Court of Appeals gives pro se discrimination plaintiff a break

This pro se appeal alleging disability and religions discrimination fails, but the Court of Appeals gives him a second chance to amend the complaint because it thinks he may actually have a case.

The case is Patel v. NYU Langone Hospitals, a summary order issued on October 19. The case was dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. But the district court dismissed the case without analysis, giving the Court of Appeals nothing to work with other the plaintiff's complaint and his letters to the district court and the Court of Appeals further detailing his case. While the Court of Appeals would never credit these letters had plaintiff been represented by counsel (as they would be outside the record), the courts give latitude to pro se litigants who do not always know the rules of the road. These letters save the appeal.

What this means for plaintiff is that while the disability discrimination allegations in the complaint do not make out all the elements, in that they do not outline whether plaintiff could perform the essential functions of his position as a nuclear medicine technologist, his letter submissions and statements made in his appellate brief (which may not have cited to materials in the record) provide details about his medical conditions that suggest he may have been fired because of disability. So while the failure-to-accommodate claim is gone for good, the unlawful termination claim may be revived in the district court with a properly-amended complaint that notes that he had received good performance reviews for 20 years.

The same thing happens with the religious discrimination claim. The pro se complaint does not provide enough facts. But plaintiff's letters to the court suggest he had to leave work early one day to satisfy a religious obligation (he is Hindu) and that management knew about his religion and told him not to read religious texts at work. The Second Circuit (Walker, Sack and Carney) thinks plaintiff should get another shot in the district court in pleading this claim. 

We also have a Family and Medical Leave Act claim. Same thing here. Plaintiff says he was fired because he needed FMLA leave relating to dental surgery. "Patel alleges that NYU approved his application for FMLA leave related to his need for dental surgery. This allegation suggests that he was eligible for FMLA leave, entitled to take it, and gave NYU notice. He also alleges that he was fired for his absences (specifically, for a record of absences culminating in his May 2017 early departure) and that NYU counted medical leave covered by the FMLA against him in evaluating his attendance record. Patel took leave for eye surgery in the month before May 2017, when he was dismissed, and had been approved for upcoming FMLA leave for dental surgery. That temporal connection between a series of protected absences and his firing for poor attendance gives rise to a plausible inference that he was fired for taking FMLA leave." But plaintiff does not allege in the complaint that he was qualified for his position. Again, a pro se mistake. But the appellate brief does say he was qualified. The Court of Appeals gives him the benefit of the doubt. He can amend the complaint on remand to fix that pleading deficiency.

I am sure defendant's counsel raised holy hell about giving plaintiff a second chance to amend the complaint, and they probably said plaintiff had his chance to plead his case, and he did not even ask the district court for permission to file an amended complaint. But we are dealing with a pro se plaintiff, and courts know that pro se plaintiffs don't always know the procedure. We don't want cases to be dismissed for that reason, which means Patel gets a second chance on remand.