Felix v. New York City Department of Education

Background

Cynthia Felix brought an employment-discrimination action against the New York City Department of Education under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She alleged disability discrimination, failure to provide a reasonable accommodation, retaliation for requesting accommodation, and a hostile work environment.

Felix had worked for the Department since 1991. The opinion states that she had asthma, congenital heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary fibrosis, hypertension, and cardiac rhythm conditions. In July 2019, the Department changed her position to instructional specialist and told her that she would work in Long Island City. Felix said that the commute would create a medical hardship and requested an office in Brooklyn.

The Department granted that request and assigned her to Court Street in Brooklyn without changing her salary, duties, or responsibilities. Felix alleged, however, that her assigned room was windowless, poorly ventilated, stuffy, lacked air conditioning and Wi-Fi, and had poor air quality. She requested a different space. The Department provided air purifiers and later offered space on the tenth floor, but Felix rejected that proposal because she believed it would make her work more difficult. In October 2021, Felix and her team were moved to a second-floor space with windows and Wi-Fi.

Felix also alleged that, after she requested an accommodation, the Department caused a security alert with her photograph to be posted at the Tweed Courthouse. She further relied on alleged investigations and letters concerning her use of the Department’s Galaxy system, her job title, and a day of leave.

Court’s Analysis

Disability discrimination

The court granted summary judgment on Felix’s disability-discrimination claim. It concluded that a reasonable jury could find that Felix had a disability under the Act because her medical conditions affected breathing and circulatory functions and caused episodes including difficulty breathing, fainting, dizziness, and asthma attacks.

The court nevertheless found that Felix had not shown an adverse employment action for most of her discrimination theories. The alleged failure to engage in the accommodation process, humiliation, photograph posting, and accusations of misconduct did not materially change the terms or conditions of her employment. Her salary, benefits, duties, and responsibilities remained the same. Assuming that the Room 411 assignment could qualify as an adverse action, the court found that the Department offered a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the assignment—keeping Felix’s team together in a room large enough for them—and that Felix had not provided sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find disability-based discrimination.

Failure to accommodate

The court denied summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate claim. It held that a reasonable jury could find that the Department failed to provide an effective accommodation by denying Felix’s request to move out of Room 411. The record, viewed in Felix’s favor, supported findings that the room had poor air quality and ventilation, no windows or Wi-Fi, and caused or worsened health problems. The court also found that Felix had proposed plausible alternatives, including other fourth-floor rooms with windows that would have allowed her to remain near the paperwork needed for her job.

The court rejected the Department’s argument that Room 411 or the proposed tenth-floor space was plainly reasonable. It also concluded that the Department had not established undue hardship on the summary-judgment record because it relied on a statement that relocation would be burdensome without addressing the relevant hardship factors. The fact that Felix was eventually moved to a more suitable space in October 2021 did not resolve the claim as a matter of law, because a jury could find that requiring her to remain in Room 411 for nearly six months showed a lack of good-faith accommodation efforts.

Retaliation

The court denied summary judgment on Felix’s retaliation claim. Requesting a reasonable accommodation is protected activity under the Act. The court found factual disputes about whether the security alert, the Room 411 conditions, and the allegations concerning the Galaxy system, Felix’s job title, and her leave were actions that could discourage a reasonable worker from requesting accommodation.

Regarding the security alert, the court found that a jury could view the photograph and red “Alert” banner as reputationally harmful and could infer a connection to Felix’s accommodation request because the alert appeared within about a week of that request. The court also found that the Department’s general knowledge of Felix’s protected activity could be sufficient even if particular employees involved in later events did not personally know about the request. It further rejected the Department’s argument that the misconduct investigation began before Felix requested accommodation because the record did not establish that timing as a matter of law.

Hostile work environment

The court denied summary judgment on Felix’s hostile-work-environment claim. It considered the alleged security alert and the allegedly unsafe or unhealthy office conditions together, rather than evaluating each event only in isolation. The court found that a reasonable jury could conclude that the conduct was severe or pervasive, humiliating, physically threatening, related to Felix’s disability, and harmful to her health and work conditions.

Disposition

The Department’s motion for summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part. The court granted the motion as to Felix’s ADA discrimination claim and denied it as to her ADA failure-to-accommodate, retaliation, and hostile-work-environment claims. The court also denied Felix’s request for oral argument as moot and directed the Clerk of Court to close the motions at Docket Nos. 52 and 73.