Shkoza v. NYC Health and Hospital Corporation

Background

Ardiana Shkoza, proceeding without a lawyer, sued her former employer, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, and Jacobi Medical Center. She alleged discrimination based on race, national origin, age, and sex, along with retaliation, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.

Shkoza alleged that she was hired on March 4, 2019, for a temporary Hospital Care Investigator position assigned to Jacobi Medical Center. She claimed that supervisors changed her department and supervisors, denied her adequate training, asked about her origin and immigration-related documents, and subjected her to other conduct she viewed as harassment. She also alleged that a manager referred to female employees as his “wives,” touched and massaged her, and that she complained about the workplace. She was terminated on April 23, 2019.

Shkoza filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which issued her a notice allowing her to sue after finding that the evidence did not establish a violation of Title VII or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She then filed this action. The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim.

Discrimination claims

The court dismissed Shkoza’s age-discrimination termination claim. It found that her allegations that a supervisor asked younger coworkers about their ages did not provide enough support for an inference that age caused her termination. The court also noted that she did not allege that younger, similarly situated employees were treated more favorably.

The court dismissed her race- and national-origin-discrimination termination claim. It found that questions about where she was from, whether she had a United States passport, and whether she had a Social Security number were not enough, without additional facts, to suggest discriminatory intent. The court also found that the alleged “code words” and the misspelling of her name were too vague or implausible to support the claim, and that she did not adequately allege that people outside her protected groups were treated differently.

The court likewise dismissed her hostile-work-environment claims based on age, race, and national origin. The court concluded that her allegations did not support an inference that the alleged conduct occurred because of those characteristics.

The court dismissed her sex-based hostile-work-environment claims under Title VII and the New York State Human Rights Law. It concluded that the alleged comments and unwanted touching, viewed under those laws’ requirement that conduct be sufficiently severe or frequent, were not enough at this stage.

The court denied the motion to dismiss the sex-based hostile-work-environment claim under the New York City Human Rights Law. That law has a more permissive standard. The court held that the alleged “wives” comment about female employees, combined with the alleged unwanted touching, was enough to allow that city-law claim to proceed.

Retaliation claims

The court denied the motion to dismiss Shkoza’s retaliation claims under Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. Although her general complaints about bullying, inadequate training, and workplace problems would not by themselves have been enough to show protected activity, her opposition papers stated that she complained about national-origin discrimination and objected to what could reasonably be understood as a sexual advance.

The court held that these allegations plausibly showed protected activity, employer knowledge, termination, and a causal connection based on the short time between her complaints and her firing. The court emphasized that a retaliation claim can proceed even when the underlying discrimination claim is dismissed, because the employee need not prove that the conduct actually violated antidiscrimination law to show that she reasonably opposed it.

The court stated in a footnote that any retaliation claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was dismissed because Shkoza did not allege that she complained about age discrimination.

Jacobi Medical Center and disposition

The court ruled that Jacobi Medical Center, described as a facility within NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, was not a separately suable entity. It therefore dismissed Jacobi Medical Center from the action while allowing several claims against NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation to proceed.

The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The surviving claims were Shkoza’s New York City Human Rights Law sex-based hostile-work-environment claim and her retaliation claims under Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. The court referred the action to mediation and requested that counsel be appointed for Shkoza for the limited purpose of mediation.