In Bednark v. City of New York (decided April 2, 2015), a bus-related personal injury case, the Appellate Division, First Department modified a lower court’s order granting summary judgment to the the defendant City of New York to deny that motion. The facts: Plaintiff was injured when, while disembarking from the rear doors of a…
Read More “Bus Stop” Includes Sidewalk; Summary Judgment to City DeniedGenerally, the purpose New York’s “scaffold law” (New York Labor Law § 240(1)) is to protect construction workers from the pronounced risks arising from construction work site elevation differentials. A recent First Department case, Jordan v. City of New York (decided March 26, 2015), illustrates that what might seem like relatively small elevation differentials can nevertheless implicate…
Read More Force, Not Height, Is Key In a Labor Law 240(1) Construction Accident CaseWell, that didn’t take long. Barely two weeks after the March 26, 2015 East Village explosion that leveled several buildings on Second Avenue, the first (to my knowledge) lawsuit arising out of the incident has been filed. The lawsuit, captioned Bauermeister et al v. Con Edison et al (Bx. Supreme Ct. # 21868/2015E), was filed initially in…
Read More $40M East Village Explosion/Collapse LawsuitThe Southern District recently reiterated, in Bermudez v. City of New York, that a plaintiff asserting a hostile work environment claim must show, among other things, “that she found the environment offensive, and that a reasonable person also would have found the environment to be hostile or abusive.” The test, as such, has both subjective and…
Read More Court Explains Why Female NYPD Plaintiff Presented Sufficient Evidence as to the “Subjective” Prong of Her Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment ClaimIn a recent gender discrimination lawsuit captioned Consing v. NYC Health & Hospitals Corp. and Zenaida Magnaye-Banzon, EDNY 15-cv-01548 (March 25, 2015), plaintiff, a man, asserts that the defendants failed to hire him because he is male. He asserts, for example (at paragraph 19) that Magnaye-Banzon told him that the position would “not work” for him because…
Read More Anti-Male Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against NYC Health & Hospitals Corp.A federal court recently allowed plaintiff Michael Picarella, a now former HSBC senior vice president, to amend his complaint in his lawsuit against HSBC. The action, currently pending in the Southern District of New York, is captioned Picarella v. HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., 14-cv-04463. In his first amended complaint, filed 8/27/14, plaintiff alleged (among other…
Read More Fired HSBC Executive May Amend Complaint to Assert Retaliatory TerminationThe law relating to the use of social media in litigation continues to evolve. A recent decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Caputi v. Topper Realty Corp. (decided Feb. 25, 2015), provides additional insight into how judges deal with this increasingly important issue. In Caputi, a wage-and-hour case, defendants…
Read More Court Allows Partial Access to Plaintiff’s Facebook AccountA recent Second Department decision, Messana v. Long Is. R.R. Co., 2015 NY Slip Op 01787 (decided March 4, 2015) illustrates the breadth of the New York City Human Rights Law – namely, the relatively high standard that a defendant must meet to secure summary judgment dismissing a claim for disability discrimination and retaliation. In…
Read More Decision Illustrates Breadth of NYC Human Rights LawA recent Appellate Division decision, Valverde v. Great Expectations, LLC (decided March 31, 2015) is an example of a defense failure to make a prima facie showing to summary judgment in a personal injury premises liability case. The court affirmed the lower court’s denial of defendants’ motion, without considering plaintiff’s responsive papers. From the opinion: Defendants…
Read More Questions re Notice Result in Denial of Summary Judgment in Golf Path Trip/Fall CaseIn Graham v. Macy’s, Inc., SDNY 14-cv-3192 (March 23, 2015), Southern District Judge Paul Engelmayer granted defendant Macys’ motion to dismiss the pro se plaintiff’s claims of discrimination based on disability (here, arthritis and bipolar disorder) under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Although Judge Engelmayer determined that plaintiff’s complaint was deficient – citing, for example,…
Read More Disability Discrimination Roadmap