In Ortiz v. Equinox Holdings, Inc., No. 161353/2018, 2023 WL 3949469 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County June 12, 2023), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s sex-based hostile work environment under the New York City Human Rights Law.
In this case, plaintiff alleged that her co-worker (Larson) made inappropriate comments on two occasions, including a comment “insinuating plaintiff was sleeping with her supervisor to get ahead at work.”
Initially, the court explained its decision to dismiss plaintiff’s claim under the New York State Human Rights Law, based on the fact that, e.g., defendant “maintained and followed an anti-discrimination and anti-antiharassment policy” and “took immediate action by investigating plaintiff’s December 2016 complaint and subsequently issuing Larson a written disciplinary action regarding his conduct.”
However, it reached the opposite conclusion under the broader New York City Human Rights Law:
The legislative history of NYCHRL contemplates that the law be liberally and independently construed with the aim of making it the most progressive in the nation. Jordan v. Banks Advertising Inc., 11 Misc. 3d 764 (2006). Accordingly, Courts must construe the provisions of the NYCHRL “broadly in favor of discrimination plaintiffs, to the extent that such a construction is reasonably possible.” Albunio v. City of New York, 16 N.Y.3d 472 (2011); See also Bennett v. Health Management Systems, Inc. 92 A.D.3d 29 (1st Dept. 2011).
To state a hostile work environment claim under the NYCHRL, a plaintiff must simply allege facts tending to show they were subject to “unwanted gender-based conduct.” Williams v. NYCHA, 61 A.D.3d 62, 62 (1st Dept 2009). “Significantly, the NYCHRL imposes liability for harassing conduct even if that conduct does not qualify as severe or pervasive, and questions of ‘severity’ and ‘pervasiveness’ go only to the question of damages, not liability.” Tulino v. City of N.Y., No. 15-CV-7106 (JMF), 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66012, at *12-13 (S.D.N.Y. May 19, 2016).
Equinox’s main contention to dismiss plaintiff’s claims of a hostile work environment and discrimination in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law (NYC Administrative Code § 8-107 et seq., “NYCHRL”) is its claim that Larson’s comments constitute petty slights and trivial inconveniences.
To prevail on dismissal of the claims under the NYCHRL Equinox has the burden of showing based on the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in plaintiff’s favor that no reasonable jury could find defendant liable for gender-based discrimination.
A single isolated comment can be actionable under the NYCHRL. Id. at 43. See also Williams v. N.Y.C. Hous. Auth., 61 A.D.3d 62, 80 n.30 (1st Dept. 2009) (“One can easily imagine a single comment that objectifies women being made in circumstances where that comment would, for example, signal views about the role of women in the workplace and be actionable”); Hernandez v. Kaisman, 103 A.D.3d 106, 115 (1st Dept. 2012) (“comments . . . objectifying women’s bodies and exposing them to sexual ridicule, even if considered ‘isolated,’ clearly signaled that [the speaker] considered it appropriate to foster an office environment that degraded women”).In this case, the court finds that a reasonable jury could conclude that Larson’s comments were more then just a trivial inconvenience.
A reasonable jury could also conclude that Equinox did not go far enough in addressing the acknowledged comments by just giving a warning, or even that a zero-tolerance policy for such conduct should be in place.
The NYCHRL imposes vicarious liability on an employer where the employer knew of the offending employee’s unlawful discriminatory conduct and acquiesced in it or failed to take appropriate corrective action. Heron v. Medrite Testing, LLC, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75087, at *22 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 25, 2022) (quoting Baez v. Anne Fontaine USA, Inc., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1630, at *5-6 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 5, 2017)); see also N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107(13).
As noted above whether the action taken by Equinox in response to Larson’s comments was appropriate is a question of fact for the jury under the NYCHRL.
Based on this, the court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s cause of action under the NYCHRL.