In Cuellar v. Christie’s Inc., No. 155077/2023, 2025 WL 2429617 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Aug. 21, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s discrimination claims asserted under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
The court summarized, and applied, the law as follows:
A cause of action for employment discrimination under the NYCHRL is set forth, prima facie, on a showing that (1) the plaintiff is a member of a protected class, (2) the plaintiff was qualified to hold the position, (3) the plaintiff was terminated from employment or suffered another adverse employment action, and (4) the discharge or other adverse action occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination. The plaintiff’s burden of proof in a discrimination case is to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he was treated worse than other employees because of a protected characteristic.
It is undisputed that the first three elements are met here, and thus the only issue is whether plaintiff’s termination or other adverse action(s) occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination. To satisfy this element, a plaintiff must plead facts sufficient to support such an inference beyond conclusory allegations of bias. Allegations of discriminatory comments by an employer may suffice or of disparate treatment of similarly-situated employees
Here, plaintiff’s complaint contains no allegations of discriminatory comments related to plaintiff’s protected characteristics (cf Krebaum v Cap. One, N.A., 138 AD3d 528 [1st Dept 2016] [five months before termination, plaintiff’s manager made repeated negative comments about plaintiff’s age, and he was replaced by 25-year-old]). To the extent that plaintiff alleges that the use of the term “lazy” to describe him was racially-coded language about Latinos or non-whites, the word itself is neutral and plaintiff provides no context for finding that the word was used in a racially-derogatory way (see e.g., See Thelwell v. City of New York, 2015 WL 4545881, at *10 [SD NY 2015] [under state and city HRLs, few instances of defendants’ purported use of the words “angry” and “abrasive” did not rise to the level of racial code words such as “boy” or “thug;” no contextual evidence that the terms “angry” or “aggressive” were racially charged, and plaintiff’s subjective interpretation of critical but facially nondiscriminatory terms did not “itself” reveal discriminatory animus]; Humphries v. City Univ. of New York, 2013 WL 6196561, at *9 [SD NY 2013] [on motion to dismiss, use of words “aggressive, agitated, angry, belligerent, disruptive, hands on hip, hostile, threatening,” which allegedly invoked stereotype of “angry black woman,” did not support claim of racial discrimination as not accompanied by other “concrete factual allegations”]; Nolley v. Swiss Reinsurance Am. Corp., 857 F Supp 2d 441 [SD NY 2012] [rejecting argument that description of plaintiff as “aggressive” was racially coded language in context in which it was used; word “aggressive” is racially neutral and supervisors described plaintiff as aggressive in context of recounting plaintiff’s tone and behavior during vehement conversations and when describing complaints from others whom actually used term “aggressive”]).
Nor does the complaint contain any non-conclusory allegations that a specific similarly-situated individual or individuals were treated better than plaintiff because of a protected characteristic. Most of plaintiff’s allegations are conclusory and unsupported by any facts or dates.; other than describing some other employees as “younger,” plaintiff provides no details from which it may be inferred that they were similarly-situated to him. Nor does he allege that they were under 40 years of age, which is the age at which the age-related anti-discrimination provisions of the NYSHRL and NYCHRL apply (see Askin, 110 AD3d at 622 [while plaintiff asserted that defendants’ actions were motivated by age-related bias, she made no concrete factual allegations to support claim, and allegations amounted to “mere legal conclusions”]; Pelepelin v City of New York, 189 AD3d 450 [1st Dept 2020] [plaintiff’s bare allegations that younger coworkers did not receive disadvantageous assignments did not support inference of age-related bias]).
(Cleaned up.)
Based on this, the court held that plaintiff failed to plead a claim of discrimination under the NYSHRL and NYCHRL.