In Myers v. Doherty, 2025 NY Slip Op 06550 (N.Y. App. Div. 1 Dept. Nov. 25, 2025), the court affirmed the lower court’s order granting defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s complaint alleging claims of employment discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment.
From the decision:
Plaintiff did not experience an adverse employment action when he was notified of an impending transfer in October 2019, particularly as the transfer never actually occurred. Nor was plaintiff constructively discharged. Reviewing the alleged conduct that falls within the statute of limitations, defendants did not “deliberately create[] working conditions so intolerable, difficult or unpleasant that a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign” (Crookendale v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 175 AD3d 1132, 1132 [1st Dept 2019] [internal quotation marks omitted]).
Furthermore, while the New York City HRL provides for a broader “treated less well” standard than the adverse action analysis, plaintiff has not demonstrated that he was treated “less well than other employees because of [his] protected status; or that discrimination was one of the motivating factors” for defendants’ conduct (Chin v New York City Hous. Auth., 106 AD3d 443, 445 [1st Dept 2013], lv denied 22 NY3d 861 [2014]).
Plaintiff also failed to sufficiently plead a retaliation claim, as the allegations fail to show a causal or temporal connection between any protected activity and an adverse action taken by defendant (Lively v Wafra Inv. Advisory Group, Inc., 211 AD3d 432, 433 [1st Dept 2022]). Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim, which was improperly raised for the first time in his opposition to defendants’ motion, also fails on the merits.
The court concluded that, even assuming the alleged acts or omissions amounted to more than petty slights and trivial inconveniences, plaintiff’s failure to adequately plead discriminatory animus is fatal to his hostile work environment claim.