Educator disciplined after making statements such as "hey, baby," "how you doing baby?," and "you good baby" to underage female student
2013 NY Slip Op 07811, Appellate Division, First Department
A disciplinary arbitrator found a male teacher [Teacher] guilty of violating the Chancellor of the New York Department of Education’s Regulation A-421 by making statements such as "hey, baby," "how you doing baby?," and "you good baby" on multiple occasions to his underage female student. The penalty imposed by the arbitrator: a fine in the amount of $1,500 to be withdrawn in equal installments from Teacher's paychecks over a twelve month period.
Although the New York City Department of Education has sought to have Teacher terminated from his position, the arbitrator declined terminating the employee and imposed the $1,500 fine instead.
Teacher file an Article 75 petition in Supreme Court seeking a court order vacating and annulling the arbitration award. Supreme Court dismissed Teacher’s petition.
The Appellate Division, affirming the dismissal of Teacher’s petition by the Supreme Court, ruled that the penalty imposed was “not so excessive and disproportionate to the offense as to be shocking to one's sense of fairness.”
The court also noted that the arbitrator had explicitly found [1] the student’ testimony credible and [2] the Teacher’s testimony to be not credible and [3] that determinations of a hearing officer involving the credibility of a witness are "largely unreviewable.”
The decision is posted on the Internet at:
http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2013/2013_07811.htm.