Arbitration award imposing a $10,000 fine as the penalty for inflicting corporeal punishment on a student sustained
Stoyer-Rivera v New York City Board/Department of Educ. 2012 NY Slip Op 08816, Appellate Division, First Department
Supreme Court denied the plaintiff’s petition to vacate an arbitration award issued after a hearing pursuant to Education Law §3020-a. The arbitrator had found the plaintiff guilty of inflicting corporal punishment on a student and imposed a $10,000 fine.
The Appellate Division sustained the lower court’s ruling, holding that the lower court had properly found that the hearing officer's determination was supported by adequate evidence, was rational and neither arbitrary nor capricious.
The Appellate Division noted that the disciplinary specifications that were sustained by the arbitrator were supported by the injured student's testimony, along with the written statements from other student witnesses that corroborated the injured student's version of events, and the testimonial and physical evidence regarding the injured state of the student's ear.
Citing the Pell standard, of Pell v Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 34 NY2d 222, the Appellate Division said that the arbitration award, which imposed a penalty of a $10,000 fine upon petitioner was not "so disproportionate to the offense, in the light of all the circumstances, as to be shocking to one's sense of fairness."
The decision is posted on the Internet at:
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2012/2012_08816.htm