Reyes v. Westchester County Health Care Corporation

Background

Yacaira Reyes sued Westchester County Health Care Corporation, doing business as Westchester Medical Center, and supervisors Kristina Schrull-Valiente, Lisa Panton, and Tim Murphy. Reyes alleged that defendants discriminated against her based on pregnancy and national origin, subjected her to a hostile work environment, and retaliated against her. She brought nine claims: discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation under each of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.

The allegations involved changes to Reyes’s work shifts and assignments, workplace comments and treatment during pregnancy, a negative performance evaluation that allegedly caused her to lose a merit-based pay increase, required retraining after maternity leave, comments about her accent, restrictions on speaking Spanish and making personal calls, and other workplace incidents. Reyes had also pursued an arbitration proceeding concerning her shift change and filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The state agency dismissed that administrative complaint after an investigation, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a letter allowing her to sue.

Defendants’ Motion

Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which addresses the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which addresses whether a complaint adequately states a claim for relief. The court considered the arbitration award, the state agency complaint, and the state agency’s determination because those documents were referred to in or integral to the complaint, or were public records.

New York State Claims

The court dismissed Reyes’s discrimination, hostile-work-environment, and retaliation claims under the New York State Human Rights Law under Rule 12(b)(1). It applied the statute’s election-of-remedies doctrine, which generally prevents a person from pursuing the same discrimination matter in court after filing it with the state human-rights agency. The court found a substantial relationship between the allegations in Reyes’s federal complaint and her state administrative complaint. It also found that the state agency had dismissed the administrative complaint on the merits, rather than on a ground that would preserve Reyes’s right to sue in court.

New York City Claims

The court dismissed all of Reyes’s claims under the New York City Human Rights Law under Rule 12(b)(6). That law applies to discriminatory acts occurring within New York City. The court found no connection between the alleged conduct and New York City because Reyes lived in Rockland County and experienced the alleged discrimination while working at Westchester Medical Center in Westchester County. The court also identified Reyes’s failure to oppose defendants’ argument as an independent basis for dismissal.

Title VII Claims

The court first held that Reyes was not barred from pursuing her Title VII claims merely because her administrative complaint specifically referenced the Americans with Disabilities Act rather than Title VII. The complaint checked boxes for national-origin, sex, and retaliation discrimination and described pregnancy- and Dominican-origin-related allegations. The court concluded that the Title VII claims were reasonably related to the claims presented to the state agency and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The court nevertheless dismissed all three Title VII claims against Westchester Medical Center. It ruled that incidents before January 4, 2018, were untimely for the discrimination and retaliation claims because they were discrete acts and did not qualify for the continuing-violation exception. The court stated that those earlier incidents could still be considered as background and in evaluating the hostile-work-environment claim.

For the Title VII discrimination claim, the court found that the January 2018 negative performance evaluation was the only alleged action that qualified as a materially adverse employment action because it allegedly prevented Reyes from receiving a merit-based pay increase. But the court found that Reyes linked the evaluation to an arbitration decision concerning her work schedule, not to pregnancy, sex, or national origin. The other alleged actions did not plausibly show a material change in the terms or conditions of employment. The court therefore dismissed the discrimination claim.

For the hostile-work-environment claim, the court found that the alleged incidents were episodic and did not describe a workplace so permeated with harassment that it altered the terms of Reyes’s employment. The court therefore dismissed that claim without deciding defendants’ separate argument that Reyes had not connected the conduct to pregnancy.

For the retaliation claim, the court found that most of Reyes’s workplace complaints did not communicate that she was opposing discrimination prohibited by Title VII. The court also found that the National Labor Relations Board proceeding and arbitration proceeding did not plausibly put Westchester Medical Center on notice that Reyes was protesting unlawful discrimination. Reyes’s complaint to Human Resources about unspecified racist comments was the only activity the court treated as a protected activity, but Reyes did not specify when that complaint occurred or plausibly connect it to the negative performance evaluation. The court therefore dismissed the retaliation claim.

Disposition

Judge Philip M. Halpern granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. The clerk was directed to terminate the pending motion and close the case. The opinion does not state that the dismissal was with or without prejudice.