In Pinell v. Target Corp., No. 156615/2024, 2025 WL 1296296 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County May 05, 2025), the court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims of race-based public accommodation discrimination under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
The court summarized the facts, as follows:
On September 28, 2023, Plaintiffs, who are African American, were working for non-party Tomco Mechanical LLC (“Tomco”) as refrigeration technicians at a Target store at 200 Veterans Road West, Staten Island, New York (the “Store”). While on their lunch break, Plaintiffs browsed the Store for a gift for Pinell’s son’s birthday. Pinell bought his son a basketball, a hover board, and a go-cart, but later decided to return the hover board and replace it with a less expensive model so he could use the leftover funds to purchase his son a scooter. As alleged in the Complaint, the return of the hoverboard and subsequent purchases took place without issue. At the end of the day, Shell also purchased a scooter, and the two men went home.
Unknown to Plaintiffs, on September 29, 2023, Target’s loss prevention department told Tomco that Plaintiffs stole a hoverboard, and that Plaintiffs could no longer work at any Target stores. On October 1, 2023, Tomco fired Plaintiffs. Pinell alleges he reviewed his debit card statement and realized the Target cashier failed to ring up the new hoverboard during his item swap.
In finding that plaintiffs sufficiently alleged public accommodation discrimination, the court explained:
Target’s pre-answer motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ New York State and City Human Rights Laws public accommodation discrimination claims is denied. Pursuant to Executive Law § 296(2), it is unlawful for any owner, lessee, or propriety of a public accommodation to deny the “advantages, facilities, or privileges thereof” to anyone based on race. The New York City Human Rights Law similarly makes it illegal for an owner, lessee, or propriety “to refuse, withhold from, or deny to such person the full and equal enjoyment, on equal terms and conditions…. [the] advantages, services, facilities, or privileges of the place” based on race (NYC Admin. Code § 8-107[4]).
To the extent Target argues the statutes are unconstitutionally vague, that argument is without merit, as the discrimination arose while Plaintiffs were shopping on their lunch break, as members of the public. The statutes are frequently applied to prohibit discrimination against the customers entering public accommodations to purchase goods and services (see, e.g. Kouri v Eataly N.Y. LLC, 199 AD3d 416 [1st Dept 2021]).
Moreover, accepting the allegations as true, as this Court must, Plaintiffs, who are African American, allege public accommodation discrimination because they were racially profiled, accused of stealing merchandise without any questioning or investigation, and barred from ever working in any Target stores again. For purposes of a pre-answer motion to dismiss, Plaintiff is not required to prove discrimination but merely give Defendant fair notice of the discrimination alleged (Walker v Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Auth., 220 AD3d 554 [1st Dept 2023] citing Petit v Department of Educ. of City of N.Y., 177 AD3d 402, 403 [1st Dept 2019]). Here, Plaintiffs have provided the requisite fair notice to survive this pre-answer motion to dismiss (see also Kaba v Zara USA, Inc., 2023 N.Y. Slip Op. 30930[U] at *5-6 [Sup. Ct. NY Co. 2023]). Curiously, Target failed to produce the surveillance footage which may show whether Plaintiffs deliberately stole merchandise, or whether there was a “mix up” when a Target cashier failed to properly ring up Target merchandise.
Moreover, although Defendant proffers a factual non-discriminatory reason for its decision to bar Plaintiffs from working at Target, this factual argument, without the benefit of discovery, is inappropriate on a pre-answer motion to dismiss. In any event, Target’s “larceny” argument fails to negate the factual issue raised by Pinell’s alleged belief the hoverboard was paid for, and the argument it was Target’s own cashier who forgot to ring up the hoverboard. Target also fails to address the fact that Shell was barred from working at Target even though he had previously worked at Target Stores on numerous occasions without incident and it is undisputed he paid for all of his items on the date of the alleged “larceny.”
Based on this, the court concluded that “the allegations of racial discrimination stemming from Plaintiffs’ shopping experience at Target are sufficient.”