In Maynard v. Montefiore Medical Center et al, 2021 WL 396700 (S.D.N.Y. February 4, 2021), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims.
Generally, every legal claim has a statute of limitations, which (in sum) is a deadline by which a claim must be asserted. The application of the statute of limitations to so-called “hostile work environment” claims – which are often comprised of many instances of conduct over a period of time – can be tricky.
The court explains the law as follows:
Pre-limitations conduct may be actionable under a hostile work environment theory if it is “sufficiently related” to events occurring during the limitations period. McGullam v. Cedar Graphics, Inc., 609 F.3d 70, 77 (2d Cir. 2010). “Courts should make an individualized assessment of relatedness, considering whether as a matter of law that the acts before and after the limitations period were so similar in nature, frequency, and severity that they must be considered to be part and parcel of the hostile work environment.” Batista v. Waldorf Astoria, No. 13 Civ. 3226 (LGS), 2015 WL 4402590, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. July 20, 2015) (quotation marks omitted). But “sporadic, discriminatory actions, taken by different co-workers,” fail to clear that “sufficiently related” hurdle.
Applying the law, the court held:
The pre-limitations activity is not sufficiently related to the during-limitations incidents “to be part of the same alleged hostile work environment practice.” For her part, Plaintiff offers no explanation relating the untimely utterances to the timely ones. In fact, from a review of the record, the opposite seems to be true: The alleged conduct was undertaken by different co-workers with the timely and untimely events being separated by months or even years. For example, Ms. Wynter is not alleged to have made any other comments to Plaintiff, either before or during the relevant limitations periods. Likewise, although Ms. Douglas made a remark to Plaintiff during the limitations period, that statement was more than two years removed from her other alleged comment and concerned an entirely different subject. Ms. Nelson is in a similar position: Her timely comment was made years after her untimely ones. Those facts severely undermine any contention that the pre-limitations statements relate to those made during the limitations period. [Citation omitted.]
Turning to the merits, the court evaluated whether the properly-considered (timely) alleged statements were sufficient to avoid summary judgment – and concluded that they did not.