Shukla v. Deloitte Consulting LLP

Background

Ashu Shukla, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Deloitte Consulting LLP over events during his employment and following his November 2018 termination. He alleged discrimination based on disability, gender, race, and national origin; retaliation; a hostile work environment; intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress; negligent hiring, training, and supervision; and violations of various federal and state laws.

Shukla alleged that after an allergic reaction at a Deloitte event, supervisors mocked him, removed him from projects, criticized his performance, and threatened him with assignments in North Korea and Syria. He also alleged that a senior manager called him an “expendable Indian” after removing him from a project. He claimed that Deloitte later terminated him and interfered with his efforts to obtain other employment.

Motions and governing standard

Deloitte moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) to dismiss most of the claims in Shukla’s First Amended Complaint. While opposing that motion, Shukla sought leave to file a Second Amended Complaint and later submitted an addendum correcting grammatical errors. The court evaluated the motion using the rule that a complaint must contain enough factual allegations to state a claim that is plausible on its face. Because Shukla was self-represented, the court read his allegations liberally but still required plausible facts.

Discrimination claims under federal and state law

The court dismissed Shukla’s gender, race, and national-origin discrimination claims under Title VII, Section 1981, and the New York State Human Rights Law insofar as they were based on adverse employment actions. The court concluded that Shukla had not plausibly alleged that project removals, negative reviews, denied compensation increases or bonuses, or denied training materially changed his employment, apart from his termination. Although termination qualifies as an adverse employment action, the court found that Shukla had not pleaded facts creating a plausible inference that gender, race, or national origin motivated the termination.

The court also dismissed the hostile-work-environment claims under Title VII, Section 1981, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court did not decide whether the alleged conduct was sufficiently severe or pervasive because, accepting the allegations as true, Shukla had not plausibly alleged that the conduct occurred because of his gender, disability, race, or national origin.

New York City Human Rights Law claims

The New York City Human Rights Law uses a broader standard and asks whether the plaintiff was treated less well, at least partly because of a protected characteristic. The court dismissed Shukla’s gender-based claim because his allegations remained speculative. But it held that his race and national-origin claims were plausible. In particular, the alleged “expendable Indian” remark by a Deloitte senior manager, made while Shukla was being removed from a project, could support a claim that he was treated less well because of race or national origin. The court therefore denied the dismissal motion as to those claims.

Retaliation claims

The court dismissed Shukla’s retaliation claims under Title VII, Section 1981, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. Shukla alleged that he complained about disability discrimination, but he did not provide facts about when or how he made that complaint, whether Deloitte was placed on notice of discrimination, or what facts showed a retaliatory motive. His complaint about a negative performance review did not qualify as protected activity because it did not concern discrimination. His February 2018 complaint about project mismanagement likewise did not qualify as protected activity.

Emotional-distress and negligent-supervision claims

The court dismissed Shukla’s claims for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The alleged teasing, project removals, comments about his heritage, threats of termination, and allegedly false sexual-harassment accusations did not meet New York’s high threshold for extreme and outrageous conduct or, for negligent infliction of emotional distress, the additional requirements concerning physical safety or a recognized special theory.

The court also dismissed the negligent hiring, training, and supervision claims. It reasoned that Shukla alleged that Deloitte employees acted within the scope of their employment, and he did not allege that Deloitte knew or should have known that the employees had a propensity for the conduct at issue.

Federal criminal statutes and other claims

The court dismissed claims based on several federal criminal statutes because those statutes generally do not create a private right to sue. It also rejected Shukla’s claim under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Although that statute provides a private civil action in certain circumstances, Shukla alleged conduct during his employment rather than that Deloitte obtained his labor through the unlawful means covered by the statute. The court also treated duplicative New York State and New York City statutory claims as redundant of earlier claims.

Disposition

The court granted Shukla’s motion to amend and deemed the Second Amended Complaint, as corrected by the addendum, the operative pleading. It granted in part and denied in part Deloitte’s partial motion to dismiss: the motion was denied as to Shukla’s race and national-origin claims under the New York City Human Rights Law and granted as to the other challenged claims. The dismissals were without prejudice except for the claims arising under federal criminal statutes. Shukla was permitted to file another amended pleading by July 6, 2020.