In Farmer v. Mizuho Securities USA LLC, No. 151348/2024, 2025 WL 1786172 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County June 25, 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s allegations of retaliation under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
From the decision:
Plaintiff alleged that in early December 2020 and late January 2021, she complained to her supervisor about perceived discriminatory conduct against her (NYSCEF Doc No 6 ¶¶ 80-84, 92, 16 [telling her supervisor that it was “unfair” that she did not “get risk limits comparable to others (all men)”; that there was a “sexist attitude towards” her that she was “just an angry woman”; “that she was still working with fewer resources than her [male] peers”; and that managing director of fixed income Traci Creange—who had “made gender-based disparaging remarks and engaged in gossip about Farmer’s wardrobe and appearance, thereby undermining her professional credibility”—“increased her attacks” on plaintiff]); plaintiff “significantly outperformed the rest of her group in January and February 2021”; on February 10, 2021, plaintiff emailed FIR representative Jessica Zimmel, expressing disappointment that “nothing was done about a prior complaint [about Creange] to Zimmel”; and the following morning, on February 11, 2021, plaintiff “received a call from plaintiff’s supervisor and Zimmel [saying] they accepted her resignation,” though she had not resigned.
(Cleaned up.)
The court concluded that “the close temporal proximity between these events, combined with plaintiff’s alleged high performance in her work, and that she was terminated by the two individuals to whom she complained, raise an inference of retaliatory animus leading to her termination on the last day of the statutory period.”
The court did, however, grant defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s causes of action for gender discrimination and hostile work environment, on the ground that she did not adequately allege that her termination, which was within the limitations period, was part of a single continuing pattern of unlawful conduct supporting her hostile work environment claim extending into the pre-limitations period.