In Koonce v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc., 2023 WL 8355926 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 1, 2023), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim of race discrimination asserted under the New York State Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
Here, plaintiff’s allegations satisfy the minimal burden necessary to state a race discrimination claim under the NYSHRL. First, plaintiff has sufficiently alleged he suffered an adverse employment action because his employment was terminated. Second, plaintiff sufficiently alleges facts giving rise to a plausible inference that racial discrimination was a motivating factor in defendant’s decision to terminate him. In particular, plaintiff alleges: (i) defendant unfairly targeted plaintiff for store policy violations based on his race because employees who were not Black were not disciplined for similar issues (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 90–91, 97); (ii) defendant recently terminated a disproportionate number of Black employees from the prepared foods department in which plaintiff worked, firing two out of four Black employees in a two-month period (id. ¶¶ 92–95); and (iii) when plaintiff complained about the alleged race-based discrimination to his superiors, he was ignored or told to “go with the flow” (id. ¶¶ 98–99, 123).
The court concluded that “these allegations, taken as true, are sufficient to support a minimal inference of race-based discriminatory motivation.”