Cocca-Rau v. The Standard Life Insurance Company of New York

Background

Patricia Cocca-Rau sued Standard Insurance Company and Standard Insurance of New York after the defendants terminated her employment. She alleged four claims: religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981; and unspecified claims under the New York State Human Rights Law.

The complaint alleged that Cocca-Rau was Catholic, Caucasian, and 57 years old, and had worked for the defendant for 16 years investigating potentially fraudulent insurance claims and training other employees. She alleged that she was fired after being accused of saying bad things about Jews. She believed the stated reason for her termination was a pretext for discrimination because she was non-Jewish and had raised concerns about possible insurance fraud involving a broker and members of the Hasidic Jewish community. She did not allege that she was discriminated against because she was Catholic or Caucasian.

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. The defendants also asserted that the two named insurance entities were not separate entities and that the correct entity was Standard Life Insurance Company of New York. Cocca-Rau consented to amendment if that was correct, and the court treated the complaint as amended to add Standard Life Insurance Company of New York as a defendant.

Court’s Analysis

Title VII religious-discrimination claim. The court held that Cocca-Rau adequately alleged an adverse employment action because she alleged that she was terminated, and adequately alleged that she was qualified and belonged to a protected religious group. But the court found no facts supporting a plausible inference that her Catholic religion motivated the termination. Her theory was that she was treated adversely because she was non-Jewish, but the court stated that a reverse-discrimination claim still requires discrimination because of the plaintiff’s religion. The court found no support for a religious-discrimination claim based only on being “non-Jewish,” particularly because Cocca-Rau did not allege discrimination because she was Catholic. The court also found the claim insufficient because many of the allegations were based on her beliefs and were not accompanied by supporting facts. It dismissed the Title VII claim.

Age-discrimination claim. The court accepted that Cocca-Rau’s termination was an adverse action but found that she did not plausibly allege that age was the cause of it. Her allegation that she was replaced by younger workers on “Team Y07” did not identify whether those workers were outside the age group protected by the statute. The court found that allegation, standing alone, insufficient. It also found that her allegations that her supervisor favored younger employees and treated her unfairly were unsupported by specific examples. The court dismissed the age-discrimination claim.

Race-discrimination claim. Cocca-Rau argued that Jewish people are recognized as a distinct race and that she had stated a reverse-race-discrimination claim. The court noted that she alleged her race as Caucasian, not Jewish ancestry, and had not alleged facts showing that the defendants intended to discriminate against her because of race. The court dismissed the § 1981 claim.

New York claims. Cocca-Rau referred generally to comparable provisions of the New York State Human Rights Law but did not identify the specific state-law claims she intended to pursue. The court found that the allegations did not give the defendants fair notice of those claims. Separately, because it dismissed all federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the authority to hear related state-law claims—in any event. It dismissed the state-law claim.

The court also noted that the complaint appeared to mention a claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Because Cocca-Rau stated that she was pursuing only discrimination claims, the court construed the complaint as not asserting that contract claim.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed Cocca-Rau’s claims without prejudice. The court allowed her to file an amended complaint within 30 days of the order. If she did not do so, the action would be dismissed without further notice.