A tenured social studies teacher will have his request for rescission of retirement granted after the New York City Department of Education waited nearly four years to address his request and “effectively operated to subvert” a court order that said his rescission letter must be accepted, a state appeals court has ruled.

John Joyce’s rescission request, made less than a year after his 2011 retirement, must be accepted, even though the Department of Education’s chancellor had eventually denied the request, an Appellate Division, First Department, panel ruled.