Case ID: f-appx_484/html/0628-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Edward J. SULLIVAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 11-2091-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    June 12, 2012.
    
      Edward J. Sullivan, pro se, East Islip, N.Y., for Appellant.
    Inga Van Eysden, New York City Law Department, New York, N.Y. (Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, Paul Rephen, of counsel, on the brief), for Appellees.
    PRESENT: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judges, BRIAN M. COGAN, District Judge.
    
      
       The Honorable Brian M. Cogan, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

Edward J. Sullivan, pro se, appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City of New York, The New York City Police Department and the New York City Police Pension Fund, the State of New York and the New York State Civil Service Commission (together, “City”) in his action alleging discrimination on the basis of his disability. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir.2003). In doing so, this Court must determine whether the district court properly concluded that there were no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. However, “conclusory statements or mere allegations [are] not sufficient to defeat a summary judgment motion.” Davis v. State of New York, 316 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir.2002).

We affirm the grant of summary judgment without reaching the merits of the district court’s analysis of the Lily Ledbet-ter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Our case law makes clear that so long as a disabled individual who is eligible for either a service pension or a disability pension is given a choice between the two pensions, it is legal under the ADA for a disability pension to provide a different level of benefits than a service pension — even if that level of benefits is lesser Castellano v. City of New York, 142 F.3d 58, 71 (2d Cir.1998). To violate the ADA, then, the City must have deprived Sullivan of a choice of pension plan. The ADA does not apply retroactively to acts occurring before its effective date of July 26, 1992. the effective date. Smith v. United Parcel Serv. of Am., Inc., 65 F.3d 266, 266 (2d Cir.1995). Even assuming Sullivan was impermissibly forced into the disability pension plan in 1986, his claim predates the ADA, and is thus barred.

The district court properly dismissed Sullivan’s equal protection claim because Sullivan failed to meet his burden to negate “any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the [challenged] classification.” Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 367, 121 S.Ct. 955, 148 L.Ed.2d 866 (2001).

We have considered the remainder of Sullivan’s arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.