In Mehta, Anisha v. DLA Piper LLP, 23 Civ. 4757 (AT), 2025 WL 2771659 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2025), the court denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s claims of pregnancy discrimination asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.
This decision illustrates the application of the three-step McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework applicable to Title VII claims.
After finding that plaintiff demonstrated a prima facie case (by pointing to the temporal proximity of about two months between Mehta’s pregnancy announcement and her firing) and that defendant presented a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for plaintiff’s termination (alleged performance issues), the court turned to the issue of pretext.
From the decision:
Mehta has presented evidence that could reasonably cast doubt on DLA’s purported reason for firing her. When Durham told Mehta she was being fired, Durham framed it as a “team decision,” Mehta Decl. ¶ 138, that was based on thoughtful consultation with other DLA partners, see ECF No. 115-15 at DLA_Mehta_3913. In reality, Durham appears to have made the decision on her own and rather quickly—after just one phone call with Medansky the day before, in which the two did not discuss firing Mehta. See 56.1 ¶¶ 259–64; Medansky Dep. at 9:25–10:4, 16:24–17:2, 19:3–14. Durham also seemed concerned that other partners would find out that she had fired Mehta while pregnant; she told Mehta that, although Mehta could continue to briefly work at the firm—and could even continue working on all of the matters assigned to her (despite her purported performance issues)—she should not tell any other partner why she was leaving. ECF No. 115-25 at DLA_Mehta_3914–15. She also made the decision to fire Mehta in suspect circumstances, two months after Mehta told her that she was pregnant, about two months before annual bonuses were to be paid, and while Durham’s practice group was experiencing an unusual slowdown in billable opportunities. See 56.1 ¶¶ 171, 267–68; Bouwer Dep. at 117:7–10. The evidence suggests that Durham may have been concerned about the firm paying Mehta on her maternity leave at a time when Mehta would not be bringing in new clients or billable hours. Indeed, Durham fired Mehta without consideration of alternative employment actions, such as increased training for Mehta or a demotion, both of which would have kept Mehta on the payroll and were contemplated by the firm’s policies and practices. See 56.1 ¶¶ 42, 279.
The Second Circuit has explained that at summary judgment a court may consider whether a moving witness’s testimony is internally inconsistent or in tension with record evidence to the extent it could lead a reasonable juror to find the testimony lacking in credibility. Chambers, 43 F.3d at 39. Here, at least some of the contemporaneous and ex post reasons that Durham provided for firing Mehta are, at best, in tension with other evidence in the record or, at worst, plainly contradicted by it. Durham testified that were “deficits” in Mehta’s performance “from the very beginning” of her employment at the firm. 56.1 ¶ 57. The record reflects, however, that for at least the first five months of Mehta’s twelve-month employment, she received every discretionary raise and bonus offered by the firm—all of which were contingent on meeting or exceeding the firm’s expectations, one of which was denied to nearly one fifth of all associates in Mehta’s firm class year, and at least two of which were awarded to Mehta while she was, according to the firm, “bill[ing] the vast majority of her time to matters for which Durham and Medansky were the supervising [practice group] partners.” Id. ¶ 53; see id. ¶ 44; see ECF No. 135-9; cf. Chambers, 43 F.3d at 39 (denying summary judgment to the employer who claimed poor performance by the employee but “in fact … did not discharge him until he had been on the job for nearly nine months, and he was given a three percent raise after six months”). Durham’s claim that Mehta was not on track to complete her billable hours in 2022 is also genuinely disputed—not only by Mehta’s own recollection of her hours and the fact that the firm’s billable-hours portal did not capture all bonus-eligible hours, but also by the fact that Mehta exceeded her hours requirement the year before. See 56.1 ¶¶ 38, 216; ECF No. 115-25 at DLA_Mehta_3913. Durham’s claim that Mehta was responsible for the “bulk” of the April summary judgment brief, which Durham raised for the first time at Mehta’s firing in October, is also contradicted by record evidence indicating that the brief was largely drafted and supervised by an associate multiple years Mehta’s senior, who signed off on Mehta’s work, took credit for the brief’s completion, and ultimately apologized to Durham for the errors she identified. See id. ¶¶ 95–96, 100–01, 113–14; Mehta Decl. ¶¶ 129–32. Likewise, although Durham claimed that other partners like Medansky were dissatisfied with Mehta’s performance, Medansky entrusted Mehta with his largest client’s portfolio, which had previously belonged to an of counsel who was significantly more experienced than Mehta; Medansky gave Mehta increased work as the summer and fall wore on; and other partners who worked closely with Mehta never complained about her performance or heard any complaints from others. 56.1 ¶¶ 57, 59, 71; Opp. at 16–17, ECF No. 131.
To be sure, there is evidence that Mehta made mistakes, some of which were more than trivial, and that she occasionally performed in ways that were below her supervisors’ expectations. But Mehta need not demonstrate that her performance played no role in the decision to fire her; only that the decision to fire her was also motivated, at least in part, by her pregnancy. Bart, 96 F.4th at 576. DLA argues that Mehta has not presented any direct evidence of discriminatory intent. See Mem. at 1. The purpose of the McDonnell Douglas framework is “to assure that the plaintiff has her day in court despite the unavailability of direct evidence.” Bart, 96 F.4th at 569–70 (alteration adopted) (emphases in original) (citation omitted). And Mehta has adduced sufficient circumstantial evidence to show that, even if Durham was genuinely concerned about Mehta’s performance, Mehta’s pregnancy and her imminent, paid leave during an economic slowdown at the firm was the factor that ultimately drove Durham to fire her. Mehta has, therefore, demonstrated a “conflict between [her] … prima facie case and the employer’s evidence of a nondiscriminatory reason,” which provides enough evidence for a rational juror to conclude that DLA’s story that it fired Mehta solely based on her performance is not true. Id. at 576 (citations omitted); see Luo v. AIK Renovation Inc., No. 23 Civ. 5878, 2024 WL 4444283, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 4, 2024) (denying summary judgment where the employer’s “side of the story rests entirely on [the] statements [of its leadership], and those statements conflict” with each other and with the record evidence).
“Because ‘it is permissible for the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of discrimination from the falsity of the employer’s explanation,’ and [Mehta] also [has] produce[d] some circumstantial evidence that [ ] support[s] such an inference, the Court cannot say as a matter of law that [her pregnancy] was not ‘some part of the employer’s motivation.’ ” Luo, 2024 WL 444428, at *12 (first quoting Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prod., Inc., 540 U.S. 133, 147 (2000); and then quoting Bart, 96 F.4th at 570); see also Chambers, 43 F.3d at 38 (“[R]ejection of the defendant’s proffered reasons[ ] will permit the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination, and … upon such rejection, [n]o additional proof of discrimination is required.” (fourth alteration in original) (emphases omitted) (quoting St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 511 (1993))). Mehta has adduced sufficient evidence to place DLA’s intent in dispute, and the Second Circuit has “long recognized the need for caution about granting summary judgment to an employer in a discrimination case where, as here, the merits turn on a dispute as to the employer’s intent.”
Based on this, the court denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to plaintiff’s Title VII claim. Having reached this conclusion as to Title VII, the court necessarily reached the same conclusion as to the comparatively broader New York State and City Human Rights Laws.