In Kamara-Sherif v. City of New York, No. 451842/2023, 2025 WL 3530092 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Dec. 03, 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s caregiver status discrimination claim asserted under teh New York City Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
The NYCHRL expressly prohibits discrimination in employment “because of an individual’s actual or perceived caregiver status” (Admin. Code § 8-107[1][a]). A “caregiver” is defined as a person who provides direct and ongoing care to a minor child or a covered care recipient (Admin. Code § 8-102).
Plaintiff alleges that she is the primary caretaker of her young children and that defendants were fully aware of this status through her maternity and childcare leave requests and repeated pleas to remain on, or be returned to, a day tour to accommodate childcare.
She asserts that defendants refused to place her on the day tour “because of” her childcare responsibilities, yet contemporaneously transferred non-caregiver officers to more favorable tours, thereby exacerbating her childcare hardship without legitimate business justification.
Trial-level decisions have recognized that such allegations are sufficient to state caregiver discrimination claims. In Pustilnik v Battery Park City Auth., 71 Misc 3d 1058 (Sup Ct, NY County 2021), the court upheld an NYCHRL caregiver claim premised on adverse actions flowing from an employee’s need to care for a minor child. In Palmer v Cook, 65 Misc 3d 374 (Sup Ct, Queens County 2019), the court sustained an NYCHRL claim where the plaintiff was allegedly penalized after requesting recurring time off to accompany her husband to chemotherapy appointments.
Here, plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint closely tracks those paradigms, alleging that defendants knowingly denied her schedule-related requests, assigned her to a punishing tour, and refused to return her to the day tour while granting that flexibility to non-caregiver officers, thereby imposing unique burdens on her because she is a caregiver.
The court concluded that, at the pleading stage, these allegations are more than sufficient to state a caregiver discrimination claim.