16-1315 

Garanin v. New York City Housing Preservation and Development 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 

SUMMARY ORDER 

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY 

ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE 

OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A 

SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE 

FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). 

A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT 

REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at 

the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New 

York, on the 21st day of December, two thousand sixteen. 

Present: 

DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON,

DENNY CHIN, 

SUSAN L. CARNEY,

Circuit Judges. 

_____________________________________ 

VSEVOLOD GARANIN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 16-1315 

NEW YORK CITY HOUSING PRESERVATION AND 

DEVELOPMENT, CHANEL ZEISEL, individually and in 

her capacity as Project Manager and Leasing 

Supervisor at 44th Street Development LLC, DORON 

TALEPOROS, individually and in his capacity as 

Deputy Director of Marketing at New York City 

Housing Preservation and Development, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

_____________________________________ 

For Plaintiff-Appellant: Vsevolod Garanin, pro se, Staten Island, New York 
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For Defendants-Appellees: Ellen Sara Ravitch, Scott Nathan Shorr, of counsel, for 

Zachary W. Carter, Corporation Counsel of the City of New 

York, New York, New York (for New York City Housing 

Preservation and Development and Doron Taleporos); Felice 

B. Ekelman, Adam S. Gross, Jackson Lewis P.C., New York, 

New York (for Chanel Zeisel) 

 

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of 

New York (Nathan, J.), entered on March 31, 2016. 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND 

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

Plaintiff-Appellant Vsevolod Garanin, proceeding pro se, appeals from the district court’s 

judgment dismissing his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint, which alleged that the 

Defendants-Appellees—New York City Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”), its 

employee, and the project manager for a residential real estate company—violated his rights under 

the Equal Protection Clause and the First Amendment by denying his application for 

middle-income housing based on guidelines that discriminated against self-employed individuals 

and in retaliation for certain complaints that he made about the project manager. We assume the 

parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on 

appeal. 

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), “construing the complaint liberally, accepting all factual allegations in 

the complaint as true, and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor.” Chambers 

Time Warner, 282 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir. 2002). The complaint must plead “enough facts to 

a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 
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(2007); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Although a court must accept as 

all the factual allegations in the complaint, that requirement is “inapplicable to legal 

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. 

Upon review, we conclude that the district court correctly determined that Garanin failed 

to plausibly allege violations of the Equal Protection Clause. “The Equal Protection Clause 

requires that the government treat all similarly situated people alike.” Harlen Assocs. v. Inc. 

Vill. of Mineola, 273 F.3d 494, 499 (2d Cir. 2001). This clause prohibits both “prototypical” 

discrimination based on membership in a protected class and “class of one” discrimination where 

the plaintiff alleges that he has been “intentionally treated differently from others similarly 

situated” without a “rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Id. (quoting Vill. of 

Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (per curiam)). We conclude that Garanin has 

failed to plausibly allege a “prototypical” equal protection claim because self-employment does 

not define a protected class. Also, Garanin failed to allege a “class of one” equal protection 

claim because his complaint contained no references to comparators or any factual allegations 

addressing “similarity in circumstances and difference in treatment.” Neilson v. D’Angelis, 409 

F.3d 100, 105 (2d Cir. 2005), abrogated on other grounds, Appel v. Spiridon, 531 F.3d 138 (2d 

Cir. 2008) (per curiam). 

We affirm the dismissal of Garanin’s remaining claims substantially for the reasons 

in the district court’s well-reasoned and thorough order. The district court correctly dismissed 

Garanin’s claims against Chanel Zeisel for failure to state a claim. A plaintiff must plausibly 

allege that the defendant is a state actor to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Milan v. 

Wertheimer, 808 F.3d 961, 964 (2d Cir. 2015) (per curiam). Zeisel was the project manager of 
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private development company. A “private entity” can be liable for a § 1983 violation if its 

“challenged actions are fairly attributable to the state.” McGugan v. Aldana-Bernier, 752 F.3d 

224, 229 (2d Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 1703 (2015). 

But Garanin failed to plausibly allege that Zeisel’s alleged retaliation was fairly attributable to 

state. In addition, Garanin failed to state a claim for municipal liability under § 1983. A 

complaint asserting municipal liability must plausibly allege that an official policy or custom 

caused the plaintiff’s constitutional rights to be violated. See Wray v. City of N.Y., 490 F. 3d 

195 (2d Cir. 2007). “The failure to train or supervise city employees may constitute an official 

policy or custom if the failure to train amounts to deliberate indifference.” Id. (internal 

marks omitted). Deliberate indifference exists when “a policymaking official was aware of 

constitutional injury” but “failed to take appropriate action to prevent or sanction” the violations. 

Jones v. Town of E. Haven, 691 F.3d 72, 81 (2d Cir. 2012). Garanin failed to plausibly allege a 

policymaking official’s involvement in or knowledge of the alleged retaliatory actions. 

We have considered Garanin’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. 

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. 

 FOR THE COURT: 

 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk