In Garcia v. The City of New York, No. 151552/22, 2023 WL 5531753 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Aug. 28, 2023), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s race-based discrimination claim asserted under the New York City Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
The conduct alleged in the Proposed Amended Complaint does not reflect a workplace “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult,” that was so “severe or pervasive” as to alter the conditions of plaintiff’s employment.
Under NYCHRL, a plaintiff need not show “severe and pervasive,” but only that he/she experienced differential or unequal treatment on account of a protected characteristic. Plaintiff must allege that he was treated less well than other employees because of his race.
The NYCHRL does not differentiate between discrimination and hostile work environment claims; rather both are governed by Administrative Code § 8-107 (1) (a). Both are analyzed under the same standard. There is no separate “hostile work environment” claim under the NYCHRL.
Plaintiff offers the same evidence to support both his disparate treatment claim and his hostile work environment claim. Plaintiff alleges that because of his race he was consistently assigned to details on which he could not earn activity points and was denied promotion and overtime. He has thus alleged that he was less well treated than others and that this conduct towards him created a hostile environment.
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The court concluded that “[t]he statement that he was lazy connects the treatment to his race” and, therefore, that plaintiff’s NYCHRL hostile work environment claim survives defendant’s motion to dismiss.