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Mostly Cloudy Firefighter’s name to be added to state memorial
Appellate court overturns decision to exclude Malvernite Paul Brady from wall of honor
After a nearly six-year-long battle to add late Malverne firefighter Paul Brady’s name to the New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial Wall in Albany, the Malverne Fire Department announced last week that Brady’s name will finally be inscribed there.
Brady, 42, a volunteer firefighter, died while on duty in the Malverne firehouse in July 2006, accidentally crushed while doing routine maintenance on the roof of a rescue truck. A fellow volunteer, unaware that Brady was on top of the truck, drove it out of the building, trapping him in the 5-inch clearance between the truck and a ceiling beam. He suffered internal injuries and died later at Nassau University Medical Center.
Since then, the Malverne F.D. has fought to get Brady’s name added to the memorial wall on the Empire State Plaza in the capital, but has been denied five times by the memorial’s selection committee, despite the fact that under both state and federal law, his death was classified as having happened in the line of duty. His name is inscribed on the U.S. Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Maryland.
The Malverne F.D. appealed to the Nassau County Supreme Court after the State Fallen Firefighters Memorial Appeals Committee denied the department’s request in August 2010 to have Brady’s name added to the wall. In March 2011, however, the court, without a hearing, denied the petition.
But on June 27, the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ordered Nassau County Supreme Court to reverse its decision and direct the Appeals Committee to include Brady’s name on the wall. The memorial is dedicated to more than 2,000 firefighters who have died while on the job.
In the court decision, Malverne Volunteer Fire Department v. New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, the unanimous panel stated that the determination by the memorial’s Appeals Committee was “arbitrary and capricious, and did not have a rational basis in the record.”
“The record demonstrates that, under the applicable selection criteria, Paul Ryan Brady died while engaged in an action that was ‘required, authorized or recognized by law, rule, regulation or condition of employment,’” the decision read.
