Elias v. City of New York
- Jesse Furman
- 1:19-cv-11411
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Elias v. City of New York, Judge Furman dismissed some claims but denied dismissal of hostile-work-environment claims, allowing those claims to continue.
The ruling removed the City of New York from the case and dismissed Elias’s failure-to-promote and certain Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-related claims, while allowing her hostile-work-environment claims against New York City Health + Hospitals to continue.
What happened
Rifka Renee Elias sued New York City Health + Hospitals and the City of New York over employment discrimination. She agreed to dismiss her claims against the City and her failure-to-promote claim, and she did not oppose dismissal of claims based on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge filed around November 17, 2016.
The court dismissed those claims because Elias consented to dismissal or abandoned them by not addressing the defendants’ arguments. The court considered only her hostile-work-environment claims. The defendants argued those claims were untimely, but Elias alleged that some conduct occurred within the applicable time periods.
Judge Jesse M. Furman denied the motion to dismiss the hostile-work-environment claims. The case therefore continued against New York City Health + Hospitals on those remaining claims, and the court ordered that defendant to file an answer within three weeks.
The detailed version
- Elias v. City of New York · No. 1:19-cv-11411
- Jesse Furman
- Feb. 5, 2021
Background
Rifka Renee Elias filed employment-discrimination claims against her employer, New York City Health + Hospitals (H+H), and the City of New York. She initially proceeded without a lawyer, but counsel filed her opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
In that opposition, Elias agreed to dismiss her claims against the City of New York and her failure-to-promote claim. She also did not oppose or address the defendants’ request to dismiss claims based on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge filed on or around November 17, 2016.
Court’s analysis
The court dismissed the claims against the City, the failure-to-promote claim, and the claims based on the November 2016 charge. It explained that some claims were dismissed by consent and that claims Elias did not defend against the motion were treated as abandoned.
The remaining claims were hostile-work-environment claims. The defendants sought dismissal only because they argued the claims were filed too late; they did not argue that Elias had failed to adequately state hostile-work-environment claims. The defendants’ position was not entirely clear as to whether they sought dismissal of the claims in full or only of portions based on older conduct.
The court denied dismissal either way. Elias alleged that some conduct underlying her hostile-work-environment claims occurred within the applicable filing periods. The court also stated that it could not decide at this stage whether the continuing-violation rule applied because the facts alleged in the complaint had to be accepted as true and reasonable inferences had to be drawn in Elias’s favor.
Ruling and next steps
Judge Jesse M. Furman denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss Elias’s hostile-work-environment claims. H+H was ordered to file an answer to the remaining claims within three weeks. The court also scheduled an initial pretrial conference and directed the parties to submit a joint letter and proposed case-management plan before that conference. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 17 and terminate the City of New York as a party.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.