First Department issues another expansive ruling under the City Human Rights Law

The Appellate Division, First Department periodically issues a ruling that emphasizes how the New York City Human Rights Law is far more expansive than its federal and state counterparts. Often these rulings are written by Presiding Justice Acosta. In this case, the First Department says the City law makes it illegal to fire someone because of the identity of his spouse.

The case is Morse v. Fidessa Corp. issued on September 6. Plaintiff alleges that defendant terminated his employment "after an employee who Fidessa believed was married to plaintiff left its employ." Plaintiff's spouse went to work for another financial services firm. Plaintiff further alleges that he was told that "if he divorced Wakefield, he would be reconsidered for re-employment."

The City law prohibits terminating employees because of their marital status. For years, courts interpreted this provision to make it unlawful to fire someone because they were married or single. Firing someone because of the identity of the employee's spouse did not count. The case standing for that proposition is Levin v. Yeshiva University, 96 N.Y.2d 484 (2001). Levin borrowed its reasoning from Manhattan Pizza Hut v. State Division of Human Rights, 51 N.Y.2d 506 (1980), which interpreted the New York State Human Rights Law. But in 2005, the New York City Council passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which emphasized that the City law was always meant to be interpreted expansively and not identically to comparable state and federal statutory provisions. The Council in 2016 again amended the City law to re-emphasize this.

Under the 2005 Act, Levin is now rejected (even though it was issued by the New York Court of Appeals, which is senior to the Appellate Division). As he has done in other cases, Justice Acosta includes language from the legislative history of the City law requiring courts to expansively intepret the statute, and he cites the three leading cases in this area, Albunio v. City of New York, 16 N.Y.3d 472 (2011), Bennett v. Health Mgt. Systems, 92 A.D.3d 29 (1st Dept. 2011) and Williams v. New York Housing Auth., 61 N.Y.3d 62 (1st Dept. 2009), which the City Council in 2016 said accurately applies the pro-plaintiff interpretative standards governing the City law. The First Department states, "courts must play a highly active role in the development of the City HRL by interpreting all cases in a manner consistent with the goal of providing unparalleled strength in deterring and remedying discrimination."

What it means for this case is that "marital status" under the City law "may refer to whether to whether an individual is married or not married. It may also refer to whether two individuals are married to each other or not married to each other." Since the First Department deems this a reasonable interpretation of the City law "as the most plaintiff-friendly interpretation, it is the one that must be adopted." In part, this is because "a narrow interpretation of 'marital status' would allow a wide range of discriminatory conduct -- including conduct arising out of assumptions based on stereotypes -- to continue unabated. Only a broader interpretation of marital status will further the 'play no role' standard."