Arbitration award imposing a $10,000 fine as the penalty for inflicting corporeal punishment on a student sustained

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Arbitration award imposing a $10,000 fine as the penalty forinflicting corporeal punishment on a student sustainedStoyer-Rivera v New York City Board/Department of Educ. 2012NY Slip Op 08816, Appellate Division, First Department
Supreme Court denied the plaintiff’s petition to vacate anarbitration award issued after a hearing pursuant to Education Law §3020-a. Thearbitrator had found the plaintiff guilty of inflicting corporal punishment ona 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'sdetermination was supported by adequate evidence, was rational and neitherarbitrary nor capricious.
The Appellate Division noted that the disciplinaryspecifications that were sustained by the arbitrator were supported by theinjured student's testimony, along with the written statements from otherstudent witnesses that corroborated the injured student's version of events,and the testimonial and physical evidence regarding the injured state of thestudent's ear.
Citing the Pell standard, of Pell v Board of Educ. ofUnion Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck,Westchester County, 34 NY2d 222, the Appellate Division said that thearbitration award, which imposed a penalty of a $10,000 fine upon petitionerwas not "so disproportionate to the offense, in the light of all thecircumstances, 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