Shankar v. Accenture LLP
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:21-cv-03045
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Shankar v. Accenture, Judge Engelmayer dismissed federal claims with prejudice, dismissed state age-and-disability claims without prejudice, and allowed amendment.
Anurag Shankar’s federal and state-law employment-discrimination claims were affected. The federal claims were dismissed with prejudice; the state-law age and disability claims were dismissed without prejudice, and Shankar was granted leave to amend his state-law claims. Accenture LLP was the defendant affected by those rulings.
What happened
Shankar v. Accenture LLP is an employment-discrimination case involving claims under federal disability, age, and employment-discrimination laws, along with state and local laws. Accenture moved to dismiss, and Shankar said he did not object to dismissing his federal claims but sought to pursue his state-law claims in state court.
A magistrate judge recommended dismissing the federal claims with prejudice, dismissing the state-law age and disability claims without prejudice, and allowing Shankar to amend his state-law claims. Neither party objected to that recommendation.
Judge Engelmayer reviewed the recommendation for clear error, found none, and adopted it in its entirety. The court dismissed Shankar’s federal-law claims with prejudice, dismissed his state-law age and disability claims without prejudice, and granted him leave to amend his state-law claims.
The detailed version
- Shankar v. Accenture LLP · No. 1:21-cv-03045
- Paul Engelmayer
- Mar. 17, 2023
Background
Anurag Shankar brought an employment-discrimination action against Accenture LLP under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and corresponding state and local laws. The case had been removed from New York State Supreme Court based on federal-question and diversity jurisdiction.
Accenture moved to dismiss all claims except certain state-law claims involving national-origin and race discrimination, to the extent those claims were not time-barred. Shankar responded that he did not object to dismissal of his federal-law claims and asked that his state-law claims be dismissed without prejudice so he could pursue them in state court. Accenture argued that any remaining state-law claims had to proceed in federal court because diversity jurisdiction existed.
Report and Recommendation
The court had referred the motion to Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang for a report and recommendation. Judge Wang recommended dismissing Shankar’s federal-law claims with prejudice, dismissing his state-law claims for age and disability discrimination without prejudice, and granting Shankar leave to amend his state-law claims.
No party filed an objection. Because there were no objections, the district court reviewed the report for clear error, meaning an obvious mistake visible from the record, rather than reconsidering the issues from the beginning.
Ruling
The court found no facial error in Judge Wang’s report and adopted it in its entirety. The court dismissed Shankar’s federal-law claims with prejudice, meaning those claims were barred from being brought again in that form. It dismissed his state-law claims of age and disability discrimination without prejudice, meaning that dismissal did not itself bar another action on those claims. The court also granted Shankar leave to amend his state-law claims.
The court stated that the parties’ failure to object waived appellate review of the report. It directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion at docket 6, and the case remained under Judge Wang’s supervision.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.