Thomas v. Five Star Electric

Background

Cazé D. Thomas filed the action while representing himself. He asserted claims against Five Star Electric and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, the New York City Human Rights Law, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which concerns whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. Five Star also moved under Rule 12(b)(1), which concerns the court’s authority to hear a claim.

The court reviewed two reports and recommendations from Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger. The first recommended granting the motions to dismiss and dismissing the complaint with prejudice. The second recommended denying Thomas’s request for a court order restraining the Department of Human Rights. Thomas objected to both recommendations and also sought Magistrate Judge Lehrburger’s recusal. The court denied the recusal request.

Claims Against Five Star Electric

The court sustained Thomas’s objection concerning the description of an allegation that a Five Star supervisor, Felix Valerio, referred to Thomas as “female.” The court nevertheless held that the allegation did not plausibly suggest that sex was a motivating factor in Thomas’s termination because the comment was not connected to the termination when considered with the other allegations.

The court also held that Thomas failed to state a Title VII hostile-work-environment claim. It treated the alleged statement as a second-hand comment and concluded that, considering all of the allegations, Thomas had not shown conduct that was objectively severe or pervasive because of sex. The court applied the same analysis to Thomas’s employment-discrimination and hostile-work-environment claims under the New York State Human Rights Law.

As to retaliation claims against Five Star under Title VII and the New York State Human Rights Law, the court held that Thomas had not alleged that he made a complaint about discriminatory employment practices. The court rejected his objection that requesting security footage after being accused of threatening another employee could support retaliation, explaining that this was not the type of complaint required for those claims.

The court did not separately analyze the city-law claims against Five Star. Instead, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, meaning jurisdiction over related state-law claims after the federal claims were dismissed, and dismissed those New York City Human Rights Law claims without prejudice.

Claims Against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority

The court held that Thomas failed to state a municipal-liability claim under Monell v. Department of Social Services. Such a claim requires an injury caused by a municipal policy, practice, or custom, rather than merely by the acts of individual employees. The court found that Thomas alleged injuries from individual employees’ acts or failures, not from a policy, practice, or custom, and did not allege facts showing that the employees’ actions represented the municipality’s deliberate choices.

The court also adopted the recommendation dismissing Thomas’s employment-discrimination claims against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority under Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law because the Authority was not Thomas’s employer. Although the first report also relied on failure to complete required administrative proceedings for the Title VII claims, the court rejected that portion of the report because it dismissed those claims on other grounds.

Disposition

Except for the specific changes described in the opinion, the court overruled Thomas’s objections, adopted the first report and recommendation, and granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss. It dismissed Thomas’s claims against Five Star under the New York City Human Rights Law without prejudice and dismissed the remainder of his claims with prejudice.

The court rejected the second report and recommendation in its entirety. Because the Department of Human Rights had already granted Thomas’s request to annul his complaint, the court denied his request for a writ of prohibition as moot. The clerk was directed to close the case.