Hunt v. Bronx Lebanon Hospital
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-00054
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Hunt v. Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Judge Swain dismissed Hunt’s claims as time-barred but allowed 30 days to replead.
James Hunt’s claims against Bronx Lebanon Hospital and Local Union 1199, SEIU were dismissed as time barred, but he received 30 days to file an amended complaint.
What happened
In Hunt v. Bronx Lebanon Hospital, James Hunt, representing himself, sued Bronx Lebanon Hospital over alleged race discrimination and sued his union over its handling of his termination-related grievance and arbitration. He also suggested that the hospital breached a collective bargaining agreement.
The court concluded that Hunt’s discrimination claim was filed more than four years after his March 21, 2017 firing. It also concluded that his collective-bargaining and union-representation claims were filed more than six months after the alleged breaches, even using the later date Hunt proposed.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, while giving Hunt 30 days to file an amended complaint. The court also denied his ability to appeal without paying the filing fee, finding that any appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Hunt v. Bronx Lebanon Hospital · No. 1:22-cv-00054
- Laura Swain
- May 16, 2022
Background
James Hunt brought this action without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and the New York State and City Human Rights Laws, alleging that Bronx Lebanon Hospital discriminated against him because of his race. He also asserted claims against Local Union 1199, SEIU, under the Labor Management Relations Act arising from the union’s handling of proceedings after his termination. The court understood Hunt’s allegations to include a claim against Bronx Lebanon for breaching a collective bargaining agreement and a claim against the union for failing to fairly represent him.
Hunt’s complaint stated that he was fired on March 21,
- He filed this action on January 4,
- After the court directed him to explain why the claims should not be dismissed as untimely, Hunt submitted a declaration stating that he did not learn of his termination until early 2019 and that the union did not send him a termination notice until December 30,
- The attached union letter stated that Hunt had known since early 2019 that an arbitrator had upheld his termination.
The Court’s Analysis
Section 1981 claim. The court held that Hunt’s Section 1981 claim was subject to a four-year limitations period. Because the complaint stated that he was fired on March 21, 2017, and he based the discrimination claim on that firing, the court treated March 21, 2017, as the date the limitations period began. The four-year period expired on March 21, 2021, before Hunt filed suit. The court therefore dismissed the Section 1981 claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), which requires dismissal of a case filed without the filing fee when it fails to state a claim for relief.
Collective-bargaining and union-representation claims. The court applied a six-month limitations period to Hunt’s claims concerning the collective bargaining agreement and the union’s duty of fair representation. It found that the December 30, 2019, letter did not establish that Hunt first learned of his termination on that date; instead, it referred to his knowledge in early 2019 of the arbitrator’s decision upholding the termination. The court further stated that even if the claims had accrued in late December 2019, Hunt still had only six months to sue. It dismissed these claims for failure to state a claim for relief.
Leave to Amend and Disposition
The court concluded that the claims were time barred and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Because Hunt was representing himself and the timeline in the complaint might not capture more recent events, the court granted him 30 days to file an amended complaint. The court stated that any amended complaint must, at a minimum, provide the dates of his termination, his grievance challenging the termination, and the arbitrator’s decision upholding the termination.
The court certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Hunt the ability to appeal without paying the filing fee. The opinion does not state that the dismissal itself was with or without prejudice.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.