Paredes Guevara v. A&P Restaurant Corp

Background

Jorge Paredes Guevara sued A&P Restaurant Corp., Anastasio Giannopoulos, and Peter Giannopoulos. He asserted claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for interference with protected leave rights, retaliation, and discrimination. He also asserted retaliation and discrimination claims under New York Labor Law § 215.

According to the complaint, the defendants employed Guevara as a cook and wage earner beginning around April 2021. He alleged that he regularly worked about 55 hours per week and had worked for the defendants for more than 12 months and more than 1,250 hours during the year before he needed leave. He requested permission to leave work early on October 29, 2023, because he felt sick, and requested time off on October 30 because his health had worsened. He alleged that the defendants granted time off but did not tell him about his FMLA rights. He was later diagnosed with early-stage bronchitis, told the defendants about the diagnosis on November 8, and said he intended to return on November 11. The defendants allegedly told him that a replacement had been hired and that he was terminated.

Court’s Analysis

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The court treated the complaint’s factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion, but explained that a complaint must contain enough facts to state a plausible claim.

For the FMLA interference claim, the court accepted for purposes of the motion that Guevara was an eligible employee and that the defendants qualified as employers under the FMLA. The court declined to consider payroll records offered by the defendants because those records were not attached to or incorporated into the complaint.

The court nevertheless held that the complaint did not adequately allege that Guevara had a “serious health condition,” which is required for FMLA protection. The complaint alleged that he became incapacitated on October 29, 2023, received medical attention once on November 8, and was diagnosed with early-stage bronchitis. The court stated that the complaint did not allege two or more treatments within 30 days, any reason that would excuse the lack of multiple treatments, or a continuing-treatment regimen supervised by a health-care provider. The court therefore dismissed the FMLA interference claim.

Because the court found that Guevara had not adequately alleged a serious health condition protected by the FMLA, it also dismissed his FMLA retaliation and discrimination claims. The court reasoned that, without an adequately alleged protected FMLA right, he could not state that he was retaliated against or discriminated against for exercising such a right.

The court separately dismissed the New York Labor Law § 215 retaliation and discrimination claims. Section 215 protects employees from retaliation for complaining about violations of that law, but the court found that the complaint did not allege that Guevara had made such a complaint. The court noted that he might be able to amend the complaint to add those allegations.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in its entirety. It dismissed the FMLA interference, retaliation, and discrimination claims and the New York Labor Law § 215 retaliation and discrimination claims without prejudice. The court granted Guevara leave to file an amended complaint by March 10, 2025. The court stated that if he did not file an amended complaint by that deadline, the claims dismissed without prejudice would be deemed dismissed with prejudice. If he filed an amended complaint, the defendants were directed to answer or otherwise respond by March 31, 2025.

Judge

Judge Nelson S. Roman issued and signed the Opinion & Order.