Cano v. SEIU. Local 32BJ
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:19-cv-08810
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Cano v. SEIU, Local 32BJ, Judge Engelmayer granted Solil’s summary-judgment motion and closed Cano’s employment-discrimination case.
Jesus M. Cano and Solil Management LLC and Sol Goldman Investments, LLC; the court had previously dismissed Cano’s claims against SEIU, Local 32BJ.
What happened
In Cano v. SEIU, Local 32BJ, Jesus M. Cano, representing himself, brought employment-discrimination claims against his former employers, Solil Management LLC and Sol Goldman Investments, LLC (together, Solil), and his union. The court had previously dismissed Cano’s claims against the union and allowed claims against Solil involving a hostile work environment, retaliation, and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and/or national origin to continue.
Solil later asked the court to decide the remaining claims without a trial through summary judgment. A magistrate judge recommended granting Solil’s motion. Cano objected, but the district court found that his objections were largely general or unrelated to the recommendation and did not identify a clear error in the magistrate judge’s analysis.
Judge Engelmayer adopted the recommendation in full, granted Solil’s motion for summary judgment, directed the clerk to close the case, and directed that a copy of the order be mailed to Cano.
The detailed version
- Cano v. SEIU. Local 32BJ · No. 1:19-cv-08810
- Paul Engelmayer
- July 27, 2023
Background
Jesus M. Cano, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Solil Management LLC and Sol Goldman Investments, LLC (collectively, Solil), his former employers, and SEIU, Local 32BJ, his union. The court previously granted the union’s motion to dismiss in full. It granted Solil’s motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part, allowing Cano’s claims against Solil for hostile work environment, retaliation, and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and/or national origin to proceed. The court understood Cano to have voluntarily dismissed his claims against the individual defendants.
Solil moved for summary judgment on all remaining claims. Summary judgment is a decision entered without a trial when the court determines that the record does not present a legally sufficient dispute requiring a trial. Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker recommended granting Solil’s motion and dismissing Cano’s claims with prejudice.
Cano’s objections
Cano objected to the recommendation, but the district court found that his objections did not directly address Judge Parker’s analysis. The objections mainly concerned alleged misconduct or bias by Judge Parker, docketing issues, an initially unsigned declaration, defense counsel’s conduct, and earlier rulings in the case. The court agreed that the declaration issue had been adequately remedied and found the other arguments either unclear, irrelevant to the summary-judgment motion, or unsupported.
The court determined that Cano’s few objections directed at the recommendation were conclusory. It therefore reviewed the recommendation for clear error, meaning an obvious mistake apparent from the record, rather than conducting a new detailed review of each disputed issue. The court found no clear error in Judge Parker’s analysis.
Ruling
Judge Engelmayer accepted and adopted Judge Parker’s April 17, 2023 Report and Recommendation in its entirety and granted Solil’s motion for summary judgment. The court directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions, close the case, and mail Cano a copy of the opinion and order. Although the recommendation described dismissal with prejudice, the conclusion of this opinion states the disposition as granting Solil’s motion for summary judgment and closing the case.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.