Karupaiyan v. Experis IT
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:21-cv-04675
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 12
In Karupaiyan v. Experis IT, Judge Schofield partly granted and partly denied defendants’ dismissal motion, allowing discrimination claims to continue.
Palani Karupaiyan may continue pursuing the discrimination claims identified by the court. The defendants remain parties to those claims. The court dismissed R.P. and P.P. as plaintiffs, and dismissed Karupaiyan’s intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress, fraud, unjust-enrichment, criminal, disposal-of-evidence, loss-of-income, and other legally insufficient claims.
What happened
In Palani Karupaiyan v. Experis IT, Karupaiyan and his minor children sued after Experis IT allegedly did not hire him for New York City Department of Education projects. Karupaiyan alleged discrimination based on age, sex, disability, religion, race, color, citizenship, and national origin, along with several state-law and other claims.
The court allowed the federal discrimination claims under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, as well as the state and city human-rights claims, to continue. The court dismissed the claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, unjust enrichment, criminal violations, disposal of evidence, loss of income, and other legally insufficient claims. It also dismissed the minor children as plaintiffs because the surviving discrimination claims concern Karupaiyan, not them. The court denied permission to amend the dismissed claims.
The court held that the motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. Judge Schofield said the federal claims could not be dismissed at this stage because the complaint and submitted documents did not conclusively establish that Karupaiyan missed the 90-day deadline after receiving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission notice.
The detailed version
- Karupaiyan v. Experis IT · No. 1:21-cv-04675
- Lorna Schofield
- Sept. 15, 2022
Background
Pro se plaintiffs Palani Karupaiyan and his minor children, R.P. and P.P., sued US Inc., ManpowerGroup US Inc., Jonas Prising, and Samantha Moore. Karupaiyan alleged that Experis IT and its personnel did not hire him for New York City Department of Education software and information-technology projects because of his age, sex, disability, religion, race, color, citizenship, and national origin. The complaint also asserted state-law tort and unjust-enrichment claims and attempted to accuse the defendants of criminal conduct.
The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. The motion challenged most, but not all, of the claims.
Claims That Survived
The federal discrimination claims under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act survived the motion. The New York State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law discrimination claims also survived; the defendants’ motion did not address those claims.
The defendants argued that the federal claims were filed more than 90 days after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued its dismissal and notice of rights. The complaint alleged that Karupaiyan did not receive the notice until March 21, 2022, while the notice itself stated that it was mailed on November 29, 2018. Because those materials conflicted and could not properly resolve the factual dispute on a motion to dismiss, the court denied dismissal of the discrimination claims on timeliness grounds.
Claims Dismissed
The court dismissed the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim as untimely. The alleged injury occurred around October 2017, but the action was not commenced until May 25, 2021, beyond New York’s one-year limitations period for that claim. The court also held that filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge did not pause that state-law deadline.
The fraud claim was dismissed because the complaint did not allege that Karupaiyan relied on the alleged misrepresentations or that he was injured through such reliance. The allegations also did not satisfy the heightened pleading requirements for fraud under Rule 9(b).
The unjust-enrichment claim was dismissed because the allegations did not show that the defendants were enriched at Karupaiyan’s expense in a way that created an equitable obligation to him. The court explained that unjust enrichment is not a general substitute for an unavailable tort or other claim.
The court dismissed the attempted criminal claims because a private person cannot initiate a criminal prosecution in federal court. The claims concerning disposal of evidence and loss of income were also dismissed as non-cognizable claims. The court noted that evidence-disposal issues could potentially be raised during discovery, while loss of income appeared to describe damages rather than a separate claim.
Disposition
The motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. The court denied leave to amend the dismissed claims because it found that the defects could not be cured by better pleading. The court also dismissed R.P. and P.P. as plaintiffs because the surviving discrimination claims alleged harm to Karupaiyan, not to the children. The court stated that it would separately schedule a conference concerning the next steps in the case.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield directed the Clerk of Court to close Docket No. 38.
Read the full 12-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.