When does a discrimination plaintiff recover punitive damages under the New York City Human Rights Law?

We all know the New York City Human Rights Law is an expansive statute intended to provide greater rights for employment discrimination plaintiffs than its federal counterparts, Title VII and Section 1981. The same holds true for the HRL's punitive damages provision. This case tells us, however, that even a victorious case under the City law will not necessarily entitle you to punitive damages.

The case is Edelman v. NYU Langone Health System, issued on June 18. I wrote about the retaliation component of this case at this link; the jury found in plaintiff's favor on her retaliation claim, awarding her $700,000 in damages, upon finding that after she complained repeatedly about workplace discrimination, her supervisors began documenting her alleged performance deficiencies in order to justify her termination. This scheme was intentional, the jury found. While the trial court vacated the jury's verdict, determining that plaintiff did not have enough evidence to win the case, the Court of Appeals (Merriam, Walker and Robinson) reinstated the verdict because there was in fact enough evidence to justify the jury's findings.

During trial, plaintiff wanted the trial court to issue a punitive damages charge under the City law, but the judge declined to do so. Plaintiff challenges that ruling on appeal. The standard for punitive damages under Title VII is whether the defendant acted maliciously or with wanton disregard for the plaintiff's civil rights. But in 2017, the New York Court of Appeals, in Chauca v. Abraham, 30 N.Y.3d 325 (2017), relaxed the standard under the City HRL, ruling that punitive damages are warranted even if the defendant acted with "willful or wanton negligence, or recklessness, or conscious disregard of the rights of others or conduct so reckless as to amount to such disregard." I argued Chauca in the State Court of Appeals and asked that court to rule that if the jury finds the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff, that is enough for punitive damages; the theory was that intent to discriminate equals reckless disregard for the plaintiff's rights. The State Court of Appeals, by a 6-1 vote, disagreed. Still, the Chauca standard is better for plaintiffs than Title VII.

Plaintiff argued in this case that the Chauca framework entitled her to punitive damages, and that the jury should have been able to rule on that issue. After all, defendants intended to retaliate against plaintiff in a blatant way, creating a paper trail to justify her termination after she objected to discrimination. But the Second Circuit sustains the trial court's ruling against charging the jury on punitive damages, holding as follows:

we conclude that the record supports a finding that the defendants retaliated against Edelman, but that is not sufficient to justify an award of punitive damages. Edelman argues that “[t]here is not such a complete lack of evidence with regard to punitive damages that a jury should be prevented from considering [the issue].” However, Edelman does not point to any evidence presented at trial suggesting that any of the defendants retaliated against her “with willful or wanton negligence, or recklessness, or a conscious disregard of the rights of others,” or with a higher degree of moral culpability than is present in every instance of retaliation in the workplace.

This is sparse reasoning, and the Court does not fully explain why the evidence does not show, at a minimum, recklessness disregard for plaintiff's rights. But since is among the few Second Circuit holdings that applies Chauca in a real-work context -- post-trial on a plaintiff's verdict -- this holding will be the guidepost for future cases.