Kurtanidze v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd.

Background

David Kurtanidze sued his former employer, Mizuho Bank, Ltd. He alleged discrimination based on race, national origin, gender, familial status, caregiver status, and disability. He also alleged retaliation for seeking leave and complaining about race and national-origin discrimination. His claims arose under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL), the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL), the New York Labor Law (NYLL), and New York common law.

Kurtanidze alleged that Mizuho denied him promotion and transfer opportunities, treated non-Japanese employees less favorably, criticized his caregiving and leave requests, denied or ignored requests for disability-related accommodations, reduced or changed his work assignments, and terminated his employment on April 6, 2021. Mizuho moved to dismiss all claims except the NYSHRL and NYCHRL disability-discrimination claims, which it sought to limit based on the filing deadline.

Legal standard

The court considered the motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to make a claim legally plausible. At this stage, the court generally treated well-pleaded factual allegations as true and drew reasonable inferences for Kurtanidze, but it did not accept bare legal conclusions.

Section 1981 claims

The court narrowed Kurtanidze’s Section 1981 race-discrimination claim to his termination. It rejected the allegations concerning denied promotions, the denied transfer, assignment of administrative work, blame for coworkers’ mistakes, and exclusion from meetings as insufficient adverse employment actions or insufficiently detailed at the pleading stage. Termination was the only adequately pleaded adverse employment action for this claim.

The court nevertheless denied dismissal of the narrowed discrimination claim. It held that allegations distinguishing between Japanese and non-Japanese employees could support a race-based claim based on ethnicity, rather than merely an impermissible claim based only on national origin. The alleged comments that Kurtanidze should become “more like a Japanese employee,” along with other alleged conduct, were sufficient at this stage to support an inference of discriminatory intent.

The court dismissed Kurtanidze’s Section 1981 retaliation claim. It held that his complaint about coworkers speaking Japanese did not plausibly allege protected activity because the alleged conduct classified employees by language ability, not by race or ethnicity, and a reasonable person could not conclude on these allegations that the conduct violated antidiscrimination law.

NYSHRL and NYCHRL claims

The court denied dismissal of the NYSHRL and NYCHRL race- and national-origin discrimination claims based on the statute of limitations. It held that earlier conduct could be used as background evidence for a timely termination claim. It also declined at this stage to reject Kurtanidze’s argument that a continuing course of discrimination could make certain earlier conduct actionable, particularly because the parties had not adequately addressed the applicable standards under the amended NYSHRL.

The court denied dismissal of the NYSHRL and NYCHRL disability-discrimination claims. It also denied dismissal of the NYSHRL and NYCHRL discrimination claims based on caregiver status and gender. The allegations that managers said a man could not be the primary caregiver and that the mother should be the primary caregiver were sufficient at the pleading stage to support an inference of discrimination based on gender and caregiving.

The court dismissed the NYSHRL and NYCHRL retaliation claims based on race and national origin. As with the Section 1981 retaliation claim, the court held that Kurtanidze did not plausibly allege that he engaged in protected activity because his complaint concerned coworkers’ use of Japanese rather than conduct that reasonably appeared to violate antidiscrimination law.

The court also dismissed the NYSHRL and NYCHRL discrimination and retaliation claims based on familial status, as reflected in the order’s conclusion. The court otherwise denied the motion to dismiss the NYSHRL and NYCHRL claims, including the claims the opinion identified as involving disability, caregiver status, and gender.

FMLA claims

The court dismissed any separate FMLA discrimination claim because the FMLA provides two relevant types of claims—interference and retaliation—not a standalone discrimination claim.

The court narrowed the FMLA interference claim to leave requests denied on or after August 8, 2020. Mizuho conceded that the three-year limitations period applied for purposes of the motion. The court therefore held that requests from June 2019, December 2019, and January or February 2020 were time-barred. It allowed the claim based on Kurtanidze’s February 2021 request for breaks to manage wrist pain to proceed, reasoning that an employee need not use special words to request FMLA-protected leave.

The court narrowed the FMLA retaliation claim to adverse employment actions taken on or after August 8, 2020. The surviving alleged actions included the reduction of Kurtanidze’s work assignments in March and April 2021 and his April 2021 termination. The court held that the alleged timing of the February 2021 leave request and the later employment actions, together with managers’ comments about leave and caregiving, sufficiently supported an inference of retaliation at the pleading stage.

NYLL and contract claims

The court dismissed Kurtanidze’s NYLL claim. The opinion states that Kurtanidze did not oppose dismissal of that claim.

The court dismissed the breach-of-contract claim. Kurtanidze did not identify whether the alleged employment agreement was written or oral, when it was made, what its terms were, or which specific provisions Mizuho allegedly breached.

Disposition

Judge Engelmayer granted Mizuho’s motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. The order dismissed the Section 1981 retaliation claim; the NYSHRL and NYCHRL race- and national-origin retaliation claims; the NYSHRL and NYCHRL familial-status discrimination and retaliation claims; the NYLL claim; the separate FMLA discrimination claim; and the breach-of-contract claim. It narrowed the Section 1981 discrimination claim to termination, the FMLA interference claim to leave requests denied on or after August 8, 2020, and the FMLA retaliation claim to adverse employment actions taken on or after that date. The court otherwise denied the motion to dismiss and ordered Mizuho to answer the First Amended Complaint by March 27, 2024.