In Shkoza v. NYC Health & Hospitals Corporation, No. 20-CV-3646 (RA), 2024 WL 1116145 (S.D.N.Y. March 13, 2024), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s hostile work environment sexual harassment claim asserted under the New York City Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
[Plaintiff] Shkoza also brings an underlying claim of gender discrimination based on her alleged sexual harassment. Courts apply the same framework to discrimination claims under the NYCHRL as they do to retaliation claims. Accordingly, the plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case. If she does so, the burden shifts to the defendant to offer legitimate reasons for its actions, and if the defendant does so, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to prove that discrimination in fact played some role in the defendant’s action. A court must grant summary judgment for the defendant if the record establishes as a matter of law that discrimination played no role in the defendant’s actions.
It does so here. To establish a prima facie case of gender discrimination, a plaintiff must prove that she has been treated less well at least in part because of her gender. As described above, Lujan’s touching of Shkoza’s shoulder or shoulders is the type of the type of petty slight and trivial inconvenience” courts have found not to constitute such treatment, including—as discussed above—in the “context in which it occurred.”
[Citations and internal quotation marks omitted; cleaned up.]
Based on this, the court concluded that “even assuming Shkoza established a prima facie case, she fails to sufficiently challenge the “legitimate reasons” for NYC Health & Hospitals’ actions such that a reasonable juror could infer that discrimination played a role.”