The court said the job applicant wasn't discriminated against based on his ancestry when he didn't get hired as a police officer in Belmar
BELMAR -- A Belmar man was not discriminated against because of his ancestry when he was passed over for a job on the borough's police force, an appellate court has ruled.
The three-judge panel declined to reinstate John Walsifer's lawsuit because his definition of "ancestry" doesn't fit the meaning of the word as it's used in New Jersey's law against discrimination, according to the decision released Tuesday.
Walsifer, then 19 and a Belmar resident, applied for one of two open spots on the Belmar Police Department in 2011 to start his law enforcement career. Walsifer took the Civil Service test and ranked between a veteran and a special police officer who had been at the department for five years, according to court records.
When the borough picked the special police officer over him, Walsifer sued, claiming he was passed over because the borough had an ax to grind against his two police-officer uncles, who had filed lawsuits against the town almost a decade earlier.
Filing a claim under New Jersey's law against discrimination and its Civil Rights Act, Walsifer, who is now a police officer in Middletown, claimed the snub was in retaliation for his "ancestry."
A Superior Court judge in 2015 threw out his suit, saying that under New Jersey law, "ancestry" refers to a person's national origin, religious, racial or ethnic background, not a person's relatives.
Appellate judges Susan Reisner, Ellen Koblitz and Gary Rothstadt agreed and said Walsifer provided no proof that the borough based its hiring decision on bad feelings from lawsuits Walsifer's uncles filed against the town in 2002 and 2004.
Walsifer's uncle, Mark Walsifer, then a borough police officer, sued the town in 2004 and claimed he was passed over for a promotion to sergeant because of his activities in the local Republican party in a highly Democratic town.
He later settled that suit and was eventually promoted to sergeant after Mayor Matthew Doherty took office in 2011. He retired earlier this year and is running for borough council on the Republican ticket.
The court noted it had no information about the suit brought by Walsifer's other uncle, Nicholas, in 2002.
Borough officials defended their hiring of the special police officer, saying he had been on the force for five years, had already been trained and was certified to carry a weapon.
MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.