A state fire inspector called his female boss the c-word to other employees in 2013 and paid for it with his job.

But William R. Hendrickson, Jr., fought his termination in the state's administrative system, and eventually got the punishment reduced to a six-month suspension. A state Appellate Division court, though, later overturned that decision and essentially re-fired him.

On Tuesday, the New Jersey Supreme Court said the Appellate court was wrong, and reinstated the suspension.

Hendrickson, a retired police officer from Sussex County, will be going back to the New Jersey Division of Fire Safety, in the state Department of Community Affairs, his lawyer Arnold Shep Cohen said.

"The Supreme Court was correct," Cohen said.

The decision notes that Hendrickson uttered the phrase, and does not excuse his conduct, and his employer was right to discipline him. It was, quoting a lower court, "disrespectful, sexist, discriminatory, unprofessional, in bad taste, improper, and extremely offensive."

But the case was about rules and procedure.

Hendrickson started working for the state as a fire safety inspector in August 2012. His LinkedIn page shows he retired from the Bloomingdale Police Department in 2003, and later worked for Vernon Township's fire prevention bureau and is a volunteer firefighter.

He made the remark about his boss on Dec. 1, 2013, out of her presence, but two colleagues heard it. After a hearing in his department, in September 2014, the state fired him.

Hendrickson appealed to the state Civil Service Commission (CSC), and they sent it to the state's Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for a hearing.

The OAL judge agreed that the state had a case to punish Hendrickson, he was wrong to use such language, and was even troubled by Hendrickson's failure to acknowledge his wrongdoing.

However, his firing was "too harsh." He'd had no disciplinary record in the 15 months before and nine months after the incident, and the OAL judge decided to impose the suspension.

The OAL sent the decision back to the CSC.

The CSC has 45 days to "adopt, reject or modify" the OAL's decision, and must do so with a quorum of three out of five commissioners. The CSC did not have enough appointed commissioners at the time, and could not get a quorum - so the OAL decision was "deemed adopted" as the final decision.

That's when the state went to the Appellate Division, and argued against the "deemed adopted" rule.

The appellate court used the OAL's evidence, but did their own "de novo" or new review, and decided the discipline handed out was a matter of law, since the commission could not get a quorum.

And the appellate court ruled that the doctrine known as "progressive discipline" should be tossed aside for Hendrickson, and he should be fired because the remark "violated the State's anti-discrimination policy and societal norms."

Not so, the Supreme Court found.

The appellate court erred in their own review of a disciplinary sanction imposed by the OAL judge and their wading into the matter was not different from a traditional appellate review of a state agency's decision.

They overstepped, and the six-month suspension from the OAL was valid, the Supreme Court said.

The high court summed it up this way: "A belittling gender insult uttered in the workplace by a state employee is a violation of New Jersey's policy against discrimination and Hendrickson's conduct was unbecoming a public employee."

The OAL, though, strongly rebuked Hendrickson's language and set the appropriate discipline after finding it amounted to, "an isolated incident and warranted a lesser penalty than the extreme sanction of termination."

"The Court cannot conclude that the (OAL's) decision is shocking to one's sense of fairness."

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.