Importance of Remorse In Employee Discipline Cases

I bring Matter of Vagianos v. City of New York, ___A.D.3d___(1st Dept. June 13, 2017) to your attention to illustrate an important point.
Most arbitrators and judges are human. If an employee, in this case a tenured teacher, admitted that he made a mistake and showed remorse, he or she may have a better chance of saving his or her job.
In rejecting the argument that dismissal of a tenured teacher shocked the courts conscience, the court stated:

Moreover, petitioner showed neither remorse for his conduct nor any appreciation of its seriousness so as to suggest that he would not engage in similar conduct again (see e.g. Matter of Varriale v City of New York, 148 AD3d 650 [1st Dept 2017]). Indeed, petitioner failed to take responsibility for the misconduct for which he had previously been disciplined, and was not deterred by that discipline from continuing his pattern of inappropriate behavior.

There is of  course, a major problem with showing remorse. That remorse will make a guilty finding very likely. Would the result have changed in this case? We will never know.

As most of you know, there are two issues in employee discipline; guilt and penalty.  If the employee shows remorse, a guilty finding becomes very likely, but it may help him or her with respect to penalty. But, if the employee is truly innocent, he or she cannot show remorse. That Catch 22 is inherent in the process.