In Marcus v. The City of New York, No. 152651/2022, 2023 WL 8570843 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Dec. 11, 2023), the court, inter alia, denied defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s gender-based hostile work environment claim .
From the decision:
Defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs hostile work environment claim based upon her gender is denied. To state a hostile work environment claim under the NYCHRL, plaintiff need only allege facts showing that “she has been treated less well than other employees because of her protected status or that discrimination was one of the motivating factors for the defendant’s conduct” (Chin v. New York City Hous. Auth., 106 AD3d 443, 445 [1st Dept 2013] citing Williams v NYCHA, 61 AD3d at 75-78 [2013]). She has done so here, through her allegations of sexual harassment by Lieutenant Stewart (See Domingo v Avis Budget Group, Inc., 219 AD3d 964, 966 [2d Dept 2023] [“plaintiff’s allegations of sexual harassment and improper touching could constitute ‘more than petty slights and trivial inconveniences’ ” sufficient for hostile work environment claim under NYCHRL]). While the defendants note that this claim overlaps with her gender discrimination claim, the NYCHRL “does not distinguish between sexual harassment and hostile work environment” and “contains no prohibition on conflating claims”.
The court further denied defendants’ motion as to plaintiff’s disability-based hostile work environment claim, noting that plaintiff stated a claim “through allegations that she was disabled and faced threats to survey her off of the NYPD.”