Rinaldi v. NICE Ltd

Background

Peter Rinaldi sued NICE, Ltd., NICE Systems, Inc., Actimize, Barak Eilam, Paul Mills, Christine Bonamarte, and Richard Malish. He represented himself. The defendants moved for summary judgment on claims alleging age discrimination under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law, as well as claims for unpaid incentive-based wages under the New York Labor Law.

Rinaldi worked as a Presales Consultant for Actimize and/or its parent companies. His offer letter stated that his employment was based in Hoboken, New Jersey, and he worked in that office until his discharge on November 30, 2018. Rinaldi also testified that he sometimes worked from home in New York City, but he could not recall how often he did so or whether he had arranged a regular work-from-home schedule.

Before his discharge, Rinaldi received a 2018 performance review identifying concerns about collaboration, initiative, responsiveness, and engagement. Defendants relied on several later incidents, including a dispute about office attendance, a missed or disputed one-on-one meeting, and the loss of answers to a large sales proposal. Mills told a human-resources director that these events had accelerated his decision to take action concerning Rinaldi.

At the termination meeting, Mills told Rinaldi that he was “not catching on” like Nikita Pentchoukov, who was twenty-five when hired. Rinaldi was forty-three when discharged. Rinaldi argued that this comparison and other circumstances supported an inference of age discrimination. Defendants argued that they terminated him because of poor work performance.

Rinaldi also sought incentive payments for sales activity. The 2018 Sales Incentive Plan stated that participation ended on the last day of employment and that participants could not earn incentives or bonuses after termination. Rinaldi could not identify a particular deal for which he was owed an incentive, instead referring generally to his team’s pursuit of sales quotas.

Age-discrimination claims under the ADEA and NYSHRL

The court applied the burden-shifting framework used for employment-discrimination claims. First, the employee must present an initial showing of discrimination. If that showing is made, the employer must provide a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employment action. The employee must then present evidence that the stated reason was a pretext, or cover, and that age was the decisive cause of the termination under the federal claim.

The court held that Rinaldi established a weak initial case. Mills was involved in the hiring and termination decisions, and the statement comparing Rinaldi with a younger employee was made during the termination meeting. Although the statement was not expressly about age, the court concluded that it was enough at the initial stage when viewed in Rinaldi’s favor.

The court nevertheless held that defendants provided a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason: Mills believed that Rinaldi’s work performance and engagement had become inadequate. Rinaldi did not produce enough evidence for a reasonable jury to find that this explanation was pretextual or that his age was the decisive cause of his discharge. The court rejected arguments based on differing versions of a performance review, the absence of a performance-improvement plan, and Rinaldi’s disagreement with the seriousness or accuracy of the performance concerns. Summary judgment was granted on the ADEA and NYSHRL claims.

NYCHRL claim

The court granted summary judgment on the New York City Human Rights Law claim for two independent reasons. First, the alleged discriminatory impact occurred in New Jersey, where Rinaldi worked and where the termination meeting took place. His residence in New York City was not enough, and the record did not show that he worked regularly from home in New York City.

Second, the court held that the claim would fail even if the New York City law applied. The only evidence of possible discriminatory intent was Mills’s comparison of Rinaldi with Pentchoukov, and the court held that this evidence alone would not allow a reasonable jury to conclude that discrimination played a role in the termination.

Unpaid-incentive claim

The court granted summary judgment on Rinaldi’s New York Labor Law claim. The 2018 Sales Incentive Plan provided that participation ended when employment ended and that no incentives or bonuses could be earned after termination. Rinaldi therefore could not recover incentives allegedly accruing after his discharge under that plan.

The court also held that Rinaldi had not provided enough evidence of incentives earned before termination. He did not identify a specific transaction or payment owed to him and instead described a general team sales quota. That evidence was insufficient for a reasonable jury to find that he was owed unpaid incentives.

Other claims and disposition

Defendants did not move for summary judgment on Rinaldi’s remaining retaliation claims under the New York Labor Law, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Although defendants asked the court to dismiss those claims, the court had not received a formal motion to dismiss and had not adjudicated them. The court directed defendants to file any such motion and allowed Rinaldi to respond.

Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Rinaldi’s ADEA, NYSHRL, NYCHRL, and NYLL claims. The opinion did not state that the remaining retaliation claims were dismissed.