Mellin v. Nerai LLC

Background

Nisa Mellin sued Nerai LLC individually and as executrix of the estate of her late husband, Martin Mellin. She alleged negligence and disability discrimination after a Nerai employee directed Martin to a basement restroom rather than a first-floor restroom. Martin had psoriatic arthritis and had previously undergone bilateral knee surgery. He fell while descending the stairs, injured his right knee, was hospitalized, later tested positive for COVID-19, and died from COVID-19-related complications while hospitalized.

The complaint asserted negligence, wrongful death, disability discrimination under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and disability-discrimination claims under the New York State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law. Nerai moved for summary judgment on all claims. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the evidence shows that no reasonable jury could find for the opposing party on a required issue.

Negligence

The court denied summary judgment on the negligence claim to the extent it concerned Martin’s knee injury. Under New York law, negligence requires a duty, a breach of that duty, and an injury caused by the breach. The court held that Nerai, as the restaurant owner, owed Martin a duty of reasonable care and that the evidence created factual questions about whether Martin told the employee about his ankle problems, whether he asked about another restroom, and whether it was reasonable to direct him downstairs.

The court determined that a reasonable jury could find that directing Martin downstairs caused his knee injury. The court did not find sufficient evidence that directing him downstairs proximately caused his death. The claim therefore survives only for the knee injury, not for Martin’s death.

The court dismissed the negligent-supervision and training claim as duplicative of the negligence claim. It explained that, when an employee injures someone while acting within the scope of employment, the employer’s potential responsibility for the employee’s conduct makes a separate negligent-supervision or training claim unnecessary under the New York law discussed by the court.

Wrongful Death

The court granted summary judgment on the wrongful-death claim. Nisa Mellin did not provide evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that Nerai’s conduct was a proximate cause of Martin’s death from COVID-19. The court rejected the argument that hospitalization during the COVID-19 pandemic, by itself, established that Martin’s infection and death were a foreseeable result of the fall.

The court said it could take judicial notice of the existence of the pandemic, but not of the disputed proposition that hospitals in 2020 were more dangerous places for COVID-19 exposure than other environments. Because the record contained no evidence supporting the required causal link, the wrongful-death claim could not proceed.

Disability-Discrimination Claims

The court granted summary judgment on the disability-discrimination claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.

The court dismissed the ADA claim for lack of standing and therefore lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Title III of the ADA allows private plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief, but Martin was deceased and neither he nor Nisa Mellin on his behalf had standing to seek an injunction concerning the restaurant. This ruling was based on a threshold jurisdictional issue rather than on whether the alleged conduct violated the ADA.

The court granted summary judgment on the New York State and New York City claims because the evidence and theory presented did not support disability discrimination. The record showed that Nerai had a first-floor restroom and a policy of directing people who appeared to have difficulty walking—including elderly people, pregnant people, and people using crutches or wheelchairs—to that restroom. At most, the employee failed to follow that policy. The court characterized the alleged conduct as a possible tort involving misdirection, not a supported claim that Nerai denied access, failed to accommodate a disability, or treated Martin less favorably because of his disability.

Disposition

The court stated that Nerai’s motion for summary judgment on all claims was denied in part and granted in part. The surviving claim is negligence concerning Martin’s knee injury, not his death. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at Docket 50.