In Ward v. Cohen Media Publications LLC et al, Case No. 1:22-cv-06431 (JLR), 2023 WL 5353342 (S.D.N.Y. August 21, 2023), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims of sex- and religion-based discrimination.
As to her claims of sex discrimination, the court explained:
Turning first to her claims for sex discrimination, Plaintiff has pleaded that she is a member of a protected class (a woman), and that she suffered an adverse employment action (termination). Defendants primarily argue that Plaintiff has failed to allege facts from which the Court can infer that discriminatory intent motivated her termination. Plaintiff’s allegations with respect to the circumstances surrounding her termination are minimal. She alleges that she was inexplicably and unexpectedly terminated “for cause,” and that further explanation was not provided. But “an employer who discriminates is unlikely to leave a ‘smoking gun’ attesting to discriminatory intent” and therefore a “victim[ ] of discrimination [is forced] to rely on circumstantial evidence.
Plaintiff has pleaded sufficient circumstantial evidence to “support to minimal inference of discriminatory motivation.” Menaker, 935 F.3d at 30. For example, she alleges that Cohen regularly yelled at her, and treated her like a child, as compared to her male colleagues. Her Complaint alleges corroborating discussions with Cohen’s Executive Assistant Corinne Arazi, and his brother Richard Cohen, that Cohen’s treatment of Plaintiff was the result of sexism and being threatened by women in authority. She further alleges that Cohen regularly made sexist remarks about women, including about their level of attractiveness and weight. Cohen sought to ensure that only women he deemed attractive were featured in Avenue. Plaintiff alleges that Cohen required women to wear skirts and dresses, implicitly allowing men to look up women’s skirts from the glass staircase in the offices, despite her complaints. She also alleges that he favored women who were willing to cater to his preferences for more sexualized behavior, and Plaintiff was not. Women were generally not permitted to attend editorial meetings, and Cohen took advantage of Plaintiff’s responsibilities as a mother to make decisions (which he knew she opposed) at a meeting she could not attend. Indeed, Plaintiff alleges that the timing of her termination in early March 2020 on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic reflects discrimination against her for being a single mother given that, with schools expected to close, Cohen knew that Plaintiff would need to work from home to care for her children, which she alleges Cohen did not like. Plaintiff further had never been told that her performance was otherwise unsatisfactory, or that it needed to improve.
[Cleaned up.]
The court concluded that, in light of these allegations (construed in the light most favorable to plaintiff), plaintiff satisfied her burden “to plausibly allege that she was terminated with discriminatory intent because of her sex, at least at a motion to dismiss stage.”