In D’Anzieri v. Harrison Global LLC et al, 21-CV-8506 (VEC), 2022 WL 17404254 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 2, 2022), the court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s discrimination and retaliation claims, asserted under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws, on the basis of those statutes’ geographic reach.
From the decision:
The NYCHRL and NYSHRL apply only to plaintiffs who “either work in or reside in the State or City.” Ware v. L-3 Vertex Aerospace, LLC, 833 F. App’x 357, 359 (2d Cir. 2020). Plaintiff alleges that she serviced, met in person with, and had work-related telephone and video conference calls with clients located or headquartered in New York City and State from a residence she co-owned in Manhattan. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 5, 44–46. Those facts are adequate to allege that Plaintiff resided and worked in New York City and State within the meaning of the NYCHRL and the NYSHRL. See McLeod v. Jewish Guild for the Blind, 864 F.3d 154, 157 n.2 (2d Cir. 2017) (accepting New York City as the plaintiff’s residence for NYCHRL and NYSHRL claims where her complaint alleged that she lived in the Bronx); Taperell v. Tegan Lighting, Inc., No. 18-CV-3343 (SJF) (ARL), 2019 WL 1118053, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 11, 2019) (finding that a plaintiff worked in New York for purposes of the NYSHRL where her pleadings did not indicate she worked anywhere else but from her home office in New York).
When a resident of New York brings a NYCHRL claim against a nonresident defendant, the discriminatory and retaliatory conduct must have had an “impact” within the city to be covered. Rinaldi v. NICE, Ltd., No. 19-CV-424 (LGS), 2021 WL 827767, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 4, 2021). “[I]t is the site of impact, not the place of origination, that determines where discriminatory acts occur.” Int’l Healthcare Exch., 470 F. Supp. 2d at 362. Because Plaintiff’s place of employment was New York City, she sufficiently felt the “impact” of Defendants’ discriminatory and retaliatory acts in New York. See id. at 362–63 (concluding that the alleged discriminatory conduct affected the plaintiff in New York City because the plaintiff was a New York City resident who worked in New York City).
To be actionable under the NYSHRL, a defendant must have “committed discriminatory acts against [the] plaintiff in New York.” Sorrentino v. Citicorp, 302 A.D.2d 240, 240 (1st Dep’t 2003). Because Plaintiff worked in New York, she has pled adequately that Defendants’ alleged discriminatory and retaliatory practices affected the conditions of her employment in New York for purposes of the NYSHRL. See Taperell, 2019 WL 1118053, at *4 (concluding that the nonresident defendant’s termination of the plaintiff affected the terms and conditions of the plaintiff’s employment under the NYSHRL because she worked in New York).
Accordingly, the court held that plaintiff was covered by those statutes, warranting denial of defendants’ motion.
The court further held that venue was proper in the Southern District of New York, since plaintiff “alleges that the conduct which gave rise to her surviving claims of sex discrimination, age discrimination, and retaliation occurred while she was working within” the district.