In Smith v. New York City Housing Authority et al, No. 25-CV-283 (NRM) (MMH), 2026 WL 2665034 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 10, 2026), the court, inter alia, denied defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s retaliation claim asserted under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
After concluding that plaintiff sufficiently alleged “protected activity” (plaintiff’s complaint to human resources “regarding the discriminatory treatment”) and “adverse action” (termination), the court turned the issue of the causal connection between the two:
The Second Circuit has held that to sustain a retaliation claim, a plaintiff must show that the protected activity was a “but for” cause of the adverse employment action. At the pleadings stage, this causal link may be demonstrated either through direct evidence of retaliatory animus or indirectly, by showing that the protected activity was followed closely by discriminatory treatment. Temporal proximity between the adverse action and the protected activity is sufficient to establish a causal connection.
Here, Plaintiff alleges that she was terminated from her position in a retaliatory manner just two months after her formal complaint to [Human Resources]. The Second Circuit has not drawn a bright line to define the outer limits beyond which a temporal relationship is too attenuated to establish’ causation between protected activity and retaliatory conduct. However, courts in this circuit regularly find that a temporal proximity of about three months is sufficient to establish the requisite causal connection at the pleadings stage. See, e.g., Oliver v. City of New York, No. 19-CV-11219 (PGG), 2026 WL 2271368, at *39 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 6, 2026) (“[T]he less-than-three-month gap between the December 27, 2018 settlement and Oliver’s March 22, 2019 arrest is sufficient to establish a causal connection for purposes of making out a prime facie case.”); Garcia v. Yonkers Bd. of Educ., No. 15-CV-0767 (NSR), 2018 WL 4007648, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 21, 2018) (“The three month period between Defendant’s receipt of Plaintiff’s police report and the adverse employment action would, alone, be enough to meet a causal connection.”).
(Citations and internal quotation marks omitted.)
The court concluded that (particularly in light of the liberal pro se pleading standard applicable here), “the close temporal proximity between Plaintiff’s complaint and termination is sufficient to establish a causal connection for purposes of showing retaliation under the ADA.”