Glover v. Grimaldi

Background

Tamara Glover, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Carolyn Grimaldi, Mindy Jeng, other individual defendants, and the New York State Unified Court System. She alleged claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She challenged the Unified Court System’s COVID-19 vaccine policy and the denial of her request for a religious exemption. She also alleged later workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

The policy required employees to be vaccinated unless they received a medical or religious exemption. Employees seeking a religious exemption had to submit an application, an affidavit, and a personal statement, and the review committee could request additional information. Glover submitted an exemption request, but after the committee requested more information, she refused to provide the requested details. Her exemption request was denied. She later received the COVID-19 vaccine, which she alleged she did under pressure because she could not support herself without her job income.

Claims Abandoned or Decided

Glover expressly abandoned her Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Family and Medical Leave Act claims. The court evaluated the remaining claims under the standard for a motion to dismiss, which asks whether the complaint alleges enough facts to make a legal claim plausible.

First Amendment Free Exercise Claim

The court dismissed Glover’s Free Exercise claim. It held that the vaccine policy was neutral because it applied to all judges and employees of the state court system and did not single out people who refused vaccination for religious reasons. The policy was also generally applicable because it required employees seeking exemptions to complete the same application process. The court further held that the policy was rationally related to protecting employees and the public and maintaining an accessible court system.

The court gave an additional reason for dismissing the claim: Glover did not provide the additional religious information requested during the exemption process. The court concluded that her failure to follow that process prevented her from showing that the policy burdened religious employees differently from nonreligious employees or favored some religious beliefs over others. Because the claim failed on these grounds, the court did not decide the defendants’ separate arguments about liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Equal Protection Claim

The court dismissed Glover’s Equal Protection claim. She alleged that she was treated differently from Judge Jenny Rivera, another senior clerk, and other employees who were allowed to work remotely or received religious exemptions. The court held that these allegations did not provide enough information to show that the alleged comparators were similarly situated or that Glover was selectively treated because of religion, to punish her exercise of constitutional rights, or with an improper intent to harm her.

The court also noted that a “class-of-one” equal-protection theory does not apply to a public employee asserting a claim based on individualized treatment. It therefore considered only Glover’s selective-enforcement theory and dismissed that claim because the allegations were conclusory.

Title VII Claims

The court dismissed Glover’s Title VII claims against the individual defendants because Title VII does not impose liability on individual employees. It also dismissed the claims against the Unified Court System.

For failure to accommodate, the court accepted that Glover alleged a sincere religious belief conflicting with the vaccine requirement. But it held that she did not adequately inform the Unified Court System of the specific conflict between her religious practices and the vaccine policy. The court found that her initial statements were insufficient, that she refused to provide further details in response to the supplemental form, and that her later explanation in a reconsideration request did not cure her earlier failure to participate in the exemption process.

For retaliation, the court recognized that requesting a religious accommodation and filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge can be protected activity. It also found that Glover sufficiently alleged an adverse action by describing allegedly unfair and disproportionately heavy work assignments. But the court held that she did not plausibly connect those actions to protected activity. The adverse actions described in her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge occurred before that charge was filed, and her earlier accommodation request was too remote in time to support the required causal connection. The retaliation claim was therefore dismissed.

Proposed New Claims and Amendment

Glover asked to file a proposed Third Amended Complaint. The court considered whether amendment would be futile, meaning that the proposed changes still could not state a valid claim.

The court concluded that the proposed amendment did not cure the defects in the Free Exercise, Equal Protection, Title VII accommodation, or Title VII retaliation claims. It also addressed new proposed claims. The proposed Title VII hostile-work-environment claim was dismissed because Glover’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge did not give adequate notice of repeated or cumulative harassment. The proposed substantive due-process claim failed because the court held that the vaccine requirement did not violate a fundamental right. The proposed procedural-due-process claim failed because Glover did not identify a protected liberty or property interest deprived without constitutionally adequate process; in particular, she was not terminated because she received the vaccine by the deadline.

The proposed complaint also asserted discrimination and retaliation claims under the New York State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law. Because no federal claims remained, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over those state-law claims and dismissed them without prejudice.

Disposition

Judge Karas ordered that Defendants’ motions to dismiss were granted with prejudice as to all federal claims. The state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice after the court declined supplemental jurisdiction. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions and close the case.