Napolitano v. Teachers College, Columbia University

Background

Valentino Napolitano worked as a steamfitter for Teachers College, a graduate school of Columbia University. He alleged that, in late 2014, Assistant Vice President of Facilities Susan Joblanski said that two employees should retire and that she wanted to find a way to terminate Jerry White because she believed he was too old for the job.

Napolitano alleged that he reported Joblanski’s age-related statements about White to a union representative on June 29, 2016. Teachers College’s Human Resources Department documented the complaint and sent it to the Diversity Department. Napolitano further alleged that Joblanski threatened his employment after learning about the complaint.

According to the Second Amended Complaint, Teachers College then denied Napolitano overtime, assigned him work outside his job description, required extra time sheets, assigned unsafe or unsanitary work, accused him of insubordination, suspended him for five days in October 2017 and ten days in January 2018, and terminated him on March 19, 2018.

Napolitano first sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New York City Human Rights Law. The court dismissed his amended Title VII claim because age is not a protected category under Title VII. The court later allowed him to file a Second Amended Complaint asserting retaliation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, or ADEA. Teachers College then moved to dismiss that complaint.

Issues and arguments

Teachers College argued that the ADEA claim was time-barred because Napolitano did not assert it within 90 days after receiving his Equal Employment Opportunity Commission right-to-sue notice. It also argued that Napolitano failed to plead a legally sufficient retaliation claim because nearly two years passed between his complaint and his termination. Teachers College additionally argued that the prior proceeding before the New York State Division of Human Rights barred the federal claim.

Napolitano opposed dismissal. The court considered the factual allegations in the Second Amended Complaint as true, as required when deciding a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).

Court’s analysis

The court held that the ADEA claim was not time-barred. The ADEA generally requires a civil action to be filed within 90 days after the claimant receives a right-to-sue notice. But the court explained that this deadline can be extended through equitable tolling, a legal doctrine that can preserve a claim when a plaintiff timely pursued the matter but initially filed a defective pleading.

Napolitano received his right-to-sue notice dated July 31, 2019, and filed the original action on October 15, 2019, within the 90-day period. Although his initial pleadings asserted claims under statutes that did not properly cover his age-based allegations, they described the same underlying facts. The court concluded that Napolitano had actively pursued judicial remedies by filing a defective pleading during the statutory period, so dismissing the ADEA claim as untimely would be inequitable.

The court also held that Napolitano adequately alleged a prima facie case of ADEA retaliation. To make that showing, he had to allege that he engaged in protected activity opposing age discrimination, that Teachers College knew about it, that he suffered an adverse employment action, and that the action was connected to his complaint.

The court found that Napolitano’s complaints in June and July 2016 about alleged age discrimination were protected activities because an employee can engage in protected activity through informal complaints and need only have a good-faith, reasonable belief that the conduct violates the ADEA. The court noted that complaints about unsafe working conditions, standing alone, would not be protected ADEA activity, but it did not need to decide the legal significance of every later complaint.

The court rejected Teachers College’s argument that the alleged retaliation was too remote in time. Napolitano alleged that, beginning August 1, 2016, shortly after his July complaints, Teachers College denied him overtime that he had previously been allowed to work. The court held that losing the opportunity to earn overtime can be an adverse employment action in a retaliation case because it could discourage a reasonable worker from complaining about discrimination. The court also observed that some of the later alleged actions, considered together, could support an inference of retaliation, although it did not rule on every alleged incident.

Finally, the court held that the proceeding before the New York State Division of Human Rights did not preclude Napolitano’s federal claim.

Disposition and significance

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil denied Teachers College’s motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint. Teachers College was ordered to file an answer by February 27, 2023, and the parties were ordered to submit a joint letter and proposed case-management plan by March 13, 2023.

This was a procedural ruling on whether the complaint could proceed, not a final decision on whether Napolitano will prove retaliation or prevail on the ADEA claim.