Opinion
December 28, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Schmidt, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, with costs, and the defendants' cross motion is granted.
The plaintiff commenced this action seeking, inter alia, money allegedly due him as unpaid overtime and/or minimum wages for the period from February 25, 1994, through October 15, 1995. During the pendency of this action, a hearing was held before an Administrative Law Judge (hereinafter the AU) on the plaintiffs claim for unemployment benefits. After the hearing, the AU issued a determination that during the period from October 17, 1994, through October 15, 1995, the plaintiff had only worked for the appellant for a period of four weeks.
We agree with the appellant that the court erred in refusing to give collateral estoppel effect to the AU's determination. The appellant demonstrated that the identical issue, namely, the amount of time worked by the plaintiff during the period in question, had been necessarily decided in the unemployment proceeding and was therefore decisive in this action. It then became incumbent on the plaintiff to establish that he did not have a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue before the AU ( see, David v. Biondo, 92 N.Y.2d 318). This he failed to do ( see, Shirley v. Danziger, 252 A.D.2d 969). We find, therefore, that the AU's determination should be given collateral estoppel effect with respect to the narrow issue involved, that between October 17, 1994, and October 15, 1995, the plaintiff had worked only four weeks for the appellant ( see, Ryan v. New York Tel. Co., 62 N.Y.2d 494; Murphy v. Sachem Cent. School Dist., 147 A.D.2d 623; Bernstein v. Birch Wathen School, 71 A.D.2d 129).
Copertino, J. P., Joy, Krausman and Goldstein, JJ., concur.