In Satina v. NYC Human Resources Admin., the Southern District of New York held that plaintiff adequately stated claims for discrimination (unequal pay due to her gender) and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.
Plaintiff asserted that she was discriminated against on the basis of her gender because she received a lower salary than male employees who had less experience than her.
Here’s the law:
To state a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII and the NYSHRL, a plaintiff must allege that (1) she belonged to a protected class; (2) she is qualified for the position held; (3) she suffered an adverse employment action; and (4) the adverse employment action occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discriminatory intent.
The court rejected defendant’s argument that plaintiff’s “allegations concerning the higher salaries of male employees are conclusory and fail to meet the standards required for discrimination claims”, noting that at the motion to dismiss stage, plaintiff was “not required to plead specific facts to show a prima facie case of discrimination”.
In finding that plaintiff plausibly alleged unequal-pay discrimination under Title VII and the NYS Human Rights Law, the court held:
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint provides the names and job titles of the male employees whose salaries are allegedly higher than hers. She explains the internal management structure of her division of the HRA and provides descriptions of her responsibilities, asserting clear factual allegations that these male employees fall below her in seniority yet received a higher salary. Satina additionally alleges that, while male employees below her in rank received higher salaries, no female employee junior to her received a higher salary. Upon this information, one could infer discriminatory intent on the part of Defendant. … Accordingly, Satina has properly alleged each element of a prima facie discrimination claim. Satina is not required at this time to prove that males in her office make a higher salary than women, as Defendant would have it. It is instead sufficient that she has made plausible allegations that she earns a lower salary than male subordinate employees in her division because she is female.
Also, since the court upheld plaintiff’s claims under the “more stringent requirements of Title VII and the NYSHRL” it found that “these claims also meet the requirements for a discrimination claim under the NYCHRL.”
The court also held that plaintiff stated a plausible claim for retaliation, namely, that she was demoted because she complained about gender discrimination in the form of unequal pay.
In addressing the element of causation, the court pointed to plaintiff’s allegations that
In June 2012 plaintiff Satina brought the on-going discrimination to the attention of the new Deputy Commissioner Sheehan. In that month the Deputy Commissioner orally told plaintiff that she would be demoted. On October 2, 2012, the plaintiff filed her employment discrimination charge. A month and three days later, on November 5, 2012, the defendant demoted her from Deputy Director to Associate Fraud Investigator. Close temporal proximity between the plaintiffs protected action and the employer’s adverse employment action may in itself be sufficient to establish the requisite causal connection between a protected activity and retaliatory action. Here, Plaintiff’s allegations regarding the proximity in time between the protected action and the adverse employment action provide a basis by which “a jury could plausibly … infer a causal connection. … In further support of her retaliation claim, Plaintiff alleges that her demotion was made official one month and three days following the filing of her EEOC Complaint. As a result, Plaintiff has sufficiently stated a claim for retaliation based on her demotion following both her internal complaint and her EEOC charge.
Finally, the court dismissed plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim, holding that while various alleged comments “may be unpleasant … they lack the severity necessary to allege a hostile work environment, and instead appear to be mere annoyances.” Plaintiff’s allegations also “do not show that these acts occurred either because of her gender or as a result of her complaints regarding pay.”