In a lawsuit filed on December 30, 2015 in New York Supreme Court (Figueroa v. Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden et al., Index # 163141/2015), plaintiff Carlos Figueroa, a chauffeur and office clerk employed by the Sweden’s New York Mission to the United Nations, asserts various claims, including for personal injuries (sustained while assembling an Ikea wardrobe) and discrimination based on his national origin (Puerto Rican) and in retaliation for taking required medical leave.
He alleges, for example, that he was a victim of national origin discrimination in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law in that he was “excluded from Mission staff meetings, excluded … from conversations with other mission employees who elected to discuss matters in his presence and relating to him in Swedish, and treated in a disparate and discriminatory manner that included, but was not limited to, being singled out on the basis of his national origin as a thief, lazy and a person associated with loud drunks and pot smokers.”