In Kay v. Banchik, No. 654454/2023, 2025 WL 1707867 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County June 17, 2025), the court, inter alia, held that plaintiff failed to state age and gender discrimination claims under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
From the decision:
Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s remaining allegations for failure to state a claim is granted. When reviewing a pre-answer motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the Court must give Plaintiff the benefit of all favorable inferences which may be drawn from the pleadings and determine only whether the alleged facts fit within any cognizable legal theory (Sassi v Mobile Life Support Services, Inc., 37 NY3d 236, 239 [2021]. However, conclusory allegations or claims consisting of bare legal conclusions with no factual specificity are insufficient to survive a motion to dismiss (Godfrey v Spano, 13 NY3d 358, 373 [2009] Barnes v Hodge, 118 AD3d 633, 633-634 [1st Dept 2014]). A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim will be granted if the factual allegations do not allow for an enforceable right of recovery (Connaughton v Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., 29 NY3d 137, 142 [2017]).
Although both the New York State and City Human Rights laws protect caregivers and pregnant persons from discrimination, there is no protected class for “childless” adults, which Plaintiff claims served as the basis for her discrimination. To the extent Plaintiff alleges that she disagreed with the devaluation of shares to allow younger employees to purchase equity, this dispute amounts to a shareholder dispute and not employment discrimination. Indeed, Plaintiff is litigating against the Defendants based on the alleged devaluation of her shares in arbitration and in this Court (see Kay v Banchik et al., Index No. 650380/2024).
To the extent Plaintiff alleges gender discrimination based on the one alleged instance where male equity partners were given an opportunity to purchase more shares when she was not, this single instance, which is devoid of any facts giving rise to an inference of discrimination aside from the parties differing protected characteristics, is insufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss (Biggan v City of New York, 192 AD3d 498, 499 [1st Dept 2021] [isolated incident which served as basis for alleged discrimination claim insufficient]; Askin v Department of Educ. of City of N.Y., 110 AD3d 621, 622 [1st Dept 2013] [conclusory allegations insufficient to support element of discriminatory animus]). Indeed, the Complaint fails to allege with factual specificity a causal link between Plaintiff’s age and gender and the complained of discrimination, or that others outside of her class were treated better because of discriminatory animus (Thomas v Mintz, 182 AD3d 490, 491 [1st Dept 2020]; Wolfe-Santos v NYS Gaming Commission, 188 AD2d 622, 622 [1st Dept 2020]).
Based on this, the court held, dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint was warranted.