From McLeod v. Jewish Guild for the Blind, No. 15-2898-CV, 2017 WL 3044626 (2d Cir. July 19, 2017):
Here, had the district court considered McLeod’s handwritten factual allegations alone, it would have been required to construe McLeod as having asserted claims under the NYSHRL and NYCHRL.1 McLeod’s allegations clearly suggest claims under the NYSHRL and NYCHRL, which afford protections unavailable under federal law to discrimination plaintiffs who can “plead and prove that the alleged discriminatory conduct had an impact” within the state and city respectively.2 Hoffman v. Parade Publ’ns, 15 N.Y.3d 285, 289, 907 N.Y.S.2d 145, 933 N.E.2d 744 (2010). The NYCHRL, for example, applies a more lenient standard than Title VII to discrimination and hostile work environment claims, see Mihalik v. Credit Agricole Cheuvreux N. Am., Inc., 715 F.3d 102, 109 (2d Cir. 2013), and the NYSHRL and NYCHRL both provide less stringent statutes of limitations than those applicable under federal law, see Kassner v. 2nd Ave. Delicatessen Inc., 496 F.3d 229, 238 (2d Cir. 2007). Moreover, the NYSHRL and NYCHRL permit suits against individual supervisors, which McLeod clearly sought to bring, while Title VII does not. See Feingold v. New York, 366 F.3d 138, 157-59 (2d Cir. 2004). As a pro se litigant, McLeod could not be expected to understand such fine-grained distinctions between local, state, and federal law, and would “inadvertent[ly] forfeit[ ] … important rights,” Abbas, 480 F.3d at 639, if the district court were not required to construe her complaint to state claims under the NYSHRL and NYCHRL.
That McLeod used a form complaint provided by the district court’s pro se office and failed to check the appropriate blanks should not dictate a contrary result.4 As we have noted in analogous circumstances, “[t]he failure in a complaint to cite a statute, or to cite the correct one, in no way affects the merits of a claim.” Albert v. Carovano, 851 F.2d 561, 571 n.3 (2d Cir. 1988) (en banc). Rather, “[f]actual allegations alone are what matters.” Id. That principle carries particular force where a pro se litigant is involved.5 Accordingly, because McLeod’s factual allegations suggested claims under the NYSHRL and NYCHRL, the district court was required to construe her complaint as asserting claims under those laws, even if she failed to check the appropriate blank.