Kiseleva v. Litman

Background

Alla Kiseleva sued BeautyFix Enterprises LLC doing business as BeautyFix MedSpa, BeautyFix Medical PLLC doing business as BeautyFix Medical Spa, BeautyFix Holdings LLC, Beauty FX Spa Inc., and BeautyFix employees Mark Greenspan and Adam Litman. She alleged that they discriminated against her because of her ethnicity in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. The court had previously dismissed Kiseleva’s claims against Maya Benayoun.

The remaining claims involved three alleged employment actions: classifying Kiseleva as an independent contractor, requiring her to work on Saturdays, and paying her less maternity pay than another woman who did not share her ethnic background. The opinion states that the case concerned employment discrimination, not whether the independent-contractor classification violated wage-and-hour or tax laws.

Ruling on Summary Judgment

The court applied the summary-judgment standard, under which judgment may be entered without a trial when there is no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

For the independent-contractor claim, the court held that Kiseleva failed to identify admissible evidence of a similarly situated comparator of a different ethnicity who was treated differently. The court found that the evidence she offered concerning other injectors either did not establish a relevant comparator or was inadmissible. The court also concluded that the timing of certain workers’ employment classifications did not create a material factual dispute.

For the Saturday-work claim, the court found that defendants provided evidence that there was no policy requiring injectors to work Saturdays. Kiseleva did not provide specific, admissible evidence showing that she was forced to work Saturdays. The court characterized her assertion that she lacked control over her schedule as vague, unsupported, and inconsistent with examples in her own submission showing that defendants asked rather than demanded Saturday work and sometimes allowed her not to work.

For the maternity-pay claim, defendants provided a March 15, 2021 check that designated $2,000 as the final maternity-leave payment. Kiseleva admitted receiving the check but denied receiving the maternity payment. The court found that the messages and other evidence she offered supported, rather than contradicted, defendants’ position that the payment was made. The court therefore concluded that she had not shown a genuine factual dispute.

State-Law Claims and Disposition

The court retained supplemental jurisdiction over Kiseleva’s New York State and New York City claims because substantial time and resources had already been spent on the case. It granted summary judgment on the New York State claims for the same reasons as the Section 1981 claims. It also held that Kiseleva’s New York City claims could not proceed because, even under that law’s less demanding standard, she offered no evidence that she was treated less well because of discriminatory intent or that she suffered the alleged Saturday-work and maternity-pay actions.

The court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. It dismissed Kiseleva’s lawsuit with prejudice, denied defendants’ motion in limine as moot, directed the Clerk to enter judgment for defendants, and closed the case.