In David v. The City of New York, No. 156939/2023, 2024 WL 3070011 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County June 20, 2024), the court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s failure-to-accommodate disability claim asserted under the New York City Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
Here, Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that, as a uniformed officer of the NYPD, it was unlawful for the City to subject her to an invasive psychological examination following her return from a disability accommodation. This accommodation was entirely unrelated to her mental state. Plaintiff further contends that the City retaliated against her for receiving this accommodation and sought to discourage her from requesting future accommodations. Thus, although Plaintiff was eventually granted an accommodation following an initial denial, she alleges that she was subsequently assigned a full slate of work far exceeding what was appropriate for her accommodated status. Then, as punishment, she had to endure an invasive psychological examination following her return from a disability accommodation. Consequently, Plaintiff adequately pleads that the City’s purported accommodation was, in effect, no accommodation at all and was discriminatory in nature.
Notably, no justification has been provided for subjecting Plaintiff to a psychological examination. Plaintiff asserts that the examination was intended to convey a clear message: she should refrain from seeking future accommodations. This assertion is supported by the timing of the examination and the way Plaintiff alleges that she was “tricked” into attending it. Furthermore, Plaintiff alleges that she was routinely assigned tasks far exceeding normal expectations and was denied assistance, a request typically granted to officers without accommodations. Thus, under the applicable standard, Plaintiff has sufficiently pleaded a “disadvantageous” action to support her claims of discrimination and retaliation.
In addition, the court is unpersuaded by the City’s suggestion that Plaintiff was not engaged in a protected activity as the protected activity here encompasses not only the request for accommodation but also the actual utilization of the accommodation. According to Plaintiff, the City under false pretenses sent Plaintiff to a psychological evaluation within two weeks of her accommodation period ending.
Similarly, Plaintiff adequately alleges a retaliatory animus by highlighting how the City coerced her into appearing for the psychological examination. Specifically, Plaintiff claims she was misled into believing she was attending a “training” session rather than a psychological examination. Plaintiff also states that she was ordered to this false “training session” shortly after returning from her disability accommodation. This sequence of events draws a direct line from her accommodation to the psychological examination. The combination of the City’s purported actions, the timing of the examination, and the lack of any other evidence justifying such an examination satisfies the requirement for direct evidence of a retaliatory action in violation of the NYCHRL. The same conduct also evinces a hostile work environment when the allegations are read in a light most favorable to Plaintiff. Indeed, Plaintiff sufficiently asserts that the City subjected her to a heightened and inferior caseload as a result of her request for an accommodation based on her disability.
Additionally, Plaintiff’s pleadings establish a causal connection based solely on temporal proximity, with the protected activity and the retaliatory action occurring within one month of each other.
Based on this, the court held that “when construing the Plaintiff’s complaint in the light most favorable to her, the court finds that the Plaintiff has pleaded sufficient facts to survive the City’s motion to dismiss” and therefore denied the City’s motion to dismiss.