The Appellate Division unanimously reversed a New York State Supreme Court's ruling granting the City of New York's motion to [1] dismiss racial discrimination claims alleged by Plaintiffs pursuant to the New York State and City Human Rights Laws and [2] the hostile work environment claim Plaintiffs alleged pursuant to the New York City Human Rights Law which the Plaintiffs had asserted against the City of New York and a named defendant.
Citing Harrington v City of New York, 157 AD3d 582 and Reichman v City of New York, 179 AD3d 1115, the Appellate Division opined that Plaintiffs' employment discrimination and hostile work environment claim alleged pursuant the New York City Human Rights Law were improperly dismissed by Supreme Court for failure to sufficiently allege discriminatory animus.
Noting "the comments of the now-dismissed defendants are not properly considered, and the sole remaining individual [named] defendant is not alleged to have made any even arguably discriminatory statements, [Plaintiffs] raised an inference of animus through their allegations of differential treatment of similarly situated white officers in terms of assignments, evaluations, and placement on performance monitoring".
In the words of the court, "Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that the white officers were similarly situated." In addition, said the Appellate Division, "[the] allegations of differential treatment were also sufficiently specific and factual in nature."
Click HERE to access the Appellate Division decision posted on the Internet.