Williams v. New York City Housing Authority

Background

Gina Williams, proceeding without a lawyer for purposes of the motions, sued the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), Carolyn Jasper, Cesar Gonzalez, Matthew Hoffman, Rodney Davis, and Thelma Watkins. She sued the individual defendants in their personal and official capacities as NYCHA employees. Williams alleged race- and gender-based discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation under Title VII, Sections 1981, 1983, and 1985, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. She also alleged retaliation under the First Amendment through Section 1983.

Williams had worked for NYCHA since 1992 and was a Resident Buildings Superintendent. In 2016, Jasper transferred her laterally from Beach 41st to Pomonok, with no change in title, salary, or seniority. During Williams’s time at Pomonok, she received counseling memoranda and faced disciplinary proceedings concerning alleged performance problems. After a 2019 General Trial under New York Civil Service Law, NYCHA adopted a recommendation that she be demoted to Assistant Superintendent.

Williams also sent a February 2017 letter to her union president, NYCHA’s chair, and other officials. The letter complained about her counseling memorandum, staffing and resource problems, and what she described as unequal treatment of female superintendents. She later filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The defendants moved for summary judgment, and Williams sought a preliminary injunction seeking reinstatement and back pay based on new allegations that her demotion violated procedural due process.

Summary-judgment rulings

Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court reviewed the record, including Williams’s submissions, despite shortcomings in her responses to the defendants’ factual statements.

The court held that Williams’s claims under Section 1981 and Section 1985 failed as a matter of law. Section 1981 did not provide a separate private cause of action against the state actors involved, and the Section 1985 conspiracy claim was barred because Williams had not shown participants outside NYCHA or evidence of an unlawful agreement.

The court granted summary judgment on Williams’s Title VII and Section 1983 disparate-treatment claims. It concluded that the lateral transfer was either time-barred under Title VII or was not materially adverse, and that Williams lacked sufficient evidence connecting the transfer to race or gender. The court likewise found that the counseling memoranda, disciplinary hearings, training issues, leave denials, work assignments, and General Trial did not provide sufficient evidence of discriminatory treatment. It also found no basis for municipal liability against NYCHA under Section 1983 because Williams had not shown an underlying constitutional violation or a qualifying NYCHA policy or custom.

The court also granted summary judgment on the hostile-work-environment claims. It found no evidence of objectively abusive or hostile comments, ridicule, insults, threats, or other conduct severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment under the federal claims. It also found that Williams failed to meet the applicable standards under the New York State and New York City laws.

The court granted summary judgment on nearly all retaliation theories under Title VII, Section 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. It found that most challenged actions were not sufficiently adverse, lacked evidence of a causal connection to Williams’s protected activity, or were supported by legitimate performance-based reasons that Williams did not show were pretextual.

The court reached a different result concerning the outcome of the June 2017 Local Disciplinary Hearing. Williams testified that the hearing officer, Fredericka Wilson, told her that she should not have taken her February 2017 letter to NYCHA’s chair. The court held that the statement could be considered as evidence of the speaker’s state of mind and was not irrelevant or merely a stray remark. Because a jury could view it as evidence of retaliatory motive, genuine factual disputes prevented summary judgment on Williams’s retaliation claims against NYCHA based on that hearing and her complaint about gender discrimination.

The court did not extend that ruling to Williams’s race-based retaliation theory, because neither the February 2017 letter nor Wilson’s alleged remark referred to race. It also granted summary judgment to Watkins and to Jasper, Gonzalez, Hoffman, and Davis on the retaliation claims, and granted NYCHA summary judgment on Williams’s Section 1983 retaliation claim. The limited claims remaining against NYCHA were retaliation claims under Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law based on the June 2017 hearing and the alleged complaint about gender discrimination.

The court separately granted summary judgment on Williams’s First Amendment retaliation claim. It held that her February 2017 letter focused on her own workplace grievances and responsibilities as a superintendent, rather than a broader public concern. The court therefore treated the letter as employee speech, not protected citizen speech.

Preliminary injunction

The court denied Williams’s request for a preliminary injunction. The request raised new due-process allegations that were not included in the Second Amended Complaint. The court found that Williams had not shown a likelihood of success, irreparable harm, that the balance of equities favored an injunction, or that an injunction would serve the public interest.

The court noted that Williams received advance notice of the General Trial, was represented by counsel, and had an opportunity to present witnesses and evidence. It also noted that she had appealed her demotion to the New York City Civil Service Commission and was awaiting its decision. The court stated that Williams had not shown why money damages would be inadequate if she later successfully challenged the demotion.

Disposition

The court granted Watkins’s motion for summary judgment. It granted the NYCHA Defendants’ motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part. The motion was denied only as to Williams’s claims against NYCHA under Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law for retaliation based on her complaint about alleged gender discrimination and the June 2017 disciplinary-hearing decision; it was granted in all other respects. The court denied Williams’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Watkins’s cross-claims against NYCHA were unaffected.