Foster v. Dula

Background

The case was tried before a jury in October 2023. The jury found Elyse Dula liable under the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) for creating a discriminatory hostile work environment and awarded $8,800 in compensatory damages to each plaintiff. It found Dula not liable on the plaintiffs’ discrimination claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and on their retaliation claims under both § 1981 and the NYSHRL. The jury found Jan K. Snow not liable on every claim against him.

The plaintiffs were therefore successful on one state-law hostile-work-environment claim against Dula. Their lawyer had asked the court to have the jury consider punitive damages, but the court declined to give that instruction. The plaintiffs appealed that decision. The post-trial motions addressed in this order were Dula’s motion for a new trial and the plaintiffs’ lawyer’s motion for attorneys’ fees.

Dula’s Motion for a New Trial

Dula argued under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 that the verdicts were inconsistent because the jury found no liability under § 1981 but found liability under the NYSHRL. She also sought judgment in her favor under Rule 50(b), which allows a party to argue that the evidence legally could not support the jury’s verdict.

The court rejected that argument. It explained that the two laws use different standards for a race-based hostile work environment. Under § 1981, the harassment had to be severe and pervasive enough to create an intimidating, hostile, or abusive work environment and deprive the plaintiffs of equal employment-contract benefits and conditions. After a 2019 amendment, the NYSHRL does not require the conduct to be severe or pervasive. Instead, the question was whether a reasonable person in the plaintiffs’ position would have considered the conduct harassing or a hostile work environment.

Because the legal elements were different, the court held that the jury could find liability under the NYSHRL while rejecting the § 1981 claim. The court also had instructed the jury to consider each claim separately and had not required identical verdicts. The court concluded that the NYSHRL verdict rested on evidence and denied both Dula’s motion for a new trial and her request for a directed verdict.

Attorneys’ Fees and Costs

The court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to attorneys’ fees under N.Y. Executive Law § 297(10) because they prevailed on their NYSHRL claim. Only Dula was responsible for those fees; Snow was not, because the jury found him not liable on all claims.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer, Mr. Lucas, initially calculated 409 hours of his work, reduced the claimed hours to 306.8, and sought $207,080 at his customary rate of $675 per hour. He had also offered to accept $79,650 for 135 hours at $590 per hour, but that offer depended on Dula’s not contesting the amount. Dula contested the request and argued that no fee should be awarded. Snow renewed his request for attorneys’ fees, which the court denied.

The court considered the factors used to assess statutory fee awards, including the time required, the difficulty of the case, the lawyer’s rate and experience, the amount involved, the results obtained, and awards in similar cases. It found that the case was not complex or novel and that substantially fewer hours should have been needed. The court also emphasized that the plaintiffs succeeded on only one claim, received relatively small damages, and did not establish their retaliation claims or the other alleged instances of discriminatory conduct.

The court nevertheless declined to award no fees. It awarded Mr. Lucas $25,000, calculated as 55 hours at $450 per hour, and awarded $2,766.15 in costs. The order made the $25,000 fee award subject to reduction to $17,600 if, within ten days, Mr. Lucas did not either provide authority supporting the availability of punitive damages under the NYSHRL in a non-housing discrimination case or admit that punitive damages were unavailable. The court stated that the reduced amount would equal the plaintiffs’ total jury award.

Disposition

The court denied Dula’s motion for a new trial and directed-verdict request. It granted the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fee motion in the amount of $25,000, subject to the stated possible reduction, and awarded $2,766.15 in costs. It also denied Snow’s renewed request for attorneys’ fees. Judge Colleen McMahon directed the clerk to remove the fee and new-trial motions from the list of open motions.