Michael Bright-Asante v. Saks & Company INC.

Background

Michael Bright-Asante, an African-American sales associate in Saks’s women’s shoe department, sued Saks & Company, Inc. and Theo Christ, Saks’s Vice President for Human Resources. His remaining claims alleged racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and the New York City Human Rights Law, as well as constructive discharge against Saks. A claim against Local 1102 RWDSU UFCW had been stricken, and Local 1102 was later dismissed.

The claims arose from two August 29, 2014 sales to Crystal Kipp, who represented that she was Saks credit-card holder Maureen Hennessy. Saks determined that the transactions were fraudulent and reported them to law enforcement. Bright-Asante was later arrested and charged with identity theft and grand larceny. The charges were dropped on speedy-trial grounds. Saks suspended him, and the record included a January 2015 note stating that he was no longer employed. Saks later offered to reinstate him, but Bright-Asante rejected the offer.

Bright-Asante compared his treatment with that of Susan David, a white Saks sales associate who also sold merchandise to Kipp. He argued that Saks investigated and reported his transactions because of his race, while it did not treat David’s transaction the same way. The video of David’s transaction was no longer available.

Legal standard

The court considered the defendants’ motion under Rule 56, which permits summary judgment when the evidence shows that no genuine dispute over an important fact requires a trial. The court had to view disputed facts in Bright-Asante’s favor, but he still needed significant evidence from which a reasonable jury could find for him.

Section 1981 claim

Section 1981 prohibits racial discrimination that blocks the creation of a contract or impairs an existing contractual relationship. The court held that Bright-Asante did not identify a specific contract connected to the conduct challenged in his complaint. The record did not suggest that the conduct involved a contract between Bright-Asante and either Saks or Christ. The court therefore held that the claim failed on that basis. It also stated that, for the reasons discussed in its analysis of the New York City claim, Bright-Asante had not shown that race played any part in the defendants’ actions.

New York City Human Rights Law claim

The New York City Human Rights Law is interpreted broadly in favor of discrimination plaintiffs. For summary judgment purposes, Bright-Asante needed evidence from which a jury could find that Saks treated him less well, at least partly because of race. The court concluded that he did not provide such evidence.

The court accepted evidence that Bright-Asante’s transaction differed from David’s in several significant ways. Bright-Asante allowed Kipp into a private area, allowed her to access the Saks register, and appeared to use his cell phone during the transaction. The evidence regarding David’s transaction indicated that David did not take Kipp into a private area, allow her to use the register, or use her cell phone during the sale. The court found that these differences made David an improper comparison for Bright-Asante.

The court also rejected Bright-Asante’s objections to testimony about David’s transaction. It concluded that the testimony was not hearsay because it described the witness’s own observations and, in any event, could be used to show the witness’s motive and intent. The court further found no evidence of bad faith in Saks’s failure to preserve the video because Saks provided evidence that its policy was to retain videos for only a limited period, and Bright-Asante’s litigation-hold letter arrived after that period had passed.

The court held that Bright-Asante offered no evidence linking the different investigative decisions to race. The fact that about half of Saks’s associates were white, while the associates arrested in connection with the fraud scheme were minorities, was insufficient without evidence that the white associates engaged in comparable conduct. The court therefore granted summary judgment on the New York City Human Rights Law claim. The court also noted that Bright-Asante had abandoned his claims against Christ by failing to address them in his opposition papers.

Constructive-discharge claim

Constructive discharge occurs when an employer intentionally creates working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable employee would feel forced to resign, and the circumstances must support an inference of discrimination for this claim. The court had previously ruled that Bright-Asante’s allegations of an indefinite, unpaid suspension could support a constructive-discharge claim at the pleading stage.

At summary judgment, however, the court held that the evidence did not show that race played any role in the suspension or in the circumstances of the alleged constructive discharge. The court therefore granted summary judgment on this claim as well.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all claims. It denied the parties’ requests for oral argument as moot, directed the Clerk to terminate the motion, and directed the Clerk to close the case.