In Wallace v. Cheng, No. 159691/2023, 2025 WL 1116760 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Apr. 10, 2025), the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims of race discrimination asserted under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
From the decision:
By decision and order dated May 12, 2022, the federal district court, Southern District of New York, dismissed plaintiff’s claims for race discrimination and hostile work environment, against the same defendants and based on the same facts at issue in this action, under the applicable federal laws, and declined to exercise supplemental over his HRL claims (Wallace v Crab House, Inc., 2022 WL 1501089 [Dist Ct, SD NY 2022]).
As to plaintiff’s race discrimination claim, the federal court found that plaintiff had failed to plead the minimal inference of discrimination necessary to assert the claim, absent evidence that the other employees who allegedly received better treatment than him due to their race were similarly-situated to him. Nor did plaintiff allege that other employees engaged in conduct comparable to the conduct for which he was terminated without also being fired by defendants (id.).
As to the hostile work environment claim, the court held that plaintiff failed to plead any acts by defendants that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive, or that led to the inference that defendants’ conduct toward him occurred because of his race, finding that there were “no allegations of racial slurs or comments directed at him and, as noted, there are also no allegations that similarly situated individuals were treated differently” (id.).
The Appellate Division, First Department, in Dedewo v CBS Corp., recently found that a federal court’s dismissal of a plaintiff’s federal race discrimination and retaliation claims barred the plaintiff’s City HRL claims (_ AD3d _ [1st Dept 2025]). There, the federal court found that the plaintiff’s race discrimination claim had to be dismissed as she failed to raise an inference of discrimination or racial animus. The Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff’s City HRL claims as the federal court’s “determinations preclude plaintiff from pursuing City HRL discrimination and retaliation claims based on the same facts because the federal court’s findings are determinative of those claims even under the City HRL’s more lenient standards.”
Accordingly, held the court, “the specific factual findings made by the federal court bar plaintiff’s State and City HRL claims, as they are based on the same facts and allegations found insufficient in the federal action.”