which denied petitioner's application for World Trade Center Retirement Benefits, and dismissing the proceeding brought pursuant to CPLR article 78, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The court properly concluded that respondents’ determination had a rational basis and was not arbitrary and capricious (see generally Matter of Sullivan County Harness Racing Assn. v. Glasser, 30 N.Y.2d 269, 277–278, 332 N.Y.S.2d 622, 283 N.E.2d 603 [1972] ).  The record demonstrates that petitioner was not a member of the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) until 2005, when he purchased his prior service credit.  At the time of petitioner's application to be entitled to World Trade Center retirement benefits (WTC benefits), the applicant must have been a member of the retirement system on 9/11/01 (Retirement and Social Security Law § 605[b][2], [b][3] ).  Petitioner provided no legal authority for his claim that his 2005 purchase of service credit backdated his TRS membership.

Moreover, respondents’ finding that petitioner's activities in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 assisting people by providing directions on how to get home or out of Manhattan on foot, were not part of World Trade Center “rescue, recovery and cleanup operations” and were not part of his job duties as a teacher, was also rationally based (Retirement and Social Security Law § 2[36][a], [e] ) (see e.g. Matter of Salerno v. Kelly, 139 A.D.3d 516, 30 N.Y.S.3d 114 [1st Dept. 2016] ).

We have considered petitioner's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.