Panchishak v. County of Rockland, New York

Background

Mycola Panchishak, proceeding without a lawyer, sued the County of Rockland and Francis McSharar. Panchishak alleged that he had worked as a correction officer at the Rockland County Jail since October 2004 and that coworkers and McSharar made insulting, harassing, and sexually offensive remarks to him over several years. He alleged that he was targeted because of his sex and Ukrainian or Slavic national origin, and that the incidents caused emotional and physical symptoms, including eczema, anxiety, headaches, and high blood pressure.

Panchishak asserted claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New York State Human Rights Law for sex- and national-origin-based discrimination and a hostile work environment. He also alleged violations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection and due-process protections under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court understood the complaint to include New York claims for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Panchishak filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in October 2020 and received a notice allowing him to sue. He filed this case on December 2, 2020.

Motion-to-dismiss standard

The defendants asked the court to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. The court accepted the complaint’s factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion, drew reasonable inferences in Panchishak’s favor, and read his self-represented complaint liberally. Even so, the complaint had to allege enough facts to make each claim plausible rather than merely possible.

Title VII and New York discrimination claims

The court explained that a hostile-work-environment claim requires conduct sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive workplace, and the conduct must occur because of a protected characteristic. The court also explained that the New York State Human Rights Law claims are analyzed under the same standard here.

The court first considered timeliness. Panchishak filed his federal discrimination charge on October 21, 2020, making December 26, 2019 the relevant 300-day cutoff for Title VII. The 2008 and 2009 incidents involving Officer Herbison were outside that period and were not sufficiently connected to the 2020 incidents involving McSharar, because they involved a different employee and occurred nearly a decade earlier. The court was willing to assume, for purposes of the motion, that McSharar’s 2014 conduct could be considered with the timely 2020 incidents because the same employee was involved.

The claims nevertheless failed. The court determined that none of the alleged conduct from 2014 through 2020 referred to sex or national-origin motives. Although the April 2014 remark was described as abhorrent and the other conduct as rude or offensive, the court held that personal hostility and offensive language, including language with sexual content, do not by themselves establish discrimination because of sex or national origin. The court therefore dismissed Panchishak’s Title VII and New York State Human Rights Law hostile-work-environment claims.

Constitutional claims under Section 1983

For the equal-protection claim, the court explained that Panchishak had to allege that he was treated differently from similarly situated people because of intentional discrimination based on an impermissible ground. Because the court found that the complaint did not plausibly allege discrimination based on a protected characteristic under the workplace-discrimination analysis, it dismissed the Fourteenth Amendment equal-protection claim as well.

Panchishak identified the Fifth Amendment for his due-process claim, but the court explained that the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause applies to the federal government. Because the defendants were a county and a county employee, the court treated the claim as arising under the Fourteenth Amendment. The claim still failed because Panchishak remained employed, did not identify a deprivation of life, liberty, or property, and did not identify what required legal process the defendants had denied him. The court dismissed the due-process claim.

The court also dismissed the claim against the County under the municipal-liability rule from Monell v. Department of Social Services. That rule requires a plaintiff to allege that a municipal policy or custom caused the constitutional injury; a county is not liable under Section 1983 merely because it employs someone who allegedly committed wrongdoing. The court found that Panchishak alleged only that the County should be responsible for McSharar’s conduct and for the Jail’s failure to stop or adequately discipline him. He did not allege facts showing a County policy or custom that caused a violation of his federal rights.

Emotional-distress claims

Under New York law, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress require extreme and outrageous conduct, a causal connection to the injury, and severe emotional distress; intentional infliction also requires intent to cause that distress. The court held that the alleged remarks—including calling Panchishak an “idiot,” saying “Fuck you Mick!,” and making the broomstick remark—were offensive but did not meet the legal standard for extreme and outrageous conduct. The court therefore dismissed both emotional-distress claims.

Disposition

Judge Kenneth M. Karas granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Because this was the first adjudication of Panchishak’s claims, the court dismissed the complaint without prejudice. The court allowed Panchishak to file an amended complaint within 30 days of the opinion and order. The amended complaint would replace, rather than supplement, the original complaint. The court stated that failure to file an amended complaint could result in dismissal of the case with prejudice.