In Raghavendra v. Bollinger, 2015 NY Slip Op 03775 (App. Div. 1st Dept. May 5, 2015), the court affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to defendant. This employment discrimination case (asserted under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws) illustrates how courts evaluate so-called failure to rehire cases, for statute of limitations purposes, under those statutes.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002), the court held:
This action is time-barred. Defendants’ refusal to rehire plaintiff was communicated to him no later than June 28, 2007; the applicable limitations period started running on that date. Plaintiff’s repeated applications to be rehired could not toll, or restart, the limitations period. Defendants’ application of the non-rehire policy, [to the extent] it occur[red] within the statutory time-limits, can not form the basis of a discrete act of discrimination upon which plaintiff may proceed. Rather, the application of the non-rehire policy was a continuation of the original determination that plaintiff was not eligible for re-employment.
What is interesting is that the court did not cite any New York (First Department or otherwise) precedent for the proposition that “[p]laintiff’s repeated applications to be rehired could not toll, or restart, the limitations period.”