The Appellate Division, First Department unanimously affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the former employee of our client, a health management company.

This is the first case in which the appellate court considered the effect of New York City's 2005 Civil Rights Restoration Act on a summary judgment motion seeking to dismiss a New York City Human Rights Law claim. The court called the opportunity to analyze the standard for summary judgment under the statute “long overdue.” In an opinion dated December 20, 2011, Justice Rolando T. Acosta said that on appeal the former employee had not provided any evidence to support his claim that he was fired for discriminatory reasons. Justices David B. Saxe, James M. Catterson, Shelia Abdus-Salaam and Nelson S. Román joined in Justice Acosta’s opinion.

In this case, the former employee alleged that he had been terminated because of his age and race. TKD initially won a motion to dismiss his breach of contract claims and subsequently won summary judgment on his discrimination claims in March 2010. The judgment, according to the Appellate Division, was governed by a three-prong test for determining whether employers should be granted the "extraordinary remedy" of summary judgment in cases brought against them by employees under the New York City Human Rights law. Applying this test, the court ruled in favor of our client.

Partner Richard L. Steer and Associate Tara Toevs, both of whom are in TKD’s Labor and Employment Practice Group, represented the employer in this case.

To obtain a copy of the decision, as reported on the front page of The New York Law Journal, please contact rsteer@tarterkrinsky.com.

 

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome