NYC Human Rights Law Sexual Orientation, Gender Discrimination Claims Dismissed; “Tangential Connections” to NYC Insufficient to Confer Subject Matter Jurisdiction

In Minor v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., No. 152483/2022, 2022 WL 4552071 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Sep. 29, 2022), the court dismissed – for lack of subject matter jurisdiction – plaintiff’s claims of sexual orientation and gender discrimination asserted under the New York City Human Rights Law.

The court explained:

Even accepting the factual allegations in the complaint and in plaintiff’s affidavit in opposition to the motion as true and affording him all favorable inferences (see Schmitt v Artforum Intl. Mag., Inc., 178 AD3d 578, 583 [1st Dept 2019]; Peterson v City of New York, 120 AD3d 1328, 1329 [2d Dept 2014]), plaintiff fails to demonstrate that any allegedly discriminatory acts by defendants either occurred in New York City or impacted his employment there.2 In his complaint, plaintiff stated that he was “continuously and repeatedly subjected to harassment, beratement, and belittling” by Joyce and Iaquinta “during his tenure as a District Human Resources Manager” in the district with stores in Nassau County and Suffolk County, and that Joyce and Iaquinta created a hostile work environment (Doc No. 1 at 7). Further, in his affidavit, he only discusses how he temporarily covered for out-of-office District Human Resources Managers who oversaw stores within New York City, led training classes for new employees at such stores, and participated in company programs involving stores within that area (Doc No. 12).

Neither the complaint nor plaintiff’s affidavit indicates that the allegedly discriminatory acts occurred within New York City, nor do they describe how such acts impacted his employment there. At most, plaintiff has demonstrated that the allegedly discriminatory acts occurred in Nassau County and Suffolk County, and that his position had tangential connections to New York City which caused him to occasionally venture into the city on a temporary basis.

The court concluded that this is insufficient to permit it to exercise subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiff’s NYCHRL claims against defendants, and therefore dismissed those claims.

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