Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-11-01234/USCOURTS-ca2-11-01234-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judge, concurring in part in the judgment and dissenting in part:

On this appeal, we consider a judgment in favor of plaintiff Scott Matusick on

state law claims of race discrimination and retaliation, as well as a federal claim of

infringement of the right of intimate association, all arising out of Matusick’s

employment with the Erie County Water Authority (“ECWA”).  On plaintiff’s state

law claims, the judgment (1)  holds ECWA, as well as defendants Bluman, Kuryak,

and Lisinski liable for a racially hostile work environment, but awards no

compensatory damages; and (2) holds ECWA, Kuryak, and Lisinski liable for

racially discriminatory termination, and awards $304,775.00 in back pay.    On

plaintiff’s federal claim, the judgment (3) holds ECWA, Mendez, Bluman, Kuryak,

andLisinskiliable, awardsno actual or nominal compensatorydamages, but awards

$5,000 in punitive damages as against each individual defendant.1

I join my panel colleagues in affirming that part of the judgment holding

defendants liable under state law for creating a racially hostile work environment.

I also join in the panel decision to reverse that part of the judgment holding liable

individualdefendantsMendez,Bluman, Kuryak, andLisinski onMatusick’s federal

1 Because no compensatory damages are awarded on the federal claim, it

appears that the jury’s intimate association finding pertained only to Matusick’s

complaint about a  hostile work environment, not to his termination.

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intimate association claim. I respectfully dissent, however, from the panel decision

to affirm the judgment in all other respects.  

With respect to Matusick’s claims of racially discriminatory termination, I

would vacate the judgment and remand for a new trial.  Like the majority, I identify

error in the district court’s failure to preclude Matusick from disputing facts found

against him at a disciplinary hearing conducted preliminary to his discharge

pursuant to N.Y. Civ. Serv. Law § 75(1), and in the court’s failure to charge the jury

thatit couldnot second‐guess these administrative findings in its owndeliberations.

See ante at 36–37. Unlike the majority, however, I do not think these errors can be

dismissed as harmless.  

As to Matusick’s intimate association claim against ECWA, I would order

dismissal.  While I think the circumstances at issue might have supported holding

ECWA, as well as individual defendants, liable for race discrimination under the

Equal Protection Clause—a federal claim plaintiff chose not to pursue—I do not

think that, as the case was tried, they demonstrate an ECWA policy or custom of

interference with intimate association, specifically, with engagement to marry.       

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1. Racially Discriminatory Termination:    The Preclusion Errors Were Not

Harmless

As the majority opinion explains, New York law gives preclusive effect to

quasi‐judicial administrative fact‐finding where there has been a full and fair

opportunity to litigate the point at issue.  Thus, a federal court will do the same.  See

ante at 26–27 (citing relevant authority).  Insofar as Matusick was charged with

various acts of workplacemisconductpreliminary to being terminated—specifically,

sleeping on the job and failing timely to dispatch workers to the site of a water main

leak on October 1, 2005; and failing timely to respond to a reported water‐pressure

problem on October 20, 2005—he plainly had a full and fair opportunity to litigate

these accusations at a Section 75 proceeding before an independent hearing officer

who found them proved.  See ante at 12–14.  Thus, the panel agrees that the district

court erred both in allowing Matusick to argue to the contrary at trial and in failing

to instruct the jury as to the preclusive effect of the Section 75 misconduct findings

on its own deliberations.    See ante at 37, 40.    The panel majority nevertheless

dismisses these errors as harmless, concluding that they did “not affect any party’s

substantial rights.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 61; see ante at 39–41.  I respectfully disagree.

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While the law strongly disfavors retrial in civil cases, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 61,

such reliefis warranted where an appellant shows that complained‐of error affected

substantial rights, see Tesser v. Bd. of Educ., 370 F.3d 314, 319 (2d Cir. 2004).  To

carry this burden, an appellant must show that the errorlikely affected the outcome

of the case.  See Lore v. City of Syracuse, 670 F.3d 127, 150 (2d Cir. 2012) (holding

that “substantial right is not implicated if there is no likelihood that the error or

defect affected the outcome of the case”); ante at 40 (quoting Kotteakos v. United

States, 328 U.S. 750, 765 (1946)).2   That showing is made here by the record of

Matusick’s own arguments at trial insisting that he had not engaged in the charged

misconduct, leaving racial bias as the likely explanation for his termination.

As to October 1, 2005, Matusick’s counsel specifically told the jury that his

client “wasn’t sleeping” at work on that date and had in fact “dispatched the duty

man in a timely manner.”  J.A. 2924.   Both statements are in direct contradiction to

2 In Kotteakos, a criminal case, the Supreme Court observed that error is not

harmless if “one cannot say, with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened

without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not

substantially swayed by the error.”  Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. at 765.  To

the extent this appears to resolve ambiguities in favor of a defendant, it is

noteworthy that a criminaldefendant’s “substantialrights” include thepresumption

of innocence and the right not to be convicted except upon proof beyond a

reasonable doubt, which are not applicable in civil cases.  

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the hearing officer’s findings of fact.  The district court did not admit these findings

into evidence, much less did it instruct that such findings were binding on the jury’s

own deliberations.   Thus, even though defendant Mendez, who made the final

termination decision, was permitted to testify that the hearing officer’s Section 75

discharge recommendation was the strongest he had ever seen, Matusick’s counsel

was allowedto impugn this recommendationandtheundisclosedfindings on which

it was based as the “irrelevant” product of a “kangaroo court.”  J.A. 2932.  Indeed,

counsel was allowedto argue atlength thatthe evidence would admit no conclusion

otherthan that Matusick had not engaged in any workplace misconduct on October

1:

The Water Authority concluded that the water was shut down within

a reasonable period as reflected in their own claim file denying the

claim by the resident. . . . The evidence is clear that the call came in at

5 a.m.  Mr. Lisinski and Mr. Jaros admit that there w[ere] no calls prior

to 5 a.m. . . .

Mr. Kuryak and Mr. Jaros confirmed that there w[ere] no police or

highway records of any calls.  After that call came in Mr. Matusick

found Mr. Marzec, he then had some problems with his computer, but

he was printing the necessary documents by 5:31.  Mr. Baudo admitted

the computer issues were possible and Mr. Schichtel confirmed the

computer problems were far more common during the midnight shift.

The computer documents in evidence do not show that there weren’t

computerproblems.  In fact, somemissing evidence,pages one through

nine of Plaintiff’s Exhibit 31.  We have page 9, but we don’t have pages

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1 through 8.  We don’t know what happened prior to 5:47 a.m.  That

evidence is not available to you.

It is undisputed that Mr. Marzec had difficulties using the laptop,

which made it more important that Scott Matusick print out maps for

him before he left.  But even despite all that, Mr. Marzec was on the

scene by 6:30.    Mr. Matusick was where he was supposed to be

throughout, in his chair, by the phone at all times.    Mr. Lisinski

admitted that.  There’s no evidence he was sleeping on October 1st.

[T]here’s no video of him sleeping, and [Water Authority officials]

knew . . . how to preserve videos if that evidence was going to be

important to them.

  

J.A. 2924–25.  

As to October 20, 2005 misconduct, Matusick’s counsel similarly insisted that

his client had not failed timely to respond to a report of a possible water leak.

Rather, he “simply made a judgment call” to wait “for a second customer call”

before dispatching the duty man.  J.A. 2925.  This too was in direct contradiction to

what should have been binding findings of fact by the hearing officer.  The officer

specifically found that Matusick had not timely responded to a 1:50 a.m. report of

a drop in water pressure indicative of a potentially serious water leak.  Indeed, the

hearing officer found that Matusick had misrepresented ECWA’s policy when he

told the caller who first reported a problem, “[W]e don’t send a guy out there by

himself in the middle of the night looking for a water leak.”  J.A. 312.  The hearing

officer concluded that Matusick’s failure either to dispatch a Water Authority

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employee to the site or to arrange for an over‐the‐phone assessment of the problem

could not have reflected “a judgment call” in light of his discredited account of a

purported second call.  J.A. 311.

Instead of accepting these findings, as the law required, Matusick’s counsel

argued to the jury that the soundness of Matusick’s “judgment call” in not taking

immediate action on October 20 was so plainly supported by the testimony of

“nearly all the witnesses” as to be, in effect, indisputable:

Again, the facts are clear.  At approximately 2:15 a.m. there was the

first call regarding just low pressure, no visible water, no visible leak.

This is in a remote area where there are open fields and ditches and

there aren’t many houses and a caller who lived back from the road.

At 5:10 a.m. a second call came in where a leak was observed and Mr.

Matusick promptly dispatched the duty man.  A third call came in [at]

5:22 just 12 minutes later, reporting water in the field.  But by then Mr.

Matusick was already dispatching the duty man.  You heard plenty of

testimony about other potential causes oflow pressure, notjust a water

main break, it included corroded pipes, blocked screens on intakes,

malfunctioning pressure reducing valves, garden hoses being left on,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You heard testimony from dispatchers, active and retired, from

engineers, that you don’t just dispatch based on one low pressure call

in the middle of the night in a remote area. . . .

Plaintiff’s Exhibit 53 reinforces the practice of waiting until morning to

dispatch in connection with low pressure.  Only Mr. Jaros claimed that

you also dispatched the duty man regardless of circumstances.  Every

other witness disagreed.  You consult control, you wait for a second

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call, you wait until someone sees water, sees an actual leak, then you

dispatch the duty man.

J.A. 2926–27.  

Plainly, Matusick’s purpose in making these arguments was to show pretext.

If he could convince the jury that there was nothing to the misconduct charges, then

the defendants’ proffered legitimate reason for terminating him was false, making

it more likely than not that the real reason for his termination was race

discrimination or retaliation.  See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530

U.S. 133, 149 (2000) (noting probative value of proof that employer’s explanation is

false); James v. N.Y. Racing Ass’n, 233 F.3d 149, 155 (2d Cir. 2000) (explaining that

“in some circumstances a prima facie case plus falsity of the employer’s explanation

can, without more, be enough to support a reasonable finding that prohibited

discrimination has occurred”).  If, instead, Matusick had been properly foreclosed

from disputing the misconduct found at the Section 75 proceeding, he would have

been able to prevail only by carrying the heavier burden of showing that,

notwithstanding his misconduct, the proscribed reasons played a substantial part

in his termination. In these circumstances, I think there is a real likelihood that the

preclusion errors affected the outcome of this trial.

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In concluding otherwise, the majority states that it is highly unlikely that a

jury would have discredited the charged misconduct because (1) Matusick was

“thoroughly and effectively cross‐examined” on his denials; (2) defendants offered

persuasive evidence of the misconduct; (3) Matusick admitted to having blocked a

workplace security camera, misconduct that was the subject of an earlier Section 75

proceeding resulting in a 60‐day suspension; (4) Matusick’s counsel effectively

admitted his client’s misconduct in arguing that other ECWA employees were not

terminated for comparable or worse misbehavior; and (5) the jury finding that

Mendez was not individually liable for wrongful termination made it “unlikely that

the jury credited Matusick’s testimony that he had not committed misconduct

justifying termination.”  Ante at 41–43.  I am not convinced.

Specifically, I cannot agree that the noted preclusion errors were necessarily

neutralized by defendants’ opportunity to cross‐examine Matusick and to put on

evidence supporting the misconduct charges.  Indeed, such a conclusion is at odds

with our obligation, on the appeal of a judgment following a jury verdict, “to view

the facts of the case in the light most favorable to the prevailing party.”  Kosmynka

v. Polaris Indus., Inc., 462 F.3d 74, 77 (2d Cir. 2006).   When the evidence is so

viewed, we must assume that the jury credited Matusick’s disavowal of workplace

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misconduct and, accordingly, found no misconduct basis for termination.  Such

findings made it easier for Matusick to carry his trial burden than would have been

the case if he had properly been precluded from disputing already‐adjudicated

misconduct and if the jury had been correctly instructed in this regard.

Nor is a different conclusion warranted because Matusick’s counsel argued

that other employees were notterminatedformisconduct worse than that attributed

to his client.  I respectfully submit that such an argument does not effectively admit

misconduct on its face, much less in context.    At most, it tells the jury that

defendants’ discriminatory intent in terminating him for unwarranted charges of

misconduct is further evidenced by the fact that employees actually guilty of

comparable or worse misconduct were not terminated.   Before referencing any

comparators, counsel madeMatusick’spositionplain: he was not sleeping on the job

on October 1, and his conduct on October 20 reflected a reasonable exercise of

judgment.  See J.A. 2924–26.  Thereafter, he urged the jury to give no weight to

arguments referencing the administrative tribunal, which he dismissed as “a

kangaroo court,” though its misconductfindings should have bound him.  J.A. 2932.

Finally,I cannot agree thatthe verdictin favor of Mendez,the supervisor who

made the final termination decision, means that the jury rejected Matusick’s

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disavowal of workplace misconduct.  See ante at 42–43.  Indeed, such a conclusion

is undermined by the majority’s own reasoning in elsewhere reconciling the jury’s

decision that ECWA was liable for wrongful termination even though Mendez was

not.    In this regard, the majority submits that the misconduct charges against

Matusick could have been “tainted” by racial animus.  Ante at 46.  But it would be

far easier for Matusick to prove that “taint” if he could persuade the jury that the

charges were false than if the jury were required to accept them as proved.  See

Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. at 149; James v. N.Y. Racing

Ass’n, 233 F.3d at 155.    Because Matusick’s trial strategy was to argue falsity,

consistent with our obligation to view the evidence in the light most favorable to

him as the prevailing party, we must assume that the jury made the finding that he

urged.  Thus, because Matusick was precluded from arguing, and the jury was

precluded from finding, that the misconduct charges were false, the preclusion

errors here cannot be deemed harmless.

Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment in favor of Matusick on his racially

discriminatory termination claims and order a new trial.

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2. Matusick’s Constitutional Claim of Intimate Association

a. Matusick’s FailureToPursue anObvious Constitutional ClaimforRace

Discrimination Under the Equal Protection Clause

At its core, this is a case about race discrimination.  As the majority opinion

details, Matusick, who is white, was subjected to co‐worker abuse because of his

relationship with an African‐American woman, Anita Starks.    Such racial

harassment not only supported Matusick’s hostile‐work‐environment claim under

New York law, but also would have supported a parallel claim under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.  See

U.S. Const. amend. XIV.  Moreover, the harassment would have supported such a

constitutional claim without any inquiry into the particulars of the Matusick‐Starks

relationship.  Whether Starks was Matusick’s fiancée, his next‐door neighbor, orjust

a casual friend, if defendants took adverse action against Matusick because this

whiteman associated with anAfrican‐American woman,the conduct violatedequal

protection.  See Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 605 (1983) (observing

that precedent “firmly establish[es] that discrimination on the basis of racial

affiliation and association is a form of racial discrimination”); see also Holcomb v.

Iona College, 521 F.3d 130, 139 (2d Cir. 2008) (holding, under Title VII, that where

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employee is subjected to adverse action because “employer disapproves of

interracial association, the employee suffers discrimination because of the

employee’s own race” (emphasis in original));DeMatteis v.Eastman Kodak Co., 511

F.2d 306, 312 (2d Cir. 1975) (concluding that white plaintiff had standing under 42

U.S.C. § 1981 to sue employer fortaking adverse employment action against him in

reprisal for selling house to African‐American person); Rosenblatt v. Bivona &

Cohen, P.C., 946 F. Supp. 298, 300 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (concluding that white plaintiff

had standing to sue under § 1981 fortermination motivated by marriage to African‐

American woman).

For reasons that the majority aptly describes as “perplexing,” ante at 64,

Matusick did not pursue a violation of equal protection at trial.  He sought § 1983

relief only for violation of the right to intimate association, even as he relied

exclusively on evidence of racial harassment to prove that violation.  While the

nature ofMatusick’s relationship with Starks wouldhave been irrelevantto an equal

protection claim based on such harassment, it was critical to his intimate association

claim.

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b. The Majority’s Recognition of an Intimate Association Right in

Betrothal

The majority identifies the constitutionally protected right at issue as one of

“betrothal.”  To the extent Matusick and Starks were engaged, there is precedent

suggesting that their choice of each other as marital partners might claim

constitutional protection under the Due Process Clause, if not also under a First

Amendment right of intimate association.  See Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609,

620 (1984) (“[T]he Constitution undoubtedly imposes constraints on the State’s

power to control the selection of one’s spouse.”)3

; Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1

(1967) (holding that state prohibition on interracial marriage violated both equal

protection prohibition against race discrimination and due process right to marry);

Adler v. Pataki, 185 F.3d 35, 42 (2d Cir. 1999) (observing that whenever Supreme

Court has considered impairment of “most fundamental of intimate relationships,

marriage, it has not spoken generally of right of intimate association, but has

referred specifically to a right to marry and has grounded that right on the liberty

protected by the Due Process Clause”).  

3 In Roberts, the Supreme Courtrecognized the “right of association” to have

two components, one relating to association with others for expressive purposes

protected by the FirstAmendment,the otherrelating to intimate association, see 468

U.S. at 617–18.  Language in Roberts, and the authorities cited therein, suggest that

the right derives from the personal liberty protected by the Due Process Clause.  Id.;

see Adler v. Pataki, 185 F.3d 35, 42 (2d Cir. 1999).    

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Whatever the constitutional source of the right of intimate association in

betrothal recognized by the majority today, I agree that it was not so clearly

established at the time of the events at issue to support the individual defendants’

liability forinfringing thatrightthrough the creation of a hostile work environment.

I thus join in the decision to dismiss Matusick’s constitutional claim against the

individual defendants on the ground of qualified immunity.  

Qualified immunity does not extend to Matusick’s municipal employer, the

ECWA.  See Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 650 (1980);  Monell v.

N.Y.C. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 701 (1978).  My colleagues in the majority

uphold the intimate association judgment against that defendant, concluding that

the evidence was sufficient to admit a jury finding that Matusick sustained

pervasive verbal and physical harassment “on the basis of his intimate association

with Starks [that] rose to the level of a custom, policy, or practice at the ECWA.”

Ante at 71.  While I recognize that we can affirm for any reason that finds support

in the record, see 10 Ellicott Square Court Corp. v. Mountain Valley Indem. Co., 634

F.3d 112, 125 (2d Cir. 2011),I cannotjoin my colleagues in concluding thatthe record

here admits a finding of an ECWA custom or practice to violate employees’ intimate

association right in betrothal.  

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c. Betrothal Was Not Here Identified as the Protected Intimate

Association

Insofar as the majority recognizes betrothal as the intimate association here

at issue, I am not persuaded that this case was presented to the jury on the theory

that betrothal was the specific protected relationship violated.  To be sure, in his

opening statement to the jury, Matusick’s counsel stated that his client’s

“termination was a form of discrimination because of his relationship with his wife

who was at that time his fiancée.”  J.A. 1894 (emphasis added).  Even assuming this

is enough to identify betrothal as a protected relationship, the jury did not find that

Matusick had been terminated based on intimate association.  Rather, it found him

terminated on the basis ofracial bias.  With respect to the hostile work environment

that informs the jury’s intimate association judgment, counsel did not link that

injury to the fact of the couple’s engagement—as distinct from their relationship

generally.  In his opening statement, counsel asserted that Matusick was subjected

to repeated racial epithets simply because he had “fall[en] in love with an African

American woman,” making no mention of whatintimate association the couple had

formed that warranted constitutional protection.  J.A. 1892.  Indeed, counsel stated

that Matusick’s co‐workers made plain that their harassment was prompted by his

client  “hanging around” with blacks, that “[w]hite people shouldn’t hang around

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with [blacks],” and that Matusick “should stay away from the [blacks].”   J.A. 1893.4

This suggested that Matusick was subjected to a racially hostile work environment

because he maintained any relationship with an African American woman, not

specifically because that relationship was a betrothal.  As I have already noted, the

Equal Protection Clause would proscribe a hostile work environment based on race

withoutregardto the couple’sprecise relationship, butthe same conclusiondoes not

obtain with respect to the right of intimate association.

Nor did counsel’s summation or the court’s charge clarify that betrothal was

the intimate associationsupportingMatusick’s constitutional claim.  To the contrary,

counsel repeatedly referenced Starks as Matusick’s “girlfriend,” rather than as his

“fiancée,” and stated that Matusick was discriminated against “because he was

dating and then became engaged to an African American woman,” drawing no

constitutional distinction between the two phases of the couple’s relationship.  J.A.

2905, 2915, 2934–35.5

  In discussing infringement, counsel did reference engagement

4 In the quoted excerpts, I have substituted the word “blacks” for the racial

epithet that counsel ascribed to Matusick’s harassers.  See ante 8 n.3.  

5 This conflation persists in Matusick’s brief on appeal, which maintains that

“the right to intimate association extends to all highly intimate family relationships,

including a dating/fiancée relationship.” Appellee’s Br. 47; see Webster’s New

World Dictionary 1491(3d ed. 1986) (defining “virgule” as “short diagonal line (/)

used between two words to show either is applicable (and/or). . . .”).

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and marriage: “It is not required that the defendants interfere with the relationship

itself.  They do not need to have broken up the marriage or caused the engagement

to be broken off [ ] to cause harm.”  J.A. 2934.   But that negative point hardly made

clear to the jury that the couple’s betrothal was the critical fact supporting a

constitutional claim of intimate association.  

Indeed, the district court did not so charge the jury.  It instructed as follows:

Freedom of association includes the right to enter into and maintain

certain intimate human relationships, such as a relationship that

plaintiff shared with his then‐girlfriend Anita Starks. . . This right can

be violated if someone is penalized for those — for who the other

person is in a relationship.

J.A. 3008–09.    The fact that the court referred to Starks as Matusick’s

“girlfriend”—not his “fiancée”—can reasonably be understood to signal that the

constitutional claim did not depend on the couple’s betrothal.  That conclusion is

only reinforced by the instruction that the right of intimate association can be

violated by penalizing someone “for who the other person is in a relationship,”

rather than by penalizing someone “for his choice of whom to marry.”

d. The Record Does Not Admit a Finding of Municipal Liability for

Violation of the Intimate Association Right in Betrothal

In any event, the record does not admit a finding that ECWA had a policy,

practice, or custom of violating employees’ intimate association right in betrothal.

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The law recognizes that, even in the absence of a professed unconstitutional policy,

a municipality may be liable for the unconstitutional practices of its subordinates

where those practices are “so persistent and widespread” in the workplace “as to

practically have the force of law,”  Connick v. Thompson, 131 S. Ct. 1350, 1359

(2011), “or if a municipal custom, policy, or usage would be inferred from evidence

of deliberate indifference of supervisory officials to such abuses,” Jones v. Town of

E. Haven, 691 F.3d 72, 81 (2d Cir. 2012).   The majority concludes that the jury could

have found an unconstitutional custom or policy here from evidence that Matusick

complained to various supervisors about persistent harassment by co‐workers, that

supervisors failed to take remedial action, and that at least one of those

supervisors—Mendez—knew that Matusick and Starks were engaged.  See ante at

71–73.  I cannot agree.  Where municipal liability is based on employer inaction,

“rigorous standards of culpability and causation must be applied” to ensure against

vicarious liability.  Board of the Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 405 (1997);

accord Connick v. Thompson, 131 S. Ct. at 1365; Reynolds v. Giuliani, 506 F.3d 183,

192 (2d Cir. 2007).  Matusick did not satisfy these standards.

As the majority itself recognizes, the pervasive harassment that Matusick

experienced was racial.  See ante at 46.  The record does not indicate that Matusick

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complained or that ECWA would otherwise have known, that such racial

harassment was caused by his engagement to marry Starks.6

  The latter motivation,

and ECWA’s knowledge of it, would appear necessary to support a conclusion that

ECWA had a custom or practice of violating its employees’ rights of intimate

association, and not only their rights of equal protection.  See City of St. Louis v.

Prapotnick, 485U.S. 112, 127 (1988)(stating thatif authorizedpolicymakers approve

subordinate’s decision “and the basis for it,” their ratification is chargeable to

municipality); Green v. City of New York, 465 F.3d 65, 80 (2d Cir. 2006) (referencing

municipality’s practice to engage in “constitutional violation at issue”);  Amnesty

Am. v. Town of W. Hartford, 361 F.3d 113, 128 (2d Cir. 2004) (Sotomayor, J.)

(observing that plaintiff must establish that policymaking official had notice of

potentially serious problem of unconstitutional conduct, such that need for

corrective action or supervision was obvious).  While Starks testified that Mendez

knew of the couple’s engagement, that knowledge does not by itself equate to

knowledge that Matusick was being harassed because the couple planned to marry.

6 The record does indicate one log entry in which Matusick complained that

co‐worker Finn was making disparaging comments about him, his father, and his

family. While Matusick testified that he considered Starks and her children his

“new family,” he did not so state in his complaint, much less did he indicate that the

couple were engagedandthatthedisparagement was informedby thatrelationship.

  

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Indeed, as already noted, Matusick’s counsel argued to the jury that the harassment

was prompted by the fact that the couple had any relationship at all, circumstances

that would have supported an equal protection claim but not necessarily one based

on an intimate association right in betrothal.  

Further,insofar as thepanelunanimously affordsMendezqualifiedimmunity

as an individual because his obligation to stop racial harassment as a violation ofthe

intimate association right of betrothal was not then clearly established, it seems

curious to conclude that his failure to stop the harassment is an adequate basis for

identifying an ECWA custom or practice of violating its employees’ rights of

intimate association.  See ante at 72–73; see also City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S.

378, 388 (1989) (holding that official’s inaction must demonstrate “deliberate

choice”).  Indeed, precedent signals caution in reaching such a municipal liability

conclusion.  This court has held that where a municipal liability claim is grounded

in an employer’s deliberate indifference to the unconstitutional actions of its

employees, the constitutionalright at stake has to be “clearly established.”  Townes

v. City of New York, 176 F.3d 138, 143–44 (2d Cir. 1998); Young v. County of Fulton,

160 F.3d 899, 904 (2d Cir. 1998).  The Eighth Circuit recently cited approvingly to

Townes and Young in reaching the same conclusion en banc.  See Szabla v. City of

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Brooklyn Park, 486 F.3d 385, 393 (8th Cir. 2007).  As that court explained, requiring

that a constitutional right be clearly established to support a claim of deliberate

indifference “is not an application of qualified immunity for liability flowing from

an unconstitutional policy.  Rather, the lack of clarity in the law precludes a finding

that the municipality had an unconstitutional policy at all, because its policymakers

cannot properly be said to have exhibited a policy of deliberate indifference to

constitutional rights that were not clearly established.”   Id. at 394 (emphasis in

original).  While these deliberate indifference cases arise in the context of failures to

train or supervise rather than failure to investigate or discipline, what is common

to all these circumstances is employer inaction.   And as the Eighth Circuit has

persuasively explained in Szabla, for inaction of any sort to reflect “deliberate

indifference to constitutional rights,” the right must be established.  To conclude

otherwise is to ignore the rigorous standards of culpability and causation that, as I

earlier noted, the Supreme Court has mandated for municipal liability based on

deliberate indifference to employees’ constitutional violations.  See Board of the

Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. at 405; see Reynolds v. Giuliani, 506 F.3d at 192

(holding that rigorous standards apply to “broad range of supervisory liability

claims” including failure to supervise and to discipline, as well as to train).  

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Here, there was a clearly established constitutional right at stake: the right of

equal protection. Thus, to the extent Mendez, or other ECWA supervisors, failed to

investigate and stop the persistent racial harassment to which they knew Matusick

was being subjected, ECWA might well have been found liable for deliberate

indifference had that clearly established federal right been asserted.  But I am not

convinced simply from the fact that Mendez knew that Matusick and Starks were

engaged that his failure to stop the racial harassment supports holdingECWAliable

for an employer custom and practice of violating employees’ rights of intimate

association in betrothal.  

e. The Law Does Not Warrant Extension of the Right of Intimate

Association to Romantic Relationships Generally

Even if I were convinced that Matusick had demonstrated an ECWA custom

or practice of interfering with employees’ choices of whom to marry, I would not be

able to join in the majority opinion.  While my colleagues are careful to identify

betrothal as the intimate association at issue, certain language in the opinion could

be read to imply that the right reaches more broadly to protect a variety of

(unidentified)romantic relationships.  See ante at 58–61, 60 n.18.  Such a suggestion

is at best dictum, but it is dictum in which I cannot join.

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In recognizing a right of intimate association, as distinct from a right of

expressive association, the Supreme Court explained that the former shields “the

formation and preservation of certain kinds of highly personal relationships” from

unjustified state interference.  Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. at 618 (emphasis

added).  In short, not every  highlypersonalrelationship can claim the constitutional

protection of intimate association, only “certain kinds.”  While the Supreme Court

has declined to identify “every consideration that may underlie this type of

constitutional protection,” id., it has stated that the “kinds of highly personal

relationships” warranting constitutional protection are those that “have played a

critical role in the culture and traditions of the Nation by cultivating and

transmitting shared ideas and beliefs,” in the process “foster[ing] diversity and

act[ing] as critical buffers between the individual and the power of the State.”  Id.

at 618–19.    “[T]he constitutional shelter afforded such relationships reflects the

realization thatindividualsdrawmuchoftheir emotional enrichmentfromclose ties

with others.”  Id. at 619 (emphasis added) (observing that affording constitutional

protection to “these relationships . . . safeguards the ability independently to define

one’s identity that is central to any concept of liberty” (emphasis added)).  As the

highlighted language indicates, while the highly personalrelationships warranting

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intimate‐association protection characteristically foster personal identity and

provide emotional enrichment, not every personal relationship that does so is

constitutionally protected.  The considerations underlying extension of intimate‐

association protection to “such relationships” relate to the “critical role” they play

“in the culture and traditions of the Nation,” as described by Roberts.  Id. at 618–19.

In Roberts, the Supreme Court identified “[t]he personal affiliations that

exemplify these considerations, andthattherefore suggest some relevantlimitations

on the relationships that might be entitled to this sort of constitutional protection.”

Id. at 619 (emphasis added).  These affiliations are “those that attend the creation

and sustenance of a family,” specifically, “marriage, childbirth, the raising and

education of children, andcohabitation with one’s relatives.”  Id.(citations omitted).

The Court observed that such “[f]amily relationships, by their nature, involve deep

attachments and commitments to the necessarily few otherindividuals with whom

one shares not only a special community of thoughts, experiences, and beliefs but

also distinctively personal aspects of one’s life.”    Id. at 619–20.    Such family

relationships are also “distinguished by such attributes as relative smallness, a high

degree of selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation, and seclusion

from others in critical aspects of the relationship.”  Id. at 620.  Insofar as betrothal

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reflects a proclaimed promise (if no longer an enforceable contract) to marry,7 it

might be said to attend the formal creation of a family and, thus, to play a critical

role in the transmittal of the nation’s culture and traditions.  

Themajority, however, suggests thatintimate association mightreach further

because  Roberts did not specifically cabin the right of intimate association to family

relationships, see Board of Dirs. of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte,  481 U.S.

537, 545 (1987) (noting that Supreme Court has “not held that constitutional

protection is restrictedto relationships among familymembers”), andour own court

has disclaimed any “categorical approach . . . [to] association‐rights cases,” Chi Iota

Colony of Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity v. City Univ. of N.Y., 502 F.3d 136, 144 (2d

Cir. 2007).  True enough.  But neither the Supreme Court nor this court has thus far

recognized the right of intimate association to apply outside the context of families,

whether defined by blood or law.  See also Poirier v. Mass. Dep’t of Corr., 558 F.3d

92, 96 (1st Cir. 2009) (upholding dismissal of intimate association claim by prison

guard fired forromantic relationship with former inmate, holding that “unmarried

cohabitation of adults does not fall within any of the Supreme Court’s bright‐line

7 See N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 80‐a (abolishing cause of action for breach of

promise to marry); Fearon v. Treanor, 272 N.Y. 268, 5 N.E.2d 815 (1936) (upholding

statute as constitutional), appeal dismissed, 301 U.S. 667 (1937).  

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categories for fundamental rights”); but see Fair Hous. Council of San Fernando

Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC, 666 F.3d 1216, 1222 (9th Cir. 2012) (construing anti‐

discrimination provisions of federal and state fair housing laws not to apply to

shared living quarters to avoid possible intrusion on intimate association rights of

roommates).   At a minimum, this signals caution in expanding the right based

simply on analogous descriptive characteristics.

Certainly, Roberts does not suggest that any small, select, and secluded

association—a description that might well fit some criminal enterprises—can claim

constitutional protection.  Rather, Roberts instructs that “[a]s a general matter, only

relationships with these sorts of qualities” are “likely to reflect the considerations”

warranting constitutional protection for intimate associations.    Roberts v. U.S.

Jaycees, 468 U.S. at 620.  Thus,Roberts’s descriptive characteristics establish a useful

objective standard for identifying entities—like the Jaycees—whose size and

openness preclude them from claiming intimate‐association protection.  See also

Board of Dirs. of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. at 547 (holding

Rotary Club not protected by right of intimate association).  Indeed, this court has

used Roberts’s descriptive characteristics in this way, to reject intimate association

claims in various contexts.  See Piscottano v. Murphy, 511 F.3d 247, 278–80 (2d Cir.

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2007) (rejecting claim by corrections officers disciplined for gang association); Chi

Iota Colony of Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity v. City Univ. of N.Y., 502 F.3d at 147

(rejecting intimate association claim by fraternity wishing to continue excluding

women without forfeiting university recognition); Sanitation Recycling Indus., Inc.

v. City of New York, 107 F.3d 985, 995–96 (2d Cir. 1997) (rejecting intimate

association claim by carting companies challenging restrictive licensing scheme).  

Neither the Supreme Court nor this court, however, has afforded intimate

association protection based solely on a finding of small size, selectivity, and

seclusion.  Such a preliminary finding might allow the intimate association inquiry

to continue, but it does not conclusively resolve it.    The inquiry process is

necessarily holistic given “the broad range of human relationships that may make

greater orlesser claims to constitutional protection from particularincursions by the

State,” Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. at 620 (noting that factors relevant to

intimate associationinquiry include “size,purpose,policies, selectivity, congeniality,

and other characteristics that in a particular case may be pertinent”).  Moreover, it

contemplates a “careful assessment of where the relationship’s objective

characteristics locate it on a spectrum from the most intimate to the most attenuated

of personal attachments.”  Id.  But the ultimate point of the inquiry is not simply to

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draw descriptive analogies.  Rather, I understand the inquiry’s ultimate purpose to

be identifying those highly personalrelationships that exemplify the considerations

underlying the constitutional protection for intimate association.    As thus far

identified by the Supreme Court, those considerations  relate to the critical role that

certain highly personal relationships have played in the “culture and traditions of

the Nation.”  Id. at 618–19.  Betrothal may satisfy this criteria, but I am not inclined

to speculate that other relationships that fail to do so can also claim constitutional

protection.    

In explaining why I dissent from the majority’s decision to uphold ECWA’s

liability for violating Matusick’s right of intimate association, a final point is

noteworthy:  the practical beneficiary of the court’s decision is not Matusick, but

only his attorney.  Although the jury awarded Matusick $5,000 in punitive damages

from each of the individual defendants found liable on the intimate association

claim, the panel today reverses that judgment on the ground of qualified immunity.

And while the majority affirms the intimate association judgment against ECWA,

the jury awarded Matusick no compensatory (or even nominal) damages against

that defendant.  Thus, the practical effect of today’s decision with respect to the

intimate association claim is not to compensate Matusick for infringement of any

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constitutional right, but only to allow his lawyer to recover attorney’s fees for

pursuing a dubious constitutional claim of association instead of an obvious one of

equal protection.  See 42 U.S.C. § 1988.

* * *

To conclude, I concur in the court’s decision to affirm the judgment for

Matusick on his state law claim of a racially hostile work environment.  I also concur

in the decision to dismiss Matusick’s federal intimate association claim against

individual defendants on the ground of qualified immunity.  For the reasons stated

in this opinion, however, I respectfully dissent from the majority decision to affirm

the judgment for Matusick on his state wrongful termination claim and his federal

intimate association claim against ECWA.

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