In Rivas v. Intern. Academy of Hope, No. 156236/2021, 2024 WL 4003749 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Aug. 30, 2024), the court held that plaintiff sufficiently alleged disability-based hostile work environment claims asserted under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
From the decision:
The second and fourth causes of action allege that defendants subjected plaintiff to a hostile work environment due to his mental health disability in violation of the NYSHRL and NYCHRL, respectively.
Plaintiff asserts that, under the totality of circumstances, defendants subjected him to a hostile work environment. Plaintiff contends, inter alia, that Massaro, Brown, Mortara, and M. Donohue colluded with iHOPE employees to champion Juhasz’s return following his initial removal for his actions toward plaintiff by P. Donohue. In so doing, plaintiff was forced to work from a different location out of humiliation, embarrassment, and mental anguish. Plaintiff also argues that Juhasz disclosed plaintiff’s private mental health information, gossiped about it, including his attempted suicide, with other employees, mocked plaintiff, and told other employees that plaintiff could not be trusted. Juhasz continued this behavior while on administrative leave. Plaintiff contends that defendants Massaro, Brown, Mortara, and M.Donohue disregarded his complaints about Juhasz and colluded with others to ensure Juhasz’s return to iHOPE.Plaintiff also argues that YAI and Carey did not make any efforts to restore civility at iHOPE. Plaintiff argues that YAI and Carey were made aware of plaintiff’s complaints regarding Juhasz and made no remedial efforts. Further, plaintiff contends that YAI and Carey are properly named as defendants because, inter alia, Carey, as CFO of YAI, conducted an audit of iHOPE’s legal and financial liabilities and status pertaining to liability issues stemming from plaintiff’s allegations against Juhasz; and Carey became a board member of iHOPE in January 2018.
NYSHRL was amended in 2019 to be more akin to the more liberal NYSCRL. Prior to the 2019 amendment, a plaintiff claiming a hostile work environment stemming from discrimination in violation of the NYSHRL was required to show that the complained-of conduct in the workplace was “severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment” (Forrest, 3 NY3d at 310 [2004] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). However, since the 2019 amendment became effective on October 11, 2019 (see L 2019, ch 160, §§ 2, 16 [b], [d]), the requisites to establishing a NYSHRL hostile work environment claim are identical to those required under the NYCHRL. The NYSHRL now states that harassment is actionable “regardless of whether such harassment would be considered severe or pervasive under precedent applied to harassment claims” (Executive Law § 296 [1] [h]). A plaintiff now needs to show that they were subjected “to inferior terms, conditions or privileges of employment because of the individual’s membership in one or more of these protected categories” (id.)
A plaintiff claiming hostile work environment under the NYCHRL need only show that they were treated less well than other employees because of the relevant characteristic (Reichman v City of New York, 179 AD3d 1115, 1118 [2d Dept 2020]). The alleged conduct must “exceed what a reasonable victim of discrimination would consider petty slights and trivial inconveniences and mere personality conflicts will not suffice to establish a hostile work environment” (id. [internal quotation marks omitted], quoting Forrest, 3 NY3d at 309 and Williams, 61 AD3d at 80).
For the NYSHRL and NYCHRL, the plaintiff must plead that the defendant had a discriminatory animus for a hostile work environment claim (Llanos v City of New York, 129 AD3d 620 [1st Dept 2015]). Failure to do so may defeat a plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim (id.).The NYSHRL and NYCHRL impose liability on individuals that aid and abet unlawful discriminatory conduct (Patrowich v Chemical Bank, 63 NY2d 541, 542 [1984]; (Doe v Bloomberg, L.P., 36 NY3d 450, 459 [2021]; see also Executive Law § 296 [6]; Administrative Code of the City of NY § 8-107 [6]). The standard for providing aiding and abetting is that the defendants participated in the alleged discriminatory conduct (Forrest, 3 NY3d at 328).
The court concluded that plaintiff sufficiently pleads facts to show that he was subjected to a hostile work environment by individual defendants, by alleging sufficient facts “to show that these defendants participated in the alleged discriminatory conduct toward him” and that “[f]urther, under the totality of the circumstances, and taking the facts alleged as true as is required when a CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss is made, plaintiff shows that Massaro, Brown, Mortara, and M. Donohue had the requisite discriminatory animus for a hostile work environment claim, given that no other reason was given for the actions they took, all of which followed plaintiff’s hospitalization and treatment for his mental health episode and his supervisor’s revelation of same at iHOPE.”