In Rivera v. Target Corp., 24-CV-6965 (JPO), 2025 WL 1616863 (S.D.N.Y. June 6, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) discrimination claim, due to the failure to meet the “administrative exhaustion” requirement.
From the decision:
Rivera’s allegations before the EEOC made no reference to disability discrimination, referring exclusively to adverse treatment “based on [her] race/national origin.” But “courts have consistently found that claims of race discrimination are not reasonably related to claims of disability discrimination.” Kirkland-Hudson v. Mount Vernon City Sch. Dist., 665 F. Supp. 3d 412, 440-41 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) (collecting cases). That flows naturally from the more general principle, recognized by most courts in the Second Circuit, that “claims alleging discrimination based upon a protected classification which are different than the protected classification asserted in administrative filings are not reasonably related.” Shands v. Lakeland Cent. Sch. Dist., No. 15-CV-42260, 2017 WL 1194699, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 30, 2017) (quotation marks omitted) (collecting cases). Moreover, Rivera’s theory of disability discrimination—concerning Defendants’ alleged failure to reassign her to accommodate her anxiety—is drastically different than her theory of race discrimination—based on supposed mistreatment relative to similarly situated employees of other races. (See Compl. at 20-21.)
The court concluded, based on this, that “because Rivera did not present her disability discrimination claim to the EEOC, and the claim is not reasonably related to the allegations that she did include in her EEOC charge,” dismissal of the ADA claim for failure to exhaust was warranted.