Snowden v. Southerton

Background

Latoya Snowden sued Susan Southerton, County of Sullivan, and Sullivan County Adult Care Center, doing business as The Care Center at Sunset Lake. She brought claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL), alleging race discrimination and retaliation.

Snowden alleged that Southerton initially declined to hire her in 2013 after learning about her prior criminal history. Snowden later worked as a certified nurse assistant at the Care Center. She alleged that beginning in 2018, Southerton made comments about her braided hair and that, in 2019, white nurses harassed her, made derogatory remarks, and did not want to work with her. Snowden said she complained to supervisors and management, but the defendants did not move her from Unit Four or otherwise address the conduct.

Snowden also alleged that after a January 2020 incident involving several nurses, she and a Hispanic nurse were suspended while a white nurse was not. She alleged that the County and Care Center brought civil service charges against her and other Hispanic and African American nurses and that she was terminated on September 29, 2020. She filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge on April 27, 2020, checking only the box for race discrimination, and later received a notice of the right to sue.

The motion to dismiss

The defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Rule 12(b)(1) concerns subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6) concerns whether the complaint states a legally sufficient claim. The court accepted the complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion and drew reasonable inferences in Snowden’s favor.

Claims against the Care Center

The court dismissed the Care Center as a defendant. It held that, because the Care Center was an administrative arm of the County and not a separate legal entity, it did not have the capacity to be sued under New York law.

Claims against Southerton

The court dismissed Snowden’s Title VII claims against Southerton in both her individual and official capacities because individual supervisors are not personally liable under Title VII and official-capacity claims against a non-employer are duplicative of claims against the employer.

The court allowed Snowden’s NYSHRL discrimination claims against Southerton in both her individual and official capacities to proceed at this stage. Snowden plausibly alleged that Southerton was an employer under the NYSHRL because she was in charge of hiring nurses and that Southerton participated in the alleged discrimination through comments, unequal nail rules, and failure to address complaints.

Notice of claim

The court dismissed Snowden’s NYSHRL claims against the County and against Southerton in her official capacity because Snowden did not allege that she served the required notice of claim. The court rejected her argument that her EEOC charge supplied that notice. The court did not dismiss the NYSHRL claims against Southerton in her individual capacity on this ground because the defendants had not argued whether the County had to indemnify Southerton for the alleged conduct.

Title VII retaliation and timeliness

The court dismissed Snowden’s Title VII retaliation claim because she did not check the retaliation box on her EEOC charge, mention retaliation, or allege that she had engaged in protected activity in that charge. The retaliation claim therefore was not reasonably related to the charge and had not been exhausted before the EEOC.

The court held that the alleged 2013 failure to hire was not actionable as part of Snowden’s Title VII race-discrimination claim. It was a separate employment decision, and Snowden alleged that Southerton’s reason was Snowden’s criminal history rather than her race. The court nevertheless held that Snowden plausibly alleged a continuing practice of racial discrimination that included events in 2018 and 2019, allowing those allegations to support her timely Title VII discrimination claim.

Race discrimination and hostile work environment

The court allowed Snowden’s Title VII race-discrimination claim against the County and her NYSHRL race-discrimination claim against Southerton in her individual capacity to proceed. Snowden plausibly alleged adverse employment actions—her suspension and termination—and facts supporting an inference that race was a motivating factor, including different treatment of white and nonwhite employees, racial or race-related comments, harassment, and the unequal handling of the January 2020 incident.

The court also allowed Snowden’s NYSHRL hostile-work-environment claim against Southerton in her individual capacity to proceed. The court found that the alleged comments about Snowden’s hair, the “ghetto” comments, unequal nail rules, comments by white nurses, and management’s alleged inaction plausibly suggested that Snowden was treated less favorably because of her race and that Southerton condoned the conduct.

The court dismissed Snowden’s NYSHRL aiding-and-abetting claim against Southerton as duplicative. Because Snowden was already pursuing a direct NYSHRL discrimination claim based on Southerton’s own conduct, Southerton could not be liable for aiding and abetting her own discrimination.

Section 1983 claim

The court construed Snowden’s Section 1983 claim as alleging a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee. Under the municipal-liability rule commonly called Monell, a municipality may be liable when an official policy or custom causes a constitutional violation.

The court dismissed the theory that the County had a policy of failing to hire African American nurses because it rested only on the 2013 hiring allegation and was untimely. It also dismissed theories based on inadequate training and a vague alleged practice of subjecting County employees to constitutional violations because those allegations did not identify a specific, plausible policy or custom.

The court allowed the Section 1983 claim to proceed only to the extent it alleged that the County had a custom or practice of failing to supervise nurses assigned to Unit Four. Snowden alleged repeated discriminatory conduct, complaints to Southerton and other managers, and a failure to address the conduct. The court found those allegations plausibly suggested that Southerton, whom Snowden alleged was a policymaker, knew of a serious problem and failed to supervise or correct it.

Disposition

Judge Vincent L. Briccetti concluded that the motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. The Title VII race-discrimination claim against the County proceeded except as to the alleged 2013 failure to hire. The NYSHRL race-discrimination and hostile-work-environment claims against Southerton individually proceeded, as did the County’s Section 1983 claim based on failure to supervise nurses. The Care Center was dismissed as a defendant, and all other claims were dismissed. The defendants were directed to answer the amended complaint by June 5, 2023.