In Walls v. City of New York, No. 156492/2024, 2025 WL 697108 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Mar. 04, 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim on statute of limitations grounds.
In doing so, the court applied the “continuing violation doctrine”:
Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s claims are partially time-barred because they arise from events predating July 16, 2021. However, Plaintiff invokes the continuing violation doctrine, which applies where a plaintiff alleges an ongoing pattern of discrimination rather than isolated or discrete acts (see Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 US 101, 103 [2002]; Cornwell v. Robinson, 23 F.3d 694, 703 [2d Cir. 1994]).
The Second Circuit has consistently recognized that hostile work environment claims differ from discrete acts of discrimination because they involve repeated conduct over time, the cumulative effect of which creates an actionable claim (see Taylor v. City of New York, 207 F. Supp. 3d 293, 302 [S.D.N.Y. 2016]). In particular, the doctrine allows courts to consider conduct that occurred outside the statutory limitations period when it is part of an ongoing and systematic practice of discrimination (see Fitzgerald v. Henderson, 251 F.3d 345, 359 [2d Cir. 2001][holding that “a continuing violation may be found where specific and related instances of discrimination are permitted to continue unremedied for so long as to amount to a discriminatory policy or practice”]).
Plaintiff alleges a pattern of harassment spanning multiple years and continuing into the statutory period, with at least one act occurring within the limitations period. This aligns with prior judicial findings that so long as one act contributing to the hostile work environment claim falls within the statute of limitations, the entire scope of the claim may be considered (see Bermudez v. City of New York, 783 F. Supp. 2d 560, 582 (S.D.N.Y. 2011). Further, courts have emphasized that “determining whether an act contributes to a hostile work environment requires an analysis of whether it is part of a series of interrelated events rather than an isolated occurrence” (see Mondelo v. Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, 21-cv-2512, dkt 28, at *10 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2022).
Based on this, the court held that plaintiff “adequately pleaded a continuing violation theory, allowing her to rely on pre-limitations conduct as evidence of the hostile work environment” warranting denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss on statute of limitations grounds.