In Kelvin Hunter v. Debmar-Mercury LLC, No. 24-1229, 2025 WL 1089218 (2d Cir. April 8, 2025), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressed the issue of whether “marital status” under the NYC Human Rights Law “encompasses an employee’s marital status in relation to a particular person.”
In resolving this question, the court turned to the New York Court of Appeals Decision in McCabe v. 511 West 232nd Owners Corp., — N.Y. 3d —-, 2024 WL 5126078 (Dec. 17, 2024), which held that the term “marital status” “reflects the legal condition of being single, married, legally separated, divorced, or widowed”, “turns on whether an individual has participated or failed to participate in a marriage, and is distinct from the identity or situation of the individual’s spouse”, and refers to “whether a person is participating in a marriage, not the nature of one’s relationship with another specific person.”
This, held the Second Circuit, resolves the question here, since plaintiff “does not allege that he was fired because of his status as married, unmarried, or divorced, but, instead, because of his marital status specifically to [Wendy] Williams.”