McGrath Kamrass v. Jefferies, LLC
- George Daniels
- 1:17-cv-07465
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In McGrath Kamrass v. Jefferies, LLC, Judge Daniels denied reconsideration, leaving Ohio employment-discrimination claims for a jury because a factual dispute remained.
The ruling affected Christine McGrath Kamrass’s Ohio Act sex-discrimination claims and the defendants’ effort to obtain reconsideration of the earlier summary-judgment ruling. Those claims remained unresolved for possible determination by a jury.
What happened
In McGrath Kamrass v. Jefferies, LLC, Christine McGrath Kamrass sued Jefferies, Jefferies & Company Inc., and John Laub over employment discrimination. The court had previously dismissed all of her claims except her gender-discrimination claims under federal Title VII and the Ohio Fair Employment Act.
The defendants asked the court to reconsider its decision not to grant summary judgment on the Ohio Act claims. They argued that Jefferies did not employ enough people in Ohio to qualify as an employer under that law. The court said the record contained a factual dispute because testimony indicated that Jefferies had four or more employees servicing Ohio-based clients, while the details of their work in Ohio had not been established.
Judge George B. Daniels denied the motion for reconsideration. He ruled that the defendants were trying to relitigate an issue already considered and that whether Jefferies qualified as an Ohio Act employer should be decided by a jury.
The detailed version
- McGrath Kamrass v. Jefferies, LLC · No. 1:17-cv-07465
- George Daniels
- Feb. 10, 2021
Background
Christine McGrath Kamrass brought an employment-discrimination action against Jefferies, LLC, Jefferies & Company Inc., and John Laub. The court previously granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in part and dismissed all of her claims except her gender-discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Ohio Fair Employment Act, Ohio Revised Code § 4112.01 et seq.
The defendants then moved for reconsideration of the court’s decision denying summary judgment on the Ohio Act sex-discrimination claims. Summary judgment is a ruling without a trial when the record shows that no genuine dispute about an important fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Legal standard
The court described reconsideration as an extraordinary remedy that is generally denied unless the moving party identifies controlling decisions or information the court overlooked that could reasonably change the result. Reconsideration is not a way to relitigate old issues, present new theories, or obtain a second opportunity to argue the case.
Analysis
Under the Ohio Act, an employer includes a person employing four or more people within Ohio and a person acting directly or indirectly in the employer’s interest. The defendants argued that Jefferies did not meet that definition because Christine McGrath Kamrass had been its only employee in Ohio since July 2014.
The plaintiff relied on testimony from John Laub indicating that, from 2014 to the present, Jefferies had four or more employees servicing Ohio-based clients. The defendants argued on reconsideration that the testimony distinguished between employees working from inside Ohio and employees working from outside Ohio.
The court stated that it had not overlooked the testimony or the defendants’ assertion about the plaintiff being Jefferies’ only Ohio employee. It had already recognized that whether people servicing Ohio-based clients counted as employees under the Ohio Act depended on the nature and extent of the work they performed in Ohio. The court also noted that Laub had not described that work in detail and that the defendants had not provided discovery concerning people who performed work within Ohio.
Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and drawing reasonable inferences in her favor, the court concluded that the defendants had not shown that no genuine dispute existed about whether Jefferies employed four or more people in Ohio. The court emphasized that weighing evidence and evaluating witness credibility were inappropriate at the summary-judgment stage.
Ruling
Judge George B. Daniels denied the defendants’ motion for reconsideration. The court stated that the final determination of whether Jefferies qualified as an employer under the Ohio Act was appropriately reserved for the jury. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.