Zabar v. New York City Department Of Education

Background

Maya Zabar was an English teacher at the New York City Department of Education’s High School of Art and Design. She had been diagnosed with major depression and generalized anxiety disorder and testified that she had experienced severe panic attacks, hospitalizations, medication use, and therapy.

Zabar alleged that the Department of Education, Principal Manuel Urefia, and Assistant Principals Lynn Rosales and Sari Perez retaliated against her after she requested accommodations related to her mental-health conditions and complained about discrimination. She identified two accommodation requests in particular: a classroom change so that she would not be near Rosales’s office and written instructions for school-related directions. She also relied on her complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and this lawsuit as protected activity.

The alleged retaliatory actions included disciplinary letters, negative classroom evaluations, and the Department of Education’s initiation of disciplinary charges under New York Education Law § 3020-a. The defendants maintained that their actions were based on Zabar’s unprofessional conduct, attendance, and teaching performance. The record included disciplinary letters describing disputes with administrators, profanity, early departures, missed planning sessions, absences, and other alleged performance or conduct problems. Zabar admitted some of the conduct described in the letters and disputed or explained other allegations.

Zabar’s classroom evaluations became less favorable during the 2016–17 and 2017–18 school years. She challenged several evaluations through grievances, and three reports were expunged for technical or procedural reasons. An arbitration panel later denied her challenge to her overall rating for the 2017–18 school year, finding that the observation reports contained substantial evidence of her teaching performance and that the rating was not based on harassment or reasons unrelated to job performance.

The case originally included additional claims and defendants. In a May 12, 2020 order, the court dismissed all claims except the retaliation claim against the Department of Education under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the retaliation claims against Urefia, Rosales, and Perez under the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law. The court also previously ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act claims were time-barred to the extent they were based on events before May 19, 2017. After Maya Zabar’s death, the court granted Zivan Zabar’s motion to substitute as plaintiff in his capacity as administrator of her estate.

Legal standard

The defendants moved for summary judgment under Rule 56. Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. At this stage, the court must draw reasonable factual inferences for the nonmoving party, but speculation and conclusory allegations are not enough to create a triable issue.

For the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York State Human Rights Law retaliation claims, a plaintiff generally must show protected activity, the employer’s awareness of that activity, an adverse employment action, and a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse action. If the employer gives a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for its action, the plaintiff must present evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the reason was a pretext—a false explanation concealing retaliation—and that retaliation was the actual cause of the action.

The New York City Human Rights Law provides a more protective retaliation standard. Even under that standard, however, summary judgment is proper when the record establishes as a matter of law that retaliation played no role in the challenged actions.

Court’s analysis

The court did not decide whether each of Zabar’s accommodation requests or other alleged activities qualified as protected activity, or whether she had established a complete initial retaliation case. Instead, it assumed for purposes of the motion that she had established a prima facie case under all three statutes.

The court held that Zabar failed to produce evidence creating a material dispute about pretext. She relied mainly on the close timing between her requests or complaints and the disciplinary actions. The court ruled that timing alone was insufficient at the pretext stage.

The court also found no direct evidence that the defendants acted with retaliatory intent. Zabar did not recall Urefia or Rosales making comments about her anxiety or depression, and she did not recall telling Perez about her mental-health conditions. Urefia granted the classroom-change request, and Rosales’s response to the written-instructions request, although Zabar viewed it as dismissive, did not include comments about her disabilities.

The court rejected Zabar’s theory that the defendants used her mental-health conditions to provoke her and create grounds for discipline as speculation unsupported by admissible evidence. It also found that the evidence about other teachers did not show discriminatory treatment: other English-department teachers received lower ratings, and Urefia recommended disciplinary charges against two other teachers. The court noted that Urefia grouped those teachers with Zabar as employees he viewed as problematic, without evidence that his views about Zabar were based on her disabilities or protected activity.

The court further concluded that Zabar had not shown weaknesses, inconsistencies, or contradictions in the defendants’ stated reasons. She admitted much of the conduct described in the disciplinary letters, and she offered no evidence undermining the remaining allegations. Although she disagreed with the negative evaluations, the evaluations contained detailed notes supporting the ratings. The court viewed the expungements of three earlier reports as based on technical or procedural defects rather than proof that the evaluations were retaliatory or substantively false. The arbitration panel’s conclusion that the later overall rating reflected teaching performance further undermined Zabar’s pretext argument.

The court applied the same conclusion to the New York City Human Rights Law claim. It held that Zabar offered no evidence beyond timing showing that retaliation motivated the defendants’ actions, even in part.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the remaining Americans with Disabilities Act claim against the Department of Education and the remaining New York State Human Rights Law claims against Urefia, Rosales, and Perez. It also granted summary judgment on the remaining New York City Human Rights Law claim. The Clerk was directed to enter judgment, terminate the motion, and close the case.