In Green v. NYU Langone Medical Center, 2021 WL 1910549 (SDNY May 12, 2021), the court dismissed plaintiff’s federal claims of race discrimination and retaliation (asserted under Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. 1981), and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s state and local law claims.
The court explained why plaintiff’s federal claims were subject to dismissal on statute-of-limitations grounds:
Here, Plaintiff’s employment was terminated on August 6, 2010, and the last act upon which Plaintiff bases her hostile work environment claim occurred on November 8, 2010. Accordingly, Plaintiff had until June 2, 2011, and September 4, 2011, to file a charge with the EEOC regarding her discrimination and retaliation claims and her hostile work environment claim, respectively. However, Plaintiff filed her charge with the EEOC on April 17, 2012, well beyond 300 days after both her termination and her return to the OPL. Therefore, Plaintiff’s claims under Title VII are barred by the statute of limitations and Defendant is entitled to dismissal of those claims as a matter of law.
The statute of limitations for a claim under 42 U.S.C. section 1981 is four years. Plaintiff had until November 8, 2014, to file her complaint in this Court (four years after her return to the OPL and the last specified act underlying her hostile work environment claim). However, Plaintiff filed her complaint in this matter on April 29, 2015. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s claim under section 1981 is barred by the statute of limitations and Defendant is entitled to dismissal of that claim as a matter of law. [Citations omitted.]
Having dismissed plaintiff’s federal claims, the court turned to the question of whether it should exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s non-federal claims, under 28 U.S.C.S. § 1367.
That statute provides that while a court has discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, it may decline to do so if
(1) the claim raises a novel or complex issue of State law, (2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over which the district court has original jurisdiction, (3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction, or (4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction.
In exercising such discretion, courts must consider and weigh “the values of judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity in order to decide whether to exercise jurisdiction.”
Doing so, and applying the law, the court explained:
Here, the federal claims of which the Court has original jurisdiction have all been dismissed; only issues of state and local law remain to be analyzed on the merits. The state and local laws governing Plaintiff’s claims differ, see Mihalik v. Credit Agricole Cheuvreux North American, Inc., 715 F.3d 102, 108-109 (2d Cir. 2013) (holding that the NYCHRL is no longer coextensive with its state and federal counterparts, and must be analyzed independently of the state and federal claims, which are generally analyzed under identical standards), and this Court brings no special expertise to the analysis of the “uniquely broad and remedial purposes” of the NYCHRL. Kellman v. Metro Transp. Auth., 8 F. Supp. 3d 351 390 (2d Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Accordingly, two of the statutory circumstances under which the Court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction are present: all of the federal claims of which the Court has original jurisdiction have been dismissed and the state and local law claims substantially predominate over the federal claims.
Therefore, having determined that no independent ground of jurisdiction exists, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s remaining state and local law claims.