This discrimination case was filed in state court. Plaintiff alleges her former employer eliminated her position when it found out she was pregnant. The trial court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, but the Appellate Division says the case will go to trial because plaintiff has enough evidence to win.
The case is Lefort v. Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, issued on March 2. Plaintiff was a Community Access Coordinator (CAC) for the medical center. After plaintiff got pregnant, her new supervisor, Segree, began making disparaging comments about plaintiff's pregnancy and approved maternity leave. The trial court summarizes those comments:
According to Plaintiff, Segree made “frequent discriminatory comments ... regarding her pregnancy and upcoming leave.” As examples thereof, Plaintiff states that Segree repeatedly suggested that she should stop working due to her pregnancy, despite Plaintiff's assurances that she was “more than capable of fulfilling her job responsibilities while pregnant.” Also, on one occasion, while alone in an elevator, Segree stated that it was “unfortunate” that Plaintiff was pregnant because of the projects that the department would be undertaking. On several occasions, Segree questioned whether Plaintiff would be physically capable of handling certain projects during the latter stages of her pregnancy, and on at least two occasions Segree offered “unsolicited assistance with [Plaintiff's] resume.” Plaintiff maintains that such unsolicited offers evidenced Segree's desire that she resign. Plaintiff reported Secree's forgoing comments to Kingsbrook's Human Resources Department which apparently deemed no remedial action appropriate.
When plaintiff returned from medical leave, the CAC position was eliminated, and new position, Community Relations Manager (CRM) was created. Plaintiff was denied the CRM position, defendant said, because she lacked business education or sales or marketing experience.
Defendant says plaintiff cannot makes out a prima facie case of discrimination because shortly after they eliminated her position, defendant offered her another position with the same salary; no harm, no foul. But a jury must decide if plaintiff suffered an adverse employment action as a result of this offer, which plaintiff deemed unacceptable. The Court writes, "the defendant failed to eliminate triable issues of fact as to whether the position offered to the plaintiff involved a materially adverse change in the terms of her employment, since the social worker position did not involve any of the management responsibilities that the plaintiff had performed as a CAC." We also have a prima facie case of discrimination because a jury might regard Segree's comments about plaintiff's pregnancy as evidence of a discriminatory motive to terminate plaintiff's employment.
With the prima facie case out of the way, plaintiff now has to show the employer's reasons for eliminating the position and denying her the CRM job were a pretext for discrimination. The jury can find as such. While management said plaintiff was fired because she had no business education or marketing experience, it turns out that the CRM position did not require a business education. While defendant said the CRM job was different from the CAC position that defendant had eliminated after plaintiff got pregnant, the record shows otherwise. After plaintiff filed this lawsuit, defendant actually offered her the CRM position, stating in writing that the CRM job was "virtually identical" to the CAC position. While defendant claims this letter is not admissible as a settlement offer, the Second Department disagrees, noting that defendant's former vice president of human resources averred in his affidavit in support of the defendant's motion, "that the October 2014 job offer was not conditioned on the dismissal of the plaintiff's pending claims against the defendant."
Most of the Court's analysis involves the New York State Human Rights Law, which at the time had used federal standards in determining when the plaintiff has a case. The City law has more favorable standards. (The NYSHRL has since been amended to confirm to City law standards). On the basis of its analysis under State law, the Second Department says plaintiff also has a case under the City law.
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