In Davis-Garett v. Urban Outfitters, Incorporated, 17-3371-cv, 2019 WL 1510428 (2d Cir. April 8, 2019), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a district court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s age discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation claims against Urban Outfitters under, e.g., the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621–634 (“ADEA”).
As to the plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim, the court concluded
that the entirety of Garett’s ADEA claim that she was subjected to a hostile work environment—being, from the start of her employment at Anthropologie, denied the training given to younger sales associates and relegated to work almost exclusively in the fitting room, and later being assigned the most unpleasant and arduous duties and subjected to age-disparaging criticisms daily—was timely. The district court erred in ruling that it could not consider pre–February 16, 2013 events in connection with assessment of liability on the hostile work environment claim and that it could not consider such events as background for her claim of retaliation.