In Craggs v. Hearst Communications, Inc., No. 160584/2025, 2026 WL 2350971 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 05, 2026), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s amended complaint alleging disability discrimination and retaliation.
From the decision:
Under the lenient notice standard applied to motions to dismiss discrimination actions at the pleading stage, Plaintiff has adequately alleged SHRL and CHRL claims for disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation. Defendants’ argument that Plaintiff failed to allege he was qualified for the position is without merit as he frequently alleges that despite his disability, he met deadlines and performed his core functions and even alleges that he received raises in 2020 and 2021. He alleges he never received a negative performance evaluation until 2022, and that the performance evaluation was pretextual to justify his discriminatory termination.
Likewise, Defendants’ argument that Plaintiff did not allege he suffered a disability is without merit as Plaintiff alleges he was forced to undergo multiple procedures to determine the cause of his consistent hemoptysis and he suffered from joint issues which required two surgeries. Plaintiff also alleges he was disabled by his shoulder surgery which required him to use an immobilizing sling for six weeks and prevented him from easily using his computer, which was required for the remote work environment in which Plaintiff was employed.
Plaintiff adequately alleges adverse employment actions linked to his disability because it is alleged that Defendants decided to give Plaintiff impossible to meet performance goals as a means of terminating him just months after Plaintiff had taken time off to receive shoulder surgery and requested an accommodation while his arm was immobilized (see, e.g. Lilly v State, 249 AD3d 613, 613-614 [1st Dept 2026]). Plaintiff further alleges just days after he took time off to receive knee surgery, he received his first and only negative performance evaluation (see also Vig v New York Hairspray Co., L.P., 67 AD3d 140, 146 [1st Dept 2009]). Moreover, the adverse actions took place under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination, as the amended complaint is replete with statements from Brown and Williams directly or indirectly referencing Plaintiff’s disability, including telling Plaintiff he “complains too much,” that he “fail[ed] to plan for his own recovery” and that Defendants were not “expecting these limitations” (see Henriquez v City of New York, 247 AD3d 535, 535-536 [1st Dept 2026]). Plaintiff also adequately alleged a failure to accommodate claim because instead of responding to Plaintiff’s request for an accommodation, Plaintiff was allegedly told to lie to human resources, hire temporary works, and engage in a practice that allegedly violated worker classification laws (see, e.g. Hosking v Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 186 AD3d 58, 65-66 [1st Dept 2020] [issues of fact as to whether defendant engaged in good faith cooperative dialogue precluded dismissal of SHRL failure to accommodate claim]).
Finally, Plaintiff adequately stated claims for retaliation under the SHRL and CHRL. Plaintiff engaged in protected activity by objecting to Brown’s failure to engage in a cooperative dialogue, by objecting on multiple occasions to practices that allegedly violated labor laws, and by reporting discriminatory comments made about one of Plaintiff’s team members. Plaintiff likewise alleged multiple adverse employment actions temporally linked to each of these protected activities, including giving Plaintiff performance goals which were allegedly impossible to meet, providing inconsistent and unfair scrutiny, giving a negative performance review, excluding plaintiff from a company summit, threatening Plaintiff’s job security in a meeting where he was told he “complained too much” and was asked if he wanted to “keep his job”, and ultimately terminating Plaintiff (see, e.g. Seemungal v New York State Dept. of Fin. Servs., 222 AD3d 467, 467-468 [1st Dept 2023]; Herskowitz v State, 222 AD3d 587, 589-590 [1st Dept 2023]).
The court concluded that under the lenient pleading standard, plaintiff’s detailed allegations are sufficient to withstand defendants’ motion to dismiss, and noted that whether defendants can obtain dismissal of some or all of Plaintiff’s claims on a future summary judgment motion depends on the factual record that is developed during discovery.