In Yuliano v. Cent. Park West Orthodontics P.C., No. 161370/2019, 2025 WL 1168160 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Apr. 22, 2025), the court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim asserted under the New York City Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
The City HRL must be “construed liberally to accomplish its uniquely broad and remedial purpose[ ]” (Hamburg, 155 AD3d at 81 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). As such, a complaint alleging a claim under the City HRL “need only give ‘fair notice’ of the nature of the claim and its grounds” (Vig v New York Hairspray Co., L.P., 67 AD3d 140, 145 [1st Dept 2009]; see also Kirby v Carlo’s Bakery 42nd & 8th LLC, 212 AD3d 441, 442 [1st Dept 2023] [“[a]lthough plaintiff’s first cause of action is labeled as one for ‘hostile workplace,’ Supreme Court was not bound by that designation and plaintiff has sufficiently stated a cause of action for employment discrimination under both the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws”]; cf. Melendez v New York City Tr. Auth., 204 AD3d 542, 544 [1st Dept 2022] [“[t]he complaint cannot fairly be read to include a separate hostile work environment claim based on plaintiff’s post-complaint treatment, and plaintiff cannot properly raise one in opposition to summary judgment”]). In view of these principles, the complaint nominally pleads a claim for hostile work environment under the City HRL.
A single offensive remark or comment in some circumstances may suffice to state a claim for a hostile work environment under the City HRL (see Biggan v City of New York, 192 AD3d 498, 499 [1st Dept 2021]). Here, plaintiff avers that defendants “explicitly instructed [her] to sexualize [her] appearance” and “relentlessly harassed” her for failing to do so (NYSCEF Doc No. 52, ¶¶ 8 and 11), whereas defendants repeatedly denied that these incidents ever occurred (NYSCEF Doc No. 30, ¶¶ 14 and 18; NYSCEF Doc No. 32, ¶¶ 18, 22 and 26-27). This court recognizes that defendants did not address the hostile work environment claim, of which they were not aware, in their initial moving papers (oral argument 1/9/2024 tr at 30-32) and that plaintiff did not move to amend her complaint to clarify her causes of action, despite having been afforded the opportunity to do so (id. at 34). Nevertheless, given the conflicting testimony and averments as to whether any allegedly offensive comments were even made, it would be improper to determine issues of credibility on this motion.
Accordingly, denial of defendants’ motion was warranted.