Doran v. The State Of New York

Background

Robert Doran, Maria Baez, Alexander Shaporov, and Bernard Linn are employees of the New York State Department of Health, Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG). They previously brought an employment-discrimination case concerning conduct from 2012 through 2015. In this consolidated action, they alleged that mostly different individual defendants retaliated against them from 2015 through 2020 for filing and litigating that earlier case.

The operative complaint asserted retaliation claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. Doran also sought injunctive relief under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and Doran and Linn asserted age-discrimination claims under New York state and city law. The motion addressed specified retaliation claims rather than all claims in the consolidated action.

Issues and analysis

The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which asks whether the complaint plausibly states a legal claim. They argued primarily that Robert Byrnes, Christopher Mulhall, Edward Michael Dressler, Sean Mahoney, and Edward Meyer lacked personal involvement in the alleged retaliation, that some conduct was not an adverse employment action, and that the complaint did not adequately allege a causal connection between the plaintiffs’ protected activity and the alleged retaliation.

The court concluded that the complaint plausibly alleged personal involvement by Byrnes, Mahoney, and Dressler in Baez’s negative performance evaluations. It also concluded that Doran and Linn plausibly alleged Mulhall’s personal involvement in the selection process for the 2019 Manager of Medicaid Investigations position. The claims against Meyer were dismissed because his participation in interviews did not plausibly show retaliatory intent or personal involvement in selecting the successful candidate.

The court held that Baez’s series of negative evaluations and certifications could qualify as an adverse employment action because, viewed together, they could discourage a reasonable employee from reporting discrimination. By contrast, Shaporov did not plausibly allege that Dressler’s and Mulhall’s refusal to help him with traffic tickets was an adverse employment action or retaliatory conduct tied to their employment responsibilities.

The court also found that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged a causal connection for retaliation claims that were not otherwise dismissed. The plaintiffs had continued pursuing the earlier case after filing it, including by opposing summary judgment, and the alleged retaliatory conduct occurred between 2017 and early 2020. The court considered those allegations and the claimed ongoing pattern of retaliation sufficient at the complaint stage.

Rulings

The court dismissed the retaliation claims based on the 180-Day Policy, except for Baez’s claim to the extent it was based on a negative performance evaluation under that policy. The complaint did not identify which individual defendants enforced the policy in a discriminatory manner and relied on conclusory allegations about how the policy was applied. The court declined to dismiss at that stage the retaliation claims concerning the 2019 Management Specialist 3 position against individual defendants other than the moving defendants, concluding that the relevance of the civil-service list and the position’s requirements required a more developed factual record.

The court’s conclusion stated that the following claims survived: Baez’s retaliation claims under section 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law against Byrnes, Mahoney, and Dressler based on negative performance evaluations; and Doran and Linn’s corresponding claims against Mulhall based on the Manager of Medicaid Investigations position. All other Doran II retaliation claims under those laws against Dressler, Byrnes, Mahoney, and Mulhall were dismissed, as were all Doran II retaliation claims against Meyer. The retaliation claims based on the 180-Day Policy were dismissed, subject to Baez’s surviving claim described above. The defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part.