In Gil-Frederick v. The City of New York, No. 155628/2023, 2025 WL 804677 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Mar. 13, 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s disability discrimination claims under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
From the decision:
Under the NYSHRL it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an individual or discharge such person from employment on the basis of the individual’s disability status. To state disability discrimination claim under NYSHRL, Plaintiff must set forth factual allegations sufficient to show that, upon provision of reasonable accommodations, employee could perform the essential functions of his or her job (Executive Law § 296[1][a]). Executive Law § 292 (21)(e) states:
“The term “reasonable accommodation” means actions taken which permit an employee, prospective employee or member with a disability, or a pregnancy-related condition, to perform in a reasonable manner the activities involved in the job or occupation sought or held and include, but are not limited to, provision of an accessible worksite, acquisition or modification of equipment, support services for persons with impaired hearing or vision, job restructuring and modified work schedules; provided, however, that such actions do not impose an undue hardship on the business, program or enterprise of the entity from which action is requested.”
It is well settled that an employer has a responsibility to investigate an employee’s request for an accommodation and should engage in an interactive process in arriving at a reasonable accommodation for a disabled person (Pimentel v Citibank, N.A., 29 AD3d 141 [1st Dept 2006]). The Court in Pimentel v Citibank, N.A., held that Plaintiff failed to meet her burden to engage in the interactive process by failing to specify the accommodations sought and failing to show that she could perform a particular job.
Here, the issue of whether Plaintiff suffered a disability as defined by the New York Statues (NYSHRL and NYCHRL) is not in contention. There is no question that Plaintiff was diagnosed with breast cancer and notified her employer on November 23, 2021, by submitting a Certificate of Physician or other Health Care Provider from her oncologist. The Court finds that Plaintiff’s request for telework for two weeks while she is recovering from surgery stemming from her breast cancer is a reasonable accommodation request. Plaintiff provided notice of her scheduled surgery as the reason for her specific telework accommodation request, as well as when she needed the accommodation until which was after her two-week recovery period. Plaintiff also claims that she would be able to conduct her job responsibilities remotely for the two weeks requested and even claims that she was aware of other employees in the unit who were granted teleworking privileges. Defendant does not put forth any specific evidence to prove that Plaintiff could not have performed her work duties if granted this accommodation.
Defendant also failed to engage in the interactive process by issuing blanket denials of Plaintiff’s requests sometimes only 20 minutes after she made the request. The Court hardly finds the City engaged in an interactive process by responding twice in an email thread with the Plaintiff, where once response was seeking clarification of the request, as set forth in Defendant’s argument. Accordingly, the Court finds Plaintiff stated a cause of action for disability discrimination under NYSHRL.
New York City’s Human Rights Law requires that an employer “shall make reasonable accommodation to enable a person with a disability to satisfy the essential requisites of a job” (Administrative Code, § 8-107[15][a]). Unlike the NYSHRL, the NYCHRL places the burden on an employer in a disability discrimination claim to show the unavailability of any safe and reasonable accommodation and to show that any proposed accommodation would place an undue hardship on its business (Jacobsen v New York City Health and Hosps. Corp., 22 NY3d 824, 835 [2014]). An individualized interactive process is also required by the more protective NYCHRL, and its absence represents a violation of New York City Administrative Code § 8-107(15)(a).
[Citations omitted.]
Based on this, the court held that plaintiff sufficiently alleged that defendant failed to engage in an interactive process, noting that defendant “did not put forth any argument as to the undue hardship they would have suffered, especially, given that Plaintiff ended up taking the requested time off anyway, although she did so without pay, and returned to work without issue.”