Court reporter. Photo: Rick Kopstein/NYLJ

The former top stenographer for Manhattan civil courts says he was wrongly fired, claiming in a new suit against the New York state court system that some of his alleged misconduct had been authorized by Manhattan’s chief clerk.

John Phelps oversaw a team of roughly 60 people who create the official records of trials, arguments and other matters at four state courthouses, said his lawsuit, filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court. Phelps’ suit against the New York State Unified Court System is seeking reinstatement to his job as a court reporter.

Phelps filed several exhibits with his lawsuit, including a judicial hearing officer’s decision over his termination, providing an unusually detailed look into a little-heeded but important corner of the legal industry and the economics of court reporters.

According to the court documents, some colleagues testified in Phelps’ defense and spoke highly of him, but other witnesses said he did little actual supervising and took home tens of thousands of dollars per year by disregarding the part of his job description that said he should only “rarely” transcribe proceedings.

According to the judicial hearing officer’s decision, Phelps was chronically late, delegated much of his administrative work to a “deputy” and picked plum reporting jobs for himself. He also “borrowed” thousands of dollars from an account meant to buy gifts for judges and his staff and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor petty theft in connection with his use of that money.

“As one who has devoted over half a century to public service, it is not easy to recommend the termination of employment of another public servant,” wrote Joseph Fisch, a retired judge who heard the court system’s case against Phelps. “But I cannot faithfully discharge my responsibility … by failing to take notice of the portrait of respondent that emerged after the evidence presented to me.”

Fisch wrote that Phelps was a “bully” who threatened to fire employees who crossed him. In addition, according to Fisch, Phelps “brazenly proclaimed his unqualified disdain for non-lucrative reporting work,” by saying, “I don’t do pro se” when he learned a party was self-represented and less likely to order a transcript.

Other reporters testified that Phelps nabbed referee cases, where a transcript order is thought to be more likely, and caused major strife in the office one day in 2017 when he took a “daily” case—where the pay is higher—before other court reporters got a crack at it.

Phelps argued that he had a clean record in his two decades as a court reporter, saying in his lawsuit that the court system crossed a line by firing him. He produced an email from early in his tenure as principal court reporter where John Werner, the recently retired chief clerk of the Manhattan Supreme Court Civil Term, told him it would be “no problem” for him to work with referees or take daily assignments from judges.

And Phelps said he reimbursed the gift account or shelled out from his own pocket to buy gifts that used to be paid by the fund. He said he pleaded to petty larceny and took a sentence of 10 days’ community service and some $2,500 in restitution to avoid a felony charge.

Douglas Catalano of Clifton Budd & DeMaria, who represents Phelps, said, “the relevant facts are set forth in the petition and affidavit.”

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, said the office hadn’t been served yet, “but [we] will respond accordingly when we are.”