In this CPLR Article 75* seeking to vacate a determination of a hearing officer made pursuant to Education Law §3020-a, Plaintiff appealed the Supreme Court's denying Plaintiff's petition.
Plaintiff, a tenured employee, was served with disciplinary charges alleging Employee posted a racially inflammatory message on Employee's Facebook page which resulted in the School District [Employer] charging Plaintiff with misconduct and insubordination. Following an Education Law §3020-a disciplinary hearing, the hearing officer issued a determination sustained the charges and found that the appropriate penalty was termination of Plaintiff's employment.
Plaintiff commenced the instant CPLR Article 75 in Supreme Court seeking a court order vacating hearing officer's determination. Supreme Court denied the petition and the petitioner appealed.
The Appellate Division affirmed the Supreme Court's ruling, noting that:
1. "Where, as here, the obligation to arbitrate arises through statutory mandate ... the arbitrator's determination is subject to closer judicial scrutiny than it would receive had the arbitration been conducted voluntarily";
2. "An award in a compulsory arbitration proceeding must have evidentiary support and cannot be arbitrary and capricious";
3. An "article 75 review questions whether the decision was rational or had a plausible basis"; and
4. In the event the evidence submitted may be interpreted in more than one way, "this Court must 'accept the arbitrator['s] credibility determinations, even where there is conflicting evidence and room for choice exists'".
The Appellate Division found that the hearing officer's determination had evidentiary support and was not arbitrary and capricious and appropriately credited the testimony of the different witnesses, and "there is no cause to disturb the hearing officer's credibility determinations without improperly substituting judgment".
Noting that "A court may set aside an administrative penalty only if "it is so disproportionate to the offense as to be shocking to one's sense of fairness", the fact that "reasonable minds might disagree over what the proper penalty should have been does not provide a basis for . . . refashioning the penalty".
Further, the Appellate Division said that "The question of whether the penalty is so disproportionate to the misconduct as to shock the conscience requires a case-by-case factual analysis" and concluded that "in light of the totality of the circumstances, including the adverse impact of the racially charged posting on the school and the community, the penalty of termination of employment is not irrational and does not shock the conscience".
Accordingly, the Appellate Division held that "Supreme Court properly denied the petition".
* Supreme Court incorrectly cited CPLR Article 78 instead of CPLR Article 75, which is the standard of review mandated by Education Law §3020-a(5)(a). Nevertheless, applying the proper standard, which was briefed by the parties, the Appellate Division affirmed.
Click HERE to access the Appellate Division's decision posted on the Internet.