In Schaper v. The Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center and Carol Wilson, 17-cv-01246, 2019 WL 4748303 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2019), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims 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.
As to plaintiff’s federal (Title VII) and state law claims, the court held “that a reasonable jury could find that Defendant Wilson’s conduct created a hostile work environment.” Elaborating, the court explained:
Plaintiff sufficiently alleges that Defendant Wilson’s derogatory comments toward Plaintiff and other Hispanic women, admonishments of Plaintiff speaking Spanish and practice of assigning multiple one-on-one patients at the same time created an offensive work environment for her, satisfying the subjective component of the hostile environment test. Whether a reasonable person would also find Plaintiff’s work environment to be offensive in light of the frequency, severity, nature and effects of Defendant Wilson’s conduct presents a triable issue of fact. In other words, in applying the objective portion of the hostile work environment test, reasonable minds could differ on whether Plaintiff’s work environment was abusive under both Title VII and NYSHRL.
Having reached this conclusion, the court held that plaintiff’s claim likewise survived under the comparatively-broader City Law, noting that that statute “was intended to be more protective than the state and federal counterparts.”