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State of New York 

Court of Appeals 

OPINION 

This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision 

before publication in the New York Reports. 

No. 37 

Suzan Russell, 

 Appellant, 

 v. 

New York University, et al., 

 Respondents. 

Avram S. Turkel, for appellant. 

Joseph C. O'Keefe, for respondents New York University, et al. 

David M. Alberts, for respondents Joseph M. Thometz et al. 

GARCIA, J.: 

 Plaintiff was subjected to offensive and demeaning conduct by her colleagues and 

sued them and her employer in federal court alleging violations of various federal, New 

York State, and New York City statutes, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

The parties engaged in the full discovery process, including depositions and document 

production, and defendants moved for summary judgment. A federal judge made detailed 
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factual findings and applied those findings to defendants’ federal claims, ultimately 

granting defendants’ summary judgment motions, and the United States Court of Appeals 

for the Second Circuit affirmed. Plaintiff brought a nearly identical suit in Supreme Court, 

raising claims over which the federal district court declined to exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction. Supreme Court dismissed plaintiff’s complaint as barred by collateral 

estoppel and for failing to state a claim, the Appellate Division agreed, and we now affirm. 

I.

 For several months, plaintiff, an adjunct professor at NYU, received unsolicited, 

offensive mail to her NYU mailbox and email account that targeted her based on her age, 

religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation. She was also the victim of online 

impersonation, with offensive comments posted in her name on various websites. She 

reported this conduct to various individuals and employment offices at NYU and the 

incidents were thoroughly investigated, the offenders sought, and measures taken to limit 

the harmful impact of the conduct on plaintiff. Dissatisfied with NYU’s response, plaintiff 

elected to file suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York 

against NYU and certain administrators (collectively, NYU), as well as the individuals she 

claimed were responsible for the conduct against her (the individual defendants), alleging 

discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation under various federal statutes, the 

New York State Human Rights Law (the State HRL), and the New York City Human 

Rights Law (the City HRL), as well as a claim for intentional infliction of emotional 

distress (IIED). 
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 A court-annexed mediation between the parties was unsuccessful, and the parties 

proceeded to discovery, entering into a standard confidentiality agreement before 

exchanging documents and conducting depositions. After receiving discovery materials 

designated confidential, plaintiff contacted an NYU professor identified by defendants as 

a potential witness and sent her a series of hostile and threatening emails. Despite receiving 

a cease-and-desist letter from NYU’s counsel, plaintiff continued to send disturbing emails 

to the potential witness. Several days later, plaintiff received a letter advising her that her 

NYU employment was terminated because she “was engaged in harassing, intimidating, 

and threatening a faculty member” and was “in violation of a court directive.” 

 Plaintiff’s union filed a grievance challenging her termination. An arbitrator later 

determined that plaintiff had engaged in misconduct that justified “some discipline,” that 

it was a “serious issue that required a serious response,” but that the conduct “did not rise 

to the level that would justify immediate termination.” The arbitrator awarded plaintiff 

back pay but did not award reinstatement. Plaintiff amended her complaint to allege 

retaliation based on her termination, claiming that she was fired for refusing to settle during 

the mediation. 

 At the close of discovery, NYU and the individual defendants moved for summary 

judgment. In a thorough opinion with extensive factfinding, the district court granted 

defendants’ motions (Russell v New York Univ., 2017 WL 3049534, * 31-38 [SD NY, July 

17, 2017, No. 15 Civ. 2185 (GHW)]). In short, the district court rejected plaintiff’s hostile 

work environment claim because “no reasonable jury could find that NYU responded 

negligently here,” and plaintiff’s discrimination and retaliation claims because plaintiff 
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presented no evidence that her termination occurred under circumstances giving rise to an 

inference of discrimination, no evidence of a causal connection between her termination 

and any protected activity, no evidence that her termination was a pretext for 

discrimination, and no evidence of any retaliatory motive for her termination (2017 WL 

3049536, *31-36). The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over 

plaintiff’s City and State HRL claims and dismissed those claims without prejudice (id. at 

*39-40). Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of her hostile work environment and retaliation 

claims and the Second Circuit affirmed (739 Fed Appx 28 [2d Cir 2018]). 

 While her appeal was pending, plaintiff filed this action in Supreme Court, Bronx 

County, alleging violations of the State and City HRLs, renewing her IIED claim, adding 

another NYU administrator as a defendant, and asserting a new protected category of 

disability. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint as barred by collateral estoppel and 

for failure to state a claim, and Supreme Court granted these motions (2020 NY Slip Op 

35215[U], *17 [Sup Ct, Bronx County 2020]). The court dismissed the discrimination 

claims against the NYU defendants, on the basis that the federal district court found “that 

the NYU defendants exhaustively investigated the harassment by the individual 

defendants, that the NYU defendants were not [] aware of and did not participate in the 

harassment, [and] that they took reasonable action to address the claims” (id. at *11). Next, 

the court dismissed the retaliation claims against NYU, reasoning that “under the more 

liberal analysis of the City Human Rights Law,” “no basis exists for a finding that unlawful 

discrimination was the basis for an adverse employment action” based on the “factual 

findings of the federal court [that] make clear that no pretext or retaliatory animus existed 
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for the termination of plaintiff’s employment” (2020 NY Slip Op 35215[U], *13-15). 

Plaintiff’s claims against the individual defendants were also dismissed, with the court 

holding that the district court’s findings that the individual defendants had no supervisory 

role over plaintiff precluded any claim under the relevant statutes because “co-workers 

who engage in discriminatory conduct who have no role in supervision or terms of 

employment are not liable under the NYCHRL or the NYSHRL” (id. at *16). Derivative 

aiding and abetting claims against the individual defendants did not survive because the 

primary claims against NYU were dismissed (id.). 

 The Appellate Division affirmed, with the full panel agreeing that plaintiff was 

collaterally estopped from proceeding on her discrimination and hostile work environment 

claims and that the individual defendants could not be held liable under the City HRL in 

the absence of any supervisory authority (204 AD3d 577, 579, 593 [1st Dept 2022]). While 

the majority held that plaintiff was collaterally estopped from proceeding on her retaliation 

claim by the federal court’s finding “that plaintiff failed to present evidence that NYU’s 

reason [for plaintiff’s termination] was pretextual” (id. at 579-580), the dissent would have 

held that “[t]he temporal proximity between plaintiff’s refusal to settle her discrimination 

claims and her termination some five weeks later supports an inference that she was 

terminated in retaliation for refusing to settle and continuing to prosecute her 

discrimination claims,” “buttressed by the arbitrator’s finding that her termination was an 

unduly harsh remedy for her conduct” (id. at 588). Plaintiff’s appeal comes to this Court 

as of right pursuant to CPLR 5601 (a). 

II. 
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 The courts below properly applied our established principles of collateral estoppel 

in the context of the unique requirements of the City Human Rights Law. Collateral 

estoppel “bars the relitigation of an issue of fact or law actually litigated and resolved in a 

valid court determination essential to the prior judgment” and so “the determination of an 

essential issue is binding in a subsequent action, even if it recurs in the context of a different 

claim” (Paramount Pictures Corp. v Allianz Risk Transfer AG, 31 NY3d 64, 72 [2018] 

[internal citations and quotation marks omitted]). If there is identity of issues between the 

prior determination and the instant litigation, and the precluded party had a full and fair 

opportunity to contest the prior determination, collateral estoppel applies and the prior 

determination is binding in the subsequent action (see Kaufman v Eli Lilly & Co., 65 NY2d 

449, 455 [1985]). 

Courts in New York are not infrequently called upon to apply these principles in 

cases where plaintiffs have initially sought to have their rights vindicated in federal court, 

particularly in the employment context. After federal courts in those cases have supervised 

extensive discovery, made findings of fact and liability determinations adverse to plaintiffs, 

granted summary judgment on the federal claims, and declined to exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction over claims brought under the City and State HRLs, plaintiffs may opt to 

pursue these claims in state courts (see e.g. Johnson v IAC/InterActive Corp., 179 AD3d 

551, 552 [1st Dept 2020] [collateral estoppel applied to preclude plaintiff’s claims under 

the “more liberal analysis” of City HRL following district court’s grant of summary 

judgment to defendants]; Williams v NYC Transit Auth., 171 AD3d 990, 992-993 [2d Dept 

2019] [same]; Milione v City University of NY, 153 AD3d 807, 808-809 [2d Dept 2017] 
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[same]; Simmons-Grant v Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, 116 AD3d 134, 138-

141 [1st Dept 2014] [same]). Applying the doctrine of collateral estoppel as it was 

intended, these courts will dismiss complaints where the federal court determinations 

preclude a second litigation (see id.; cf. Allen v McCurry, 449 US 90, 95-96 [1980] 

[“collateral estoppel not only reduce(s) unnecessary litigation and foster(s) reliance on 

adjudication, but also promote(s) the comity between state and federal courts that has been 

recognized as a bulwark of the federal system”]; Buechel v Bain, 97 NY2d 295, 303 [2001] 

[“The policies underlying (collateral estoppel’s) application are avoiding relitigation of a 

decided issue and the possibility of an inconsistent result”]).

The City HRL must be “construed liberally for the accomplishment of the uniquely 

broad and remedial purposes thereof, regardless of whether federal or New York state civil 

and human rights laws . . . have been so construed” (Administrative Code of the City of 

NY § 8-130 [a]; see Albunio v City of New York, 16 NY3d 472, 477-478 [2011]). To that 

end, when considering the collateral estoppel effect of a federal district court ruling, our 

state courts must be, and have been, cognizant of this distinct analytical framework (see 

e.g. Williams, 171 AD3d at 993 [“(E)ven under the broader standard of the NYCHRL, (the 

federal factual) determinations nonetheless require dismissal of the plaintiff’s causes of 

action”]; Karimian v Time Equities, Inc., 164 AD3d 486, 488-489 [2d Dept 2018] [“(A) 

cause of action asserted pursuant to NYCHRL must be analyzed independently from 

similar or identical causes of action asserted pursuant to Title VII and/or NYSHRL”]; 

Simmons-Grant, 116 AD3d at 140 [“(T)he resolution of even a strictly factual issue could 

vary depending on the balancing process that shapes a court’s view of one or more events,” 
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and the “balancing process demanded by title VII as it has been interpreted . . . and the City 

HRL as it has been amended by the Restoration Act . . . can easily yield different 

interpretations and, hence, different results”]). Nevertheless, as the Appellate Division 

correctly noted below, “it would be illogical to accept as true in the state action a factual 

allegation rejected by the federal court where plaintiff had a full and fair opportunity to 

litigate it in the federal action, as long as the same conclusion would result if the allegation 

were viewed under the more liberal City Human Rights Law standard” (204 AD3d at 579). 

Put another way, even under the City HRL, the “general principle [of liberal construction] 

does not substitute for evidence” and “once defendant [has] established its nonretaliatory 

reason in the federal action, plaintiff [is] required to identify an issue of fact” (SimmonsGrant, 116 AD3d at 141). 

Lower courts have had no trouble applying collateral estoppel within this framework 

(compare Kim v Goldberg, Weprin, Finkel, Goldstein, LLP, 120 AD3d 18, 23-24 [1st Dept 

2014] [collateral estoppel did not apply to bar claims under City and State HRLs following 

federal court ruling on federal statutory claims because both the applicable standard and 

“claimed bases for retaliation” differed between the federal and state actions], and 

Domingo v Avis Budget Group, Inc., 219 AD3d 964, 966 [2d Dept 2023] [dismissing 

retaliation claims as barred by collateral estoppel where factual determinations examined 

under Title VII and State HRL by federal court were “determinative of” retaliation claims 

asserted in state complaint under City HRL, but maintaining hostile work environment 

claim because plaintiff’s allegations “could constitute ‘more than petty slights and trivial 

inconveniences’ (as required by the City HRL) without rising to the level of being severe 
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and pervasive (as required by Title VII and State HRL)”] with Johnson, 179 AD3d at 552 

[“In applying collateral estoppel to such purely factual issues, the motion court properly 

evaluated plaintiff’s claims of discrimination and disparate treatment under the more liberal 

analysis of the City Human Rights Law . . . and correctly concluded that plaintiff failed to 

raise a triable issue of discrimination based on the termination of her employment or any 

disparate treatment”]). The courts below adhered to this approach and correctly concluded 

that plaintiff’s claims are precluded based on the findings of the district court. 

A. 

In the federal litigation, the district court found that, because “no reasonable jury 

could find that NYU responded negligently here,” plaintiff’s hostile work environment 

claim failed, and that because plaintiff “failed to present any evidence from which a 

reasonable jury could draw an inference of discrimination,” her discrimination claim failed 

(2017 WL 3059534, *31, 33). With respect to defendant’s retaliation claim, the district 

court held that plaintiff presented “no evidence that NYU’s stated reason for her 

termination was merely a pretext for discrimination,” no evidence “that her termination 

occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination,” no 

“circumstances giving rise to an inference that she was terminated because of her sex, age, 

or religion,” and no “evidence of a causal connection between her termination and any 

protected activity” (id. at *32-35). Rejecting plaintiff’s assertion that the arbitrator’s 

finding that plaintiff’s misconduct did not “rise to the level that would justify immediate 

termination” supported an inference that her termination was retaliatory, the district court 

instead held that, because the arbitrator concluded that plaintiff committed serious 
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misconduct requiring a serious response and “did not find that NYU’s termination of 

[plaintiff] was motivated by any discriminatory animus or anything else other than its 

judgment as to [plaintiff’s] misconduct,” the arbitrator’s conclusion “does not support an 

inference that [plaintiff] was terminated for discriminatory reasons” (id. at * 33). The 

district court also determined, with respect to NYU’s assertion that plaintiff’s termination 

was due to her harassing emails to a fellow professor and potential witness, that plaintiff 

failed “to present evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that NYU’s 

explanation was a pretext for impermissible retaliation” (id. *36). With respect to 

plaintiff’s “reli[ance] . . . on the alleged temporal proximity between the court-ordered 

mediation held in this lawsuit and her termination,” the court explained that, if considered, 

evidence of such temporal proximity would be insufficient to counter the finding that 

NYU’s explanation for plaintiff’s termination was not pretextual (id. at *37). 

 Where a federal court has made an “explicit finding that plaintiff produced no

evidence on the relevant specific factual issue in the litigation,” as was done here, the 

application of the collateral estoppel bar to plaintiff’s identical claims under state statutes 

is warranted (Simmons-Grant, 116 AD3d at 140). With no factual findings to sustain a 

discrimination or retaliation claim no matter the standard, plaintiff’s claims must be 

dismissed.1 Application of the requisite liberal construction standard does not change the 

1

 The dissent below suggested that the federal courts determined that “any causal inference 

would be too weak to rebut the facially nondiscriminatory reason proffered by defendants 

for plaintiff’s termination” (204 AD3d at 591 [Gonzalez, J., dissenting]). The federal 

courts instead held that there was no evidence upon which any such causal inference could 

be based (2017 WL 3049534, *32-36). 
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result, and this case does not implicate “the frequent risk that evidence winds up being 

undervalued for City HRL purposes because it has been filtered through a [federal] lens” 

(id.). Instead, applying the proper mixed-motive standard under the City HRL, Supreme 

Court correctly determined that plaintiff could not proceed on her claims where “[t]he 

factual findings of the federal courts make clear that no pretext or retaliatory animus existed 

for the termination of plaintiff’s employment” (2020 NY Slip Op 35215[U], *15 [emphasis 

added]). Plaintiff’s claims against NYU were thus barred by collateral estoppel. 

B. 

Plaintiff ’s claims against the individual defendants were also properly dismissed.2 

Plaintiff argues that these individuals, both NYU faculty members at the time of the 

conduct, are liable as supervisors, that they aided and abetted NYU’s violations, and that, 

even assuming they held no supervisory role, they can be found personally liable for their 

own harassing conduct under the City HRL. These claims all fail. 

The district court noted that it was “undisputed” that the individual defendants were 

plaintiff’s “co-workers rather than her supervisors” (2017 WL 3049534, *28). This finding 

precludes any determination to the contrary in this litigation, and so plaintiff’s first theory 

of liability based on any alleged supervisory role must be rejected. With respect to aiding 

and abetting liability (see Administrative Code § 8-107 [6]), there can be no such liability 

given that the predicate claims against NYU were properly dismissed (see Abe v Cohen, 

2

 Likewise, plaintiff’s claims against individual NYU administrators and plaintiff’s IIED 

claim against the individual defendants were properly dismissed for failure to state a claim. 
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115 AD3d 491, 492 [1st Dept 2014]; Palmer v Cook, 65 Misc 3d 374, 392 [Sup Ct, Queens 

County 2019] [“A pre-condition to proving aiding and abetting pursuant to the NYSHRL 

and NYCHRL is a finding of discrimination”]). 

We also reject plaintiff’s claim that the individual defendants may be liable under 

the City HRL absent any supervisory role. While that statute goes beyond the State HRL 

in providing for individual liability, it does not, as written, permit coworkers to be held 

liable absent a role in administering the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of 

plaintiff’s employment. 

Federal, state, and local employment statutes hold employers liable for 

discriminatory conduct (see e.g. 42 USC § 2000e-2 [Title VII]; 29 USC § 623 [ADEA]; 

Executive Law § 296 [1] [State HRL]; Administrative Code § 8-106 [1] [City HRL]). 

Employers are thus required to provide reasonable avenues for discrimination and 

harassment complaints, to respond appropriately to such complaints, and to take reasonable 

steps to eliminate the harmful conduct; where they fail to do so, they are subject to liability 

under these statutes (see Zakrzewska v New School, 14 NY3d 469, 479-480 [2010]; 

Williams v New York City Housing Auth., 61 AD3d 62, 73-80 [1st Dept 2009]; see also 

Rojas v Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, 660 F3d 98, 107 [2d Cir 2011]; Terry v 

Ashcroft, 336 F3d 128, 148 [2d Cir 2003]). Unlike other statutes, however, the City HRL 

expressly provides for liability at the individual employee level, making it “an unlawful 

discriminatory practice . . . [f]or an employer or an employee or agent thereof, because of 

the actual or perceived age, race, creed, color, national origin, gender, disability, marital 

status, partnership status, caregiver status, sexual and reproductive health decisions, sexual 
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orientation, uniformed service, height, weight, or immigration or citizenship status of any 

person . . . [t]o discriminate against such person in compensation or in terms, conditions or 

privileges of employment” (Administrative Code § 8-107 [1] [a] [3] [emphasis added]; 

NYC Legislative Annual 145-81 [1991]). The language providing for liability of “an 

employee or agent” was added to the statute in 1991 (Local Law No. 39 [1991] of City of 

NY § 1).3 

We agree with the lower courts that have held that the statutory language, textually 

limited as it is to discrimination in pay, terms, conditions, and privileges of employment, 

provides for liability for individual employees for discrimination when those employees 

have some supervisory role over the victim of their discrimination (see e.g. Priore v New 

York Yankees, 307 AD2d 67, 74 [1st Dept 2003] [City HRL limits liability to fellow 

employees who “act with or on behalf of the employer in hiring, firing, paying, or in 

administering the ‘terms, conditions or privileges of employment’—in other words, in 

some agency or supervisory capacity”). As required by the statute’s liberal rule of 

construction, we construe this language broadly, to include not just those with formal 

managerial or titular authority over a plaintiff, but as applicable to those who wield any 

ability to dictate or administer the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of the 

plaintiff’s employment (see e.g. Melendez v NYC Transit Auth., 204 AD3d 542, 543 [1st 

3

 In comparison, the State HRL does not expressly address discrimination directly 

committed by an employee (see Executive Law § 296 [1] [prohibiting discrimination only 

by an “employer”]; § 296 [6] [prohibiting “any person” from aiding and abetting 

discrimination]; see also Patrowich v Chemical Bank, 63 NY2d 541, 542-543 [1984]). 
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Dept 2022] [evidence that defendant “had the de facto ability to direct other employees, 

notwithstanding his official title” precluded summary judgment on City HRL claim]). 

Today we simply affirm the First Department’s approach that began more than 

twenty years ago with Priore and has been consistently applied through the Restoration 

Act, after Williams, and since the 2016 City HRL amendments.4 No support is provided 

for the dissent’s contrary approach. Indeed, in each of the cases cited by the dissent for the 

undisputed propositions that “state and federal courts have treated section 8-107 (1) (a) as 

creating individual liability for employees” and that “a person may sue an employee for 

allegedly creating or participating in a hostile work environment based on the 

complainant’s protected classification” (see dissenting op at 9-10, 14-15), with the 

exception of Murphy v ERA Realty (251 AD2d 469, 471 [2d Dept 1998]), plaintiff either 

did not bring a claim based on individual liability (see e.g. Springs v City of N.Y., 2019 WL 

1429567, *15 n 4, *16 [SD NY Mar. 28, 2019, No. 17 Civ. 451 (AJN)] [“The Court is 

cognizant that Plaintiff has not brought a NYCHRL discrimination claim against any of 

the individual defendants”]; Baldwin v Bank of America, NA, 42 Misc 3d 1203[A], 2013 

NY Slip Op 52194[U], *8 [Sup Ct, Kings County 2013] [“Plaintiff does not allege that 

defendant Perez is directly liable under City Human Rights (Law) § 8-107 (1) (a)”]), or 

4

 While the dissent insists that the First Department “acknowledged” in Williams that 

Priore was overruled (dissenting op at 27), the First Department has continued to apply 

Priore (id. at 19-20), including the full panel below (204 AD3d at 579, 593). For this 

reason, as well as the other issues identified herein, we do not find the position advocated 

by “[a] drafter of both the 1991 and 2005 amendments” persuasive (see dissenting op at 

19, 23, 24, 25, 26, citing Gurian, A Return to Eyes on the Prize, 33 Fordham Urb LJ 255 

[2006]). 
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brought a claim against an individual with supervisory or managerial control over the 

plaintiff (see Quintero v Angels of the World, Inc., 2021 WL 4464123, *10 [ED NY, Sep. 

10, 2021, 19 Civ. 6126 (DG)] [individual defendant “harasser” managed operations of 

employer and controlled plaintiff’s work schedule]; Antoine v Brooklyn Maids 26, Inc., 

489 F Supp 3d 68, 78 [ED NY 2020] [individual defendant “harasser” was the chief 

executive officer of plaintiff’s employer and her supervisor]; Setty v Synergy Fitness, 2018 

WL 8415414, *1 [ED NY Dec. 18, 2018, 17 Civ. 06504 (NGG/SMG)] [individual 

defendant “harasser” was plaintiff’s former manager]; Dillon v Ned Management, Inc., 85 

F Supp 3d 639 [ED NY 2015] [individual defendants were plaintiff’s boss, “immediate 

supervisor,” the “owner of the company,” and the “bookkeeper” with authority to dock 

plaintiff’s pay]; Baldwin, 2013 NY Slip Op 52194[U], *2 [individual defendant was 

plaintiff’s former supervisor]; Malena v Victoria’s Secret Direct, LLC, 886 F Supp 2d 349, 

366 [SD NY 2012] [individual defendant was plaintiff’s direct boss “and hence supervised 

her schedule and conditions of employment” and “played a part in setting Plaintiff’s 

salary”]; Nelson v HSBC Bank USA, 41 AD3d 445, 446 [2d Dept 2007] [individual 

defendants were plaintiffs’ supervisors]). Of course, as explained, we agree with the 

dissent that section 8-107 (1) (a) creates individual liability for employees—but only those 

employees who, as in the above-cited cases, have a role in administering plaintiff’s 

compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. 5 

5

 We decline to adopt the dissent’s suggestion that the meaning of “conditions of 

employment” somehow changes when applied to gender-based harassment (see dissenting 

op at 14-15, 18). Sixteen protected characteristics upon which a claim for employee 
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But that is as far as the language of the statute will permit us to go (see Makinen v 

City of NY, 30 NY3d 81, 88 [2017] [“Even if the NYCHRL was intended to be more 

protective than the state and federal counterparts, and even if its legislative history 

contemplates that the Law be independently construed with the aim of making it the most 

progressive in the nation, the NYCHRL still must be interpreted based on its plain 

meaning”] [internal citations and quotation marks omitted]). The text of the statute does 

not support unlimited liability for all co-workers, but instead ties that liability to the power 

to affect specified features of plaintiff’s employment (see e.g. Eustache v Board of Educ., 

221 AD3d 452, 453 [1st Dept 2023] [claims under City HRL dismissed against coworker 

where plaintiff “failed to sufficiently allege that (defendant) had any authority over the 

terms, conditions, or privileges of his employment”]; Kwong v City of N.Y., 204 AD3d 442, 

445-446 [1st Dept 2022]; Priore, 307 AD2d at 74 [“There is no indication in the local 

ordinance, explicit or implicit, that it was intended to afford a separate right of action 

against any and all fellow employees based on their independent and unsanctioned 

contribution to a hostile environment”]). For that reason, we decline to adopt the approach 

suggested by the Second Department in Murphy, which is unmoored from the text of the 

City HRL6 (251 AD2d at 471 [paraphrasing the City HRL as generally prohibiting 

liability may be based are listed in section 8-107 (1) (a) and there is nothing to suggest that 

gender, the sixth listed category, is to be treated differently. 

6

 The dissent’s reliance on dicta in federal cases analyzing the NYCHRL is misplaced and 

misapprehends the role of federal courts in applying New York law (see majority op at 9-

10, 16-17 n 5). First, many of the cited cases involved liability claims against individuals 
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“discriminatory employment practices” and failing to consider the scope of employee 

liability in the context of the statute’s prohibition on discrimination in “compensation, . . . 

terms, conditions or privileges of employment”]). 

We do not in any way minimize or downplay the offensive conduct attributed to the 

individual defendants. But avenues are available for holding those who engage in such 

behavior accountable; plaintiff unsuccessfully pursued those avenues in this litigation. 

Whether to make the far-reaching change in individual liability sought here—personal 

liability that would extend to subordinates as well as supervisors—is a question for the City 

Council, not this Court. 

As always, we strive to construe a statute to effectuate legislative intent, using 

whatever interpretive tools are available, including the liberal construction we all agree is 

applicable to claims under the City HRL. We respectfully disagree with our dissenting 

colleague as to the result of that process here. And while the legislative branch is of course 

free to disagree with us and amend the statute, we do not share our dissenting colleague’s 

with authority to administer plaintiffs’ compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of 

employment, and accordingly those holdings are consistent with our opinion today (see

dissenting op at 16-17 n 5 [citing exclusively federal cases involving claims against 

managers, supervisors, or owners]). To the extent some of those cases suggest a different 

rule, they rely, or follow cases that rely, as federal courts must, on existing state case law 

(see United States v Fernandez-Antonia, 278 F3d 150, 162 [2d Cir 2002] [“It is axiomatic 

. . . that when interpreting state statutes federal courts defer to state courts’ interpretation 

of their own statutes”]). As discussed, the case law, particularly the Second Department’s 

opinion in Murphy, has caused some confusion, which we clarify today in rejecting the 

approach taken by that court. 
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view that we need to be “reminded” (dissenting op at 2, 29) of what is, emphatically, the 

responsibility of this Court to determine what the law says. 

Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs. 
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RIVERA, J. (dissenting): 

 The New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”) prohibits certain 

discriminatory conduct by “an employer, or an employee or an agent thereof” 

(Administrative Code of the City of NY § 8-107 [1] [a] [3]). This language could not be 

clearer: employees are individually liable for their discriminatory conduct, without 
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reservation. The language furthers the NYCHRL’s animating policy to deter and eliminate 

all forms of discrimination. Despite the statute’s clear text and antidiscrimination goals, 

the majority grafts onto the NYCHRL a nonexistent limitation on employee liability 

requiring the defendant to have a supervisory role, citing caselaw the City Council 

legislatively overruled years ago (see NYC Local Law 35 of 2016 [“LL35”], 2016 NYC 

Leg. Ann. 177, LMA at 18, codified as Administrative Code § 8-130 [c], ratifying Williams 

v New York City Hous. Auth., 61 AD3d 62 [1st Dept 2009], thereby legislatively overruling 

Priore v New York Yankees, 307 AD2d 67 [2003]). The majority thus ignores the most 

elementary rule of statutory construction to give meaning to the legislative intent, here, the 

City Council’s repeated mandate that the NYCHRL be “construed liberally for the 

accomplishment of the uniquely broad and remedial purposes thereof” with “exceptions to 

and exemptions from” the statute “construed narrowly in order to maximize deterrence of 

discriminatory conduct” (Administrative Code § 8–130 [a], [b]). 

The Council has twice amended the NYCHRL in response to this Court’s overly 

narrow reading of the law. Now it will have to remind the judiciary for a third time that the 

Council means what it says. 

I. 

 Plaintiff, Suzan Russell, filed a complaint in federal court alleging that, while 

teaching as an adjunct professor in New York University’s (“NYU’s”) Liberal Studies 

department, she was subjected to ongoing identity-based harassment via email and hard 
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copy mail from another professor, Joseph M. Thometz, that he impersonated her to further 

harass her, and that NYU terminated her in retaliation for pursuing these claims. The 

federal action alleged discrimination by NYU and the Academic Dean, and individually by 

Thometz and his wife—NYU Professor Eve Meltzer—based on plaintiff’s gender, age, 

sexual orientation, and religion. The complaint also included a claim for intentional 

infliction of emotional distress. 

 The District Court dismissed plaintiff’s federal claims on the merits and declined to 

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the non-federal claims, and to the extent plaintiff 

appealed, the Second Circuit affirmed. Plaintiff then filed the underlying action in state 

court alleging her state and city claims. I agree for the reasons stated by the majority that 

plaintiff is collaterally estopped from pursuing her claims against NYU and the individual 

defendants, with one categorical exception (see majority op at 11). Plaintiff sufficiently 

pleads hostile work environment claims under the NYCHRL against Thometz and Meltzer 

based on their alleged individual conduct as fellow employees and therefore those claims 

should proceed. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, the viability of those claims does 

not depend on whether these defendants acted in a supervisory role. 

II. 

A. 

“It is fundamental that a court, in interpreting a statute, should attempt to effectuate 

the intent of the Legislature. As the clearest indicator of legislative intent is the statutory 
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text, the starting point in any case of interpretation must always be the language itself, 

giving effect to the plain meaning thereof.” (Majewski v Broadalbin-Perth Cent. Sch. Dist., 

91 NY2d 577, 583 [1998] [internal citations and quotations omitted]). In that vein, “resort 

must be had to the natural signification of the words” (id.). Statutory interpretation is not 

an invitation to rewrite the law by “discovering” some meaning not intended by the drafters 

or ignoring words and their clear and obvious import. “It is not for this Court to engraft 

limitations onto the plain language of the statute. Indeed, ‘[t]his Court should be very 

cautious in interpreting statutes based on what it views as a better choice of words when 

confronted with an explicit choice made by the Legislature’ ” (Kimmel v State, 29 NY3d 

386, 401 [2017], quoting Matter of Orens v Novello, 99 NY2d 180, 190 [2002]). As we 

have repeatedly stated, we have no power to “legislate under the guise of interpretation” 

and if there is “an unintended result of the plain language of the statute, then that is a 

consequence best left to the Legislature to evaluate and, if necessary, resolve” (id. at 401 

[internal quotations and citations omitted]). In addition to these established rules, we must 

also consider the City Council’s public policy and its explicit directive to broadly construe 

the NYCHRL to achieve its remedial purpose. 

The NYCHRL opens with a declaration of findings that discrimination in all its 

forms threatens individual rights and the foundation of our society: 

“In the city of New York, with its great cosmopolitan 

population, there is no greater danger to the health, morals, 

safety and welfare of the city and its inhabitants than the 

existence of groups prejudiced against one another and 

antagonistic to each other because of their actual or perceived 

differences including those based on race, color, creed, age, 
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national origin, immigration or citizenship status, gender, 

sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, 

caregiver status, sexual and reproductive health decisions, 

uniformed service, height, weight, any lawful source of 

income, status as a victim of domestic violence or as a victim 

of sex offenses or stalking, whether children are, may be or 

would be residing with a person, or conviction or arrest record. 

The City Council hereby finds and declares that prejudice, 

intolerance, bigotry, and discrimination, bias-related violence 

or harassment and disorder occasioned thereby threaten the 

rights and proper privileges of its inhabitants and menace the 

institutions and foundation of a free democratic state. The 

council further finds that gender-based harassment threatens 

the terms, conditions and privileges of employment” 

(Administrative Code § 8-101). 

The NYCHRL is ambitious in its goal to deter and eliminate this recognized great 

evil of discrimination and bias. According to the New York City Commission on Human 

Rights, the entity charged with enforcing the law and educating the general public on the 

law’s protections and rights thereunder, the NYCHRL “is one of the most comprehensive 

civil rights laws in the nation” (Inside the NYC Commission on Human Rights, NYC 

Commission of Human Rights, https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/inside-cchr.page 

[accessed Mar. 28, 2024]). The NYCHRL: 

“prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and public 

accommodations based on race, color, religion/creed, age, 

national origin, immigration or citizenship status, gender 

(including sexual harassment), gender identity, sexual 

orientation, disability, pregnancy, marital status, and 

partnership status. Interns, whether paid or not, are considered 

employees under the Law. 

“In addition, the Law affords protection against discrimination 

in employment based on unemployment status; arrest or 

conviction record; credit history; caregiver status; status as a 

victim of domestic violence, stalking, and sex offenses; and 
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sexual and reproductive health decisions” (id.; see also 

Administrative Code § 8-107). 

The NYCHRL provides for monetary damages and penalties but also requires affirmative 

mitigation measures to deter discrimination and encourage enforcement (Administrative 

Code §§ 8-502; 8-127; 8-107 [13], [29]). 

 To halt what the City Council has repeatedly found to be an overly narrow judicial 

construction of the NYCHRL’s public policy and the proscriptions against discriminatory 

conduct, Administrative Code § 8-130 mandates that “the provisions [of the NYCHRL] 

shall be construed liberally for the accomplishment of the uniquely broad and remedial 

purposes thereof, regardless of whether federal or New York state civil and human rights 

law, including those laws with provisions worded comparably [ ], have been so construed” 

and “[e]xceptions to and exemptions from” the NYCHRL “shall be construed narrowly in 

order to maximize deterrence of discriminatory conduct” (Administrative Code § 8-130 

[a], [b]; see also Syeed v Bloomberg L.P., — NY3d —, 2024 NY Slip Op. 01330, at *2 

[Mar 14, 2024] [acknowledging that courts must broadly construe the NYCHRL]). 

The NYCHRL also names Albunio v City of New York (16 NY3d 472 [2011]), 

Bennett v Health Mgt. Sys., Inc. (92 AD3d 29 [1st Dept 2011]), and the majority opinion 

in Williams v New York City Hous. Auth. (61 AD3d 62 [1st Dept 2009]) as “cases that have 

correctly understood and analyzed the liberal construction requirement [ ] and that have 

developed legal doctrines accordingly that reflect the broad and remedial purposes of this 

title” (Administrative Code § 8-130 [c]). Those cases clearly explain that “broad” means 

broad, that the NYCHRL tips in favor of plaintiffs in order to eliminate discrimination and 
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bias throughout our society, and that courts have no discretion to limit the application of 

the NYCHRL. 

In Albunio, the Court acknowledged that section 8-130 requires that “we must

construe” all provisions of the NYCHRL “broadly in favor of discrimination plaintiffs, to 

the extent that such a construction is reasonably possible” (16 NY3d at 477-478 [emphasis 

added]). The Appellate Division in Bennett declared that, “the existence of 

discrimination—a profound evil that New York City, as a matter of fundamental public 

policy, seeks to eliminate—demands that the courts’ treatment of such claims maximize 

the ability to ferret out such discrimination, not create room for discriminators to avoid 

having to answer for their actions before a jury of their peers” (92 AD3d at 34). Williams

is even more direct about the Council’s mandate to the judiciary: “[T]he text and legislative 

history represent a desire that the [NYCHRL] meld the broadest vision of social justice 

with the strongest law enforcement deterrent. Whether or not that desire is wise as a matter 

of legislative policy, our judicial function is to give force to legislative decisions” 

(Williams, 61 AD3d at 68-69 [internal citations, quotation marks, and footnotes omitted]). 

Therefore, similarly-worded federal and state antidiscrimination statutes and 

corresponding caselaw demarcating the boundaries of discriminatory actions are merely “a 

floor below which the [NYCHRL] cannot fall, rather than a ceiling above which the local 

law cannot rise” (Local Law No. 85 [2005] of City of NY § 1). The NYCHRL is intended 

to, and does, exceed the protections of other statutes. 
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B. 

Plaintiff alleges that Thometz and Meltzer discriminated against her in violation of 

section 8-107 (1) (a) of the NYCHRL. That section provides: 

“It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice . . .For an 

employer or an employee or agent thereof because of the actual 

or perceived age, creed, [ ] disability, [or] sexual orientation [ ] 

of any person [ ] to discriminate against such person in 

compensation or in terms, conditions or privileges of 

employment” (emphasis added). 

By its plain text, the only limitation on an employee’s liability is the requirement that the 

employee’s actions are undertaken because of a person’s actual or perceived protected 

classification and that the discrimination affects terms or conditions of employment. In 

contrast, an employer may be liable for its own unlawful discriminatory practice based on 

an employee’s discriminatory conduct in violation of § 8-107 (1) (a), or where the 

employee “exercised managerial or supervisory responsibility”, “the employer knew of the 

employee’s...conduct, and acquiesced...or failed to take immediate...corrective action” or 

“should have known of the...discriminatory conduct and failed to exercise reasonable 

diligence to prevent such discriminatory conduct” (§ 8-107 [13] [a], [b] [1]-[3]).1 In other 

words, the NYCHRL recognizes a private right against the employee and imputes that 

discriminatory conduct to the employer under certain enumerated circumstances. 

1

 An employer may assert its efforts to prevent, detect and correct discrimination at the 

workplace, in mitigation of civil penalties and punitive damages (Administrative Code § 

8-107 [13] [e]; see also id. § [13] [d]). 
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 Accordingly, several state and federal courts have treated section 8-107 (1) (a) as 

creating individual liability for employees. In Malena v Victoria's Secret Direct, LLC, a 

federal district court concluded that “the NYCHRL provides for individual liability of an 

employee regardless of ownership or decision making power” where the individual 

defendant “actually participated in the conduct giving rise to the plaintiff’s discrimination 

. . . claim,” and held that an employee could be liable, in that case, for pregnancy 

discrimination against their administrative assistant despite not having “authority to hire or 

fire Plaintiff or to unilaterally set Plaintiff’s schedule, hours, or salary” (886 F Supp 2d 

349, 366 [SDNY 2012]). In Murphy v ERA United Realty, the Appellate Division 

concluded the plaintiff had stated a claim for individual liability under section 8-107 (1) (a) 

of the NYCHRL against two coworkers and a supervisor for sexual harassment, while only 

upholding the claim against the supervisor under NYSHRL (251 AD2d 469). The Murphy

court held that coworker liability exists under NYCHRL, noting that that Executive Law § 

296 (1) (a) only mentions “employer” but NYCHRL mentions “employer or employee or 

agent” (id. at 471). 

More recent federal cases have confirmed that a plaintiff may assert a claim under 

the NYCHRL for direct individual liability against a non-supervisory employee, even if no 

such claim was viable under federal or state antidiscrimination laws. In Dikambi v City 

Univ. of New York (2023 WL 5713716, at *5 [SD NY Sept. 5, 2023, No. 19-CV-9937 

(RA)]), the court held the individual nonsupervisory employee—in that case a professor—

could be liable for alleged sexual harassment under the NYCHRL, but not Title VII, 
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because unlike the federal law, the NYCHRL recognizes individual harasser liability of 

employees, regardless of supervisor status. In Bonterre v City of New York, the court upheld 

claims for individual liability under the NYCHRL against the plaintiff’s alleged sexual 

harasser—whom the plaintiff described as an employee—but dismissed the individual 

liability NYSHRL claim as not cognizable under the state laws, (No. 18 CIV. 745 [ER], 

2021 WL 4060358, at *9 [SD NY Sept. 7, 2021]). Similarly, in Eckhart v Fox News 

Network, LLC, the court found the sexual harasser was not plaintiff’s supervisor, and 

therefore could not be liable under the NYSHRL but could be individually liable under the 

NYCHRL because the City law “provides a broader basis for direct individual liability than 

does the NYSHRL” (2021 WL 4124616, at *16 [SD NY Sept. 9, 2021, No. 20-CV-5593 

(RA)], on reconsideration in part, 2022 WL 4579121 [SD NY Sept. 29, 2022, No. 20-CV5593 (RA)]). In Rasmy v Marriott Int’l, Inc. (2024 WL 456423, at *1 [SD NY Feb. 5, 

2024], No. 16-CV-4865 [JSR]), the court upheld a jury verdict which rejected liability 

against all defendants—including the employer—except one of the plaintiff’s former 

coworker, who the jury found liable for retaliation under the NYCHRL and charged for 

back pay damages. 

Further, courts have not required employer liability as a predicate to individual 

liability under the NYCHRL (see e.g. Dikambi, 2023 WL 5713716, at *5 [SD NY Sept. 5, 

2023, No. 19-CV-9937 (RA)] [granting employer summary judgment on the plaintiff’s 

NYCRL hostile work environment claims while denying summary judgment on individual 

liability claim against nonsupervisory harasser]). In Springs v City of New York, the court 
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noted with respect to a plaintiff’s individual claims against non-supervisory fellow 

firefighters that, due to NYCHRL’s unique use of “employee” in section 8-107 (1) (a), 

“individual employees can be held directly liable for discrimination without any 

requirement that illegal conduct be imputed to their employer” (2019 WL 1429567, at 

*16).2 Other courts have also noted that section 8-107 (1) (a) creates a private right of 

action against individual employees separate from aider-and-abettor liability (see e.g.

Dillon v Ned Mgt., Inc., 85 F Supp 3d 639, 648 [ED NY 2015]; Baldwin v Bank of Am., 

N.A., 42 Misc 3d 1203 [A] [Sup Ct, Kings County 2013]).3

 Turning to the complaint here, plaintiff sufficiently pleads that the alleged conduct 

of these defendants created a hostile work environment. A hostile work environment claim 

is based on a theory of discriminatory harassment. It is a well-settled principle of 

employment discrimination law both federally and locally that coworkers may create a 

hostile work environment by, for example, using slurs, engaging in sexual harassment, or 

participating in anonymous identity-based harassment campaigns, as plaintiff alleges here 

2

 The majority notes that the plaintiff in Springs “did not bring a claim based on individual 

liability,” but then ignores that the court nonetheless acknowledged the such liability may 

serve as the underlying discriminatory conduct in support of an aiding and abetting claim, 

even if an employer is not liable: “The Court is cognizant that Plaintiff has not brought a 

NYCHRL discrimination claim against any of the individual defendants [ ]. However, 

Defendants cite no case that suggests that the underlying violation must be pleaded as well 

as established” (Springs v City of N.Y., 2019 WL 1429567, *15 n 4, *16 [SD NY Mar. 28, 

2019, No. 17 Civ. 451 (AJN)]). In other words, because a nonsupervisory coworker—like 

the firefighter in Springs—may be found individually liable under the NYCHRL, a 

plaintiff, may base an aiding and abetting claim against individual defendants even without 

a finding of employer liability, because “a finding of coworker liability” is a sufficient 

“predicate for an aiding and abetting discrimination claim” (id. at 16). 
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- 12 - 

(see 18 NY Jur 2d Civil Rights § 48, citing New York State Dept. of Corr. Servs. v New 

York State Div. of Human Rights, 53 AD3d 823 [2008] [“A hostile work environment was 

established where there was testimony that a coemployee had referred to the plaintiff in 

obscene and sexually demeaning terms in the presence of other employees on numerous 

occasions, that such comments were persistent and relentless, that the coemployee was also 

responsible for offensive writings and sexually explicit graffiti prominently displayed in 

the workplace and also filed baseless complaints against the plaintiff”]; see also Legal 

Enforcement Guidance on Discrimination on the Basis of Immigration Status and National 

Origin, NYC Commission on Human Rights at 22 [Sept. 2019], 

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/immigration-guidance.pdf 

[“Under the NYCHRL, behavior that constitutes a hostile work environment is much 

broader than the ‘severe or pervasive’ standard at the federal level; it is simply being treated 

less well because of membership to a protected category”]; 2021 Settlement Highlights, 

NYC Commission on Human Rights, https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/enforcement/2021-

settlements.page [accessed Mar. 27, 2024] [settled hostile work environment claim based 

on gay plaintiff who “endured a hostile work environment and name calling by the 

restaurant’s kitchen staff”], Legal Enforcement Guidance on Employment Discrimination 

on the Basis of Age, NYC Commission on Human Rights [July 2020], 

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/AgeDiscriminationGuide-2020.pdf 

[accessed Mar. 27, 2024] [for a hostile work environment under the NYCHRL, “conduct 

must treat plaintiff ‘less well’ because of (a protected characteristic). It is an affirmative 

defense that the behavior was a petty, slight, or trivial inconvenience”] [internal quotations 
 - 13 - No. 37 

- 13 - 

omitted]; Height and Weight Protections in the New York City Human Rights Law, NYC 

Human Rights Commission, https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/media/height-and-weight.page 

[accessed Mar. 27, 2024] [“creating or permitting a hostile environment” on the basis of a 

protected category is illegal]; Domingo v Avis Budget Group, Inc., 219 AD3d 964, 966 [2d 

Dept 2023]; Williams, 61 AD3d at 78-80). 

A hostile work environment, by definition, affects an employee’s workplace 

conditions. Thus, to prove a hostile work environment, the burden is on the employee to 

show that they were treated less well on the basis of a protected classification (Williams, 

61 AD3d at 78). Where an employee is subject to hostile conduct based on any of the 

NYCHRL’s protected classifications, they are subject to different workplace conditions 

than their coworkers—conditions which affect their employment (Williams, 61 AD3d 62, 

75-77 [ratified by Administrative Code § 8-130 (c), citing Administrative Code § 8-

107(1)(a)]). Thus, if a worker creates a hostile work environment through their independent 

actions—regardless of whether the employer is vicariously liable or directly liable for 

creating, sustaining and tolerating a hostile workplace—the worker is liable for their own 

actions. “In order to hold an individual defendant liable for creating a hostile work 

environment under NYCHRL, evidence must show that the claim relates directly to the 

conduct and behavior of the individual” (Dillon, 85 F Supp 3d at 658; see also Nelson v 

HSBC Bank USA, 87 AD3d 995, 999 [2d Dept 2011] [explaining that the rationale of the 

codified sexual harassment standard from Williams “maximizes deterrence, ensures that 
 - 14 - No. 37 

- 14 - 

discrimination plays no role in employment, and recognizes that discrimination violations 

are, per se, serious injuries”]). 

Moreover, in a 2018 amendment to the NYCHRL, the City Council expressly 

found and declared “that gender-based harassment threatens the terms, conditions and 

privileges of employment” (Administrative Code § 8-101).4 Thus, under section 8-

107(1)(a) of the NYCHRL, a person may sue an employee for allegedly creating or 

participating in a hostile work environment based on the complainant’s protected 

classification, including harassment based on gender. For example, a female firefighter or 

police officer can sue male coworkers who, solely because of her gender, call her by 

sexually derogatory names, make unwanted sexual overtures, commit physical assaults, 

damage her equipment, or post sexual images such as pornographic images to demean the 

complainant and other women firefighters (Springs, 2019 WL 1429567, at *16). A real 

estate agent can sue her coworkers for unwanted sexual touches and crude comments 

(Murphy, 251 AD2d 469 [2d Dept 1998]). A Black dancer at a club can sue her harasser 

for demanding that she have sex with him and calling her and other darker-skinned 

entertainers racial slurs (Quintero v Angels of the World, Inc., 2021 WL 4464123, at *7 

(ED NY, Sept. 10, 2021, No. 19-CV-6126 [DG]). A gym employee can sue his harasser 

4

 The majority attempts to recharacterize the statutory text, attempting to trivialize the 

controlling NYCHRL language as simply my “suggestion” that a coworker may affect 

“conditions of employment” in gender-based harassment cases (see majority op at 15 n 5). 

Apparently, the majority missed part of the NYCHRL which states, “gender-based 

harassment threatens the terms, conditions, and privileges of employment” (Administrative 

Code § 8-101). 
 - 15 - No. 37 

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for groping him and regularly making unwanted comments on the genitalia of staff and 

patrons (Setty v Fitness, 2018 WL 8415414, at *9 [ED NY, Dec. 18, 2018, No. 

17CV06504NGGSMG]). And, a housekeeper can sue her harasser for questioning her 

about her sexual history, describing his genitalia in detail, locking her in a cleaning 

assignment, and sexually assaulting her (Antoine v Brooklyn Maids 26, Inc., 489 F Supp 

3d 68, 89 [ED NY 2020]). Plaintiff has met her pleading burden; she alleges that 

defendants Thometz and Meltzer sent her harassing emails and caused her to receive 

unsolicited mail at her NYU physical mailbox, including pornographic materials—

actions she claims evince discrimination based on her gender and sexual orientation. 

C. 

The majority rejects our rules of construction, the NYCHRL’s plain text, and this 

supporting case law to conclude that coworkers cannot be individually liable because they 

cannot affect the “terms, conditions, and privileges of employment.” Therefore, the 

majority holds, the alleged harassment by Thometz and Meltzer, including gender-based 

harassment, did not affect the conditions of plaintiff’s employment (see majority op at 13). 

The majority is wrong. 

As I have explained, a hostile work environment created or maintained by a 

coworker necessarily, as a matter of black letter discrimination law, affects the claimant’s 

“conditions” of employment. To be clear, not all coworker behavior constitutes 

discrimination “in terms, conditions or privileges of employment” (Administrative Code § 

8-107 [a] [3]). But, in the case of a hostile work environment based on a protected 
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classification and gender-based harassment, the harasser’s conduct results in treatment 

different from other coworkers and renders the harasser liable under the NYCHRL, even 

if such conduct is not actionable under other federal and state laws. 

The majority also goes against the tide of the caselaw, arguing some cases did not 

involve a claim of individual liability (see majority op 14-15). The majority’s observation 

is just that, an observation, and one that is irrelevant because those courts’ statements of 

the applicable law reconfirms that direct individual liability claims are cognizable under 

the NYCHRL for two reasons. First, NYCHRL claims must be “analyzed separately and 

independently from any federal and state claims” and also must be interpreted “broadly in 

favor of discrimination plaintiffs, to the extent that such a construction is reasonably 

possible” (Rasmy v Marriott Int’l, Inc., 2024 WL 456423, at *2 [SD NY Feb. 5, 2024, No. 

16-CV-4865 (JSR)], citing Mihalik v Credit Agricole Cheuvreux N. Am., Inc., 715 F3d 102, 

112 [2d Cir 2013]; see also Williams, 61 AD3d at 67-68; Albunio, 16 NY3d at 477-478). 

Second, the NYCHRL prohibitions apply to “employees” and thus the NYCHRL provides 

“a broader basis for individual liability than ‘state or federal law’” which do not recognize 

individual liability (Rasmy v Marriott Int’l, Inc., 2024 WL 456423, at *2, citing Malena, 

886 F Supp 2d 349, 366).5 Unlike these other courts, the majority fails to apply the 

mandatory broader reading to the NYCHRL. 

5

 There are other examples of cases that neither graft a requirement of supervisory authority 

onto NYCHRL individual liability as the majority does, nor do they analyze whether 

defendants are supervisors when evaluating liability under the NYCHRL (see e.g. MilordFrancois v New York State Off. of Medicaid Inspector Gen., 635 F Supp 3d 308, 325 

[SDNY 2022] [“Even if the State or the state agency which is the employer is not held 
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More to the point, the majority has no explanation why “employee” does not mean 

employee, but rather “supervisory employee” and has no explanation for why its 

construction “is reasonably possible” when no such limitations on liability are anywhere 

found or suggested by the NYCHRL. If the Council intended “employee” to mean only an 

employee with a supervisory or managerial role, it could have said so—just as it included 

this narrowing language in other parts of the statute (compare § 8-107 [13] [b] [1] 

[describing employer liability when an “employer or agent exercised supervisory or 

managerial authority”] with § 8-107 [13] [b] [2] [describing employer liability in the 

alternative when the “employer knew of the employee or agent’s discriminatory conduct,” 

which includes no supervisory requirement]). Implicitly reading a narrowing modifier into 

the statute’s plain language of “employee” runs counter to canons of statutory 

interpretation (see e.g. DCH Auto v Town of Mamaroneck, 38 NY3d 278, 293 [2022] [when 

liable, the disjunctive phrasing of the NYCHRL makes clear that state employees owe 

duties under the law and can be held personally liable for violation of those duties.”; Banks 

v Corr. Servs. Corp., 475 F Supp 2d 189, 199 [ED NY 2007] [contrasting individual 

liability under NYSHRL, which is limited to employers and supervisors, to individual 

liability under NYCHRL, which applies to all employees]; Walters v Bronx-Lebanon Hosp. 

Ctr., 2004 WL 770962, at *12 [SD NY Apr. 9, 2004, No. 01 CIV. 4196 (DFE)] [contrasting 

individual liability under NYSHRL as limited to those with decision-making power, with 

individual liability under NYCHRL, which “provides individual liability of employees 

regardless of [] decision-making power”]; Erasmus v Deutsche Bank Americas Holding 

Corp., 2015 WL 7736554, at *8 [SD NY Nov. 30, 2015, No. 15 CIV. 1398 (PAE)] [same]; 

Friederick v Passfeed, Inc., 2022 WL 992798, at *9 [SD NY Mar. 31, 2022, No. 21-CV2066 (RA)] [same]; Bresilien v City of New York, 2020 WL 1275470, at *11 [ED NY Mar. 

17, 2020, No. 16CV4857AMDRER] [same]; Gurley v David H. Berg & Assocs., 2022 WL 

309442, at *8 [SD NY Feb. 2, 2022, No. 20 CIV. 9998 (ER)] [same]; Thomas v New York 

City Health & Hosps. Corp., 2004 WL 1962074, at *9 [SD NY Sept. 2, 2004, No. 02 CIV. 

5159 (RJH)] [“While the NYCHRL clearly provides for liability not only of an employer, 

but also for ‘an employee or agent thereof,’ the NYSHRL's reference only to “employer” 

has been read to provide for a more limited scope of liability.”]). 
 - 18 - No. 37 

- 18 - 

“the statutory language is broader” unstated limitations on broad language cannot be read 

into the text]; Diegelman v City of Buffalo, 28 NY3d 231, 237 [2016] [“we cannot by 

implication supply in a statute a provision which it is reasonable to suppose the Legislature 

intended intentionally to omit because the failure of the Legislature to include a matter 

within the scope of an act may be construed as an indication that its exclusion was intended. 

In other words, we may not create a limitation that the Legislature did not enact”] [internal 

citations and quotation marks omitted]; Commonwealth of N. Mariana Islands v. Canadian 

Imperial Bank of Com., 21 NY3d 55, 62 [2013] [“a court cannot by implication supply in 

a statute a provision which it is reasonable to suppose the Legislature intended intentionally 

to omit because the failure of the Legislature to include a matter within the scope of an act 

may be construed as an indication that its exclusion was intended”] [internal citations and 

quotations omitted]). 

Perhaps most inexplicable is the majority’s conclusion that plaintiff’s claims that 

she was subjected to gender-based harassment by nonsupervisory coworkers is not 

actionable. The NYCHRL states explicitly that gender-based harassment in the workplace 

affects conditions of employment of the target victim (Administrative Code § 8-101). 

While an employer’s liability hinges on the employer’s knowledge and response to this 

harassment, employer liability is irrelevant to whether gender-based harassment affects 

conditions of employment. The City Council has concluded that it always does. We are not 

at liberty to say otherwise. 
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- 19 - 

III. 

The NYCHRL’s plain text and liberal construction mandate are enough for us to 

find in favor of plaintiff and restore her employee hostile workplace claims. However, there 

is more. As discussed below, several amendments to the NYCHRL confirm that this is a 

cognizable claim. 

Prior to 1991, harassers could only be sued under an “aiders and abettors” liability 

theory or when they had an ownership interest or some authority to do more than follow 

orders (Administrative Code § 8-107 [6]; Gurian, A Return to Eyes on the Prize, 33 

Fordham Urb LJ at 120). “[I]ndividuals were liable for their own discriminatory acts in the 

housing and public accommodations contexts, but were not generally liable in the 

employment context” (id. at 117). Instead, the NYCHRL only provided for individual 

liability against employers, which as interpreted by the City Commission on Human 

Rights—the agency charged with implementing the NYCHRL—included persons 

responsible for “disciplining, hiring, firing, and scheduling shifts for employees” (Matter 

of the Complaints of Abdalkwy v Douglas Elliman-Gibbons & Ives, 1991 WL 1288827, 

*17 [NYC Comm. Human Rights. 1991, Nos. EM00106-4/19/88, EM00104-4/19/88, 

EM00105-4/19/88] [Dec. & Or.]). In other words, at the time, “the code sp[oke] only of 

employers,” absent those responsibilities, “a co-worker [could not] apparently be charged 

with discrimination against a co-worker under the Code. Only amendment of the Code by 

legislation c[ould] remedy this problem” (id. at *18 n 4). 

 
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That same year, the City Council broadly overhauled the NYCHRL to, among other 

things, add a private right of action and extend liability for discriminatory conduct by an 

“employer or employee or agent” (Local Law No. 39 [1991] of City of NY § 1). As noted 

above (see supra at 17), the inclusion of “or an employee” made the NYCHRL distinct 

from its state and federal antidiscrimination counterparts, which did not recognize 

individual coworker liability (Livingston v City of New York, 563 F Supp 3d 201, 256 [SD 

NY 2021]). 

 This intended expansion of liability under the NYCHRL was well 

understood, as evidenced by a 1989 Memorandum from the Office of the Mayor to the City 

Council supporting the 1991 amendments which declared, “[i]f an employee is found to 

have engaged in discrimination, [they] would be individually liable whether or not the 

employer could be found liable under these provisions” (Mayor of City of NY, 

Legal/Statutory Mem on Local Law 39 at 11 [Sept. 26, 1989] [emphasis added]). At the 

1991 signing, the Mayor also declared both the need and the intended application of the 

NYCHRL prescriptions to individual employees: 

“[U]nder current local law, an employee who has been the 

victim of sexual or racial harassment at the hands of a coworker can sue her employer but cannot sue the co-worker 

himself. Without the possibility of legal action, co-worker 

harassment has continued to poison many of our workplaces. 

The new law takes the fundamental step of making all people 

legally responsible for their own discriminatory conduct” 

(Remarks by Mayor Dinkins at Public Hearing on Local Laws 

[June 18, 1991], available at 

http://www.antibiaslaw.com/sites/default/files/all/LL39LegHi

st-Mayor.pdf [accessed Mar. 28, 2024]). 
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The Local Law Memoranda, Report of the Committee on General Welfare on Local Law 

39, on June 18, 1991, graphically represented this change in the law as follows: 

Liability of employees and agents for their own biased acts. 

CURRENT LAW NEW LAW 

No explicit coverage in employment 

context, although CCHR caselaw provides 

for liability where employee had power to 

do more than carry out decisions made by 

others. 

Employees and agents are responsible for 

their own discriminatory acts. 

(Report of the Comm. on Gen Welfare, Human Rights Law/ “Complete Overhaul,” Local 

Law 39 at 187 [June 18, 1991], Local Laws of the City of New York for the Year 1991). 

After the amendment, the Appellate Division, Second Department correctly 

interpreted the NYCHRL as providing for an employee’s liability based on the employee’s 

own discriminatory conduct, where the plaintiff was subjected to severe sexual harassment 

as a real estate broker, including “unwanted physical advances and crude and insulting 

remarks” (Murphy, 251 AD2d at 470). However, in Priore, the First Department 

misconstrued the amendment and found that coworker harassers were not liable for their 

conduct (307 AD2d 67, 74-75). The case involved a clubhouse manager for the New York 
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Yankees who sued the Club, along with several of the team’s managers and players, 

alleging sexual orientation harassment from players, as well as retaliatory discharge by the 

team. The Appellate Division dismissed the claims against the employer and individual 

members of management on summary judgment, finding the employer was not formerly 

on notice of the harassment from the players, and, in effect, there was no evidence of 

discrimination by the employer or management—only the players (id. at 72). The Appellate 

Division also dismissed the claims against the individual non-supervisory players for 

physical and verbal harassment, grafting an artificial limitation onto section 8-107 (1) (a) 

“employee”-based liability. The entirety of the Appellate Division’s reasoning on this issue 

is as follows: 

“Section 8–107(1)(a) extends liability to ‘an employer or an 

employee or agent thereof,’ in substitution for the State 

statute's ‘employer or licensing agency’ (our emphases). The 

local ordinance thus includes fellow employees under the tent 

of liability, but only where they act with or on behalf of the 

employer in hiring, firing, paying, or in administering the 

‘terms, conditions or privileges of employment’—in other 

words, in some agency or supervisory capacity. There is no 

indication in the local ordinance, explicit or implicit, that it was 

intended to afford a separate right of action against any and all 

fellow employees based on their independent and unsanctioned 

contribution to a hostile environment. The inclusion of the 

word ‘employee’ in the local ordinance does not automatically 

open the door of liability to an entirely new category of 

defendants; the term must be read in context” (id. at 74). 

That reasoning fails on its own terms. First, the language of the amendment 

expanding the law’s coverage to include employees and agents does not support the court’s 

conception of its impact on liability. Second, the inference drawn by the court—that 
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“employee or agent” is equivalent to the “licensing agency” reference contained in the 

NYSHRL and thus requires an employee to act in a supervisory role for liability under the 

more expansive NYCHRL—contradicts fundamental rules of construction and the explicit 

directive of section 8-130. 

As a drafter of both the 1991 and 2005 amendments, Craig Gurian, explained: 

“How, then, did the court in Priore try to justify its conclusion 

that there was no individual liability? The court literally had to 

invent a legislative history. It asserted that, when the City 

extended liability to ‘an employer or an employee or agent 

thereof,’ it did so merely ‘in substitution for the State statute's 

“employer or licensing agency”.’ In fact, however, section 8-

107(1)(a) of the City Human Rights Law did not deal with 

licensing agencies before the 1991 Amendments, and it did not 

deal with licensing agencies after the 1991 Amendments. 

There had been a separate provision of the City Human Rights 

Law that had dealt both with age discrimination by employers 

and with licensing agencies. The proscription against age 

discrimination by employers was moved into section 8-

107(1)(a); the proscription against age discrimination by 

licensing agencies was moved into an entirely different section, 

to join other proscriptions on certain conduct by licensing 

agencies. Accordingly, the revision to section 8-107(1)(a) did 

not represent a substitution of language from the State Human 

Rights Law, it represented an addition of language not found 

in the State Human Rights Law. 

“To go along with its tale of how the language of the law 

changed, the Priore court provided a theory of Council intent. 

It speculated that the Council had only wanted to permit 

individual liability where the individual had been acting with 

or on behalf of the employer in some agency or supervisory 

capacity. The problem is, if that were the Council's purpose, it 

need not have acted at all: section 8-107(6) of the City Human 

Rights Law already was broader, providing that it ‘shall be an 

unlawful discriminatory act for any person to aid, abet, incite, 

compel or coerce the doing of any of the acts forbidden under 

this chapter, or to attempt to do so’ ” (Craig Gurian, A Return 
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to Eyes on the Prize: Litigating Under the Restored New York 

City Human Rights Law, 33 Fordham Urb LJ 101, 120 [2006]). 

The majority cites to Priore v New York Yankees, as well as Kwong v City of New York and 

Eustache v Board of Educ., which merely track back to Priore and lack any independent 

analysis of “employee” liability (Priore v New York Yankees, 307 AD2d 67 [2003]; Kwong 

v City of New York, 204 AD3d 442, 446 [2022] [finding supervisory capacity necessary for 

individual liability by solely citing to Priore without further discussion]; Eustache v Board 

of Educ., 221 AD3d 452, 453 [1st Dept 2023] [citing solely to Kwong for the same 

proposition]). Tellingly, the limited number of post-2016 decisions that decline to find 

individual coworker liability under NYCHRL rely on string cites that exclusively trace 

back to Priore for the proposition that an implied supervisory requirement can be read into 

the plain text on individual liability for employees. Similarly, none of these decisions 

address, let alone apply, the liberal construction requirements of the NYCHRL. From this 

line of cases, a supervisory limitation on individual liability can only be gleaned from the 

judicial policymaking ground adopted in the Priore decision, as the limitation is 

unmistakably absent from both statutory and legislative history. None of these cases 

evaluate whether Priore is still good law, which it plainly is not. 

Priore’s analytical shortcomings are reason enough to reject both its premise and 

conclusions, but significantly Priore has been overruled explicitly by the City Council, 

rendering it useless in the analysis here. 

 In the Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005, the City Council again amended 

the NYCHRL, and expanded the law’s liberal construction requirement. As it had in the 
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past, the Council acted in response to judicial misapplications of the NYCHRL, and 

legislatively overruled those decisions. As relevant here, during a September 15, 2005, 

hearing on the proposed amendment, Council Member Palma identified Priore, as one of 

the cases that should no longer be followed, naming Craig Gurian’s testimony as a guide 

for legislative intent for the 2005 amendments: 

“There are many illustrations of cases, like Levin on marital 

status, Priore, McGrath and Forrest that have either failed to 

interpret the City Human Rights Law to fulfill its uniquely 

broad purposes, ignore the text of specific provisions of law, 

or both. With [the Restoration Act], these cases and others like 

them will no longer hinder the vindication of our civil rights. 

The work of the Anti-Discrimination Center [Craig Gurian] 

was particularly important to the development and passage of 

this bill, and its testimony is an excellent guide to the intent 

and consequences of legislation we pass today” (Annabel 

Palma, Statement at the Meeting of the New York City Council 

41-42 [Sept. 15, 2005] [emphasis added]). 

Gail Brewer, the sponsor of the 2005 amendments, also started her testimony by thanking 

Gurian for his assistance, and proposed the first witness panel begin with him, because of 

his “very leading role in this legislation” (Gail Brewer, Statement at the Meeting of the 

New York City Council 41-42 [Sept. 22, 2004]). 

In Gurian’s testimony, which the hearing transcript indicates was meant to be 

indicative of legislative intent, Gurian highlighted the problem of Priore when testifying 

in favor of the 2005 amendment to the NYCHRL: 

“[Employee liability] wasn’t added because it was thought that 

the bill was too short and that the Human Rights Law needed 

to have a few more fluffy words for an employer or an 

employee or agent, thereof, to discriminate. There could not 

have been a clearer signal that individuals were now liable .... 
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- 26 - 

And this wasn’t controversial, it was stronger than State law. It 

was stronger than Title 7. But it wasn’t controversial until last 

year when a State Appellate Court, a panel of the First 

Department [in Priore], actually said that the City Human 

Rights Law couldn’t really mean what it said. Because it was 

broadening liability too much. 

“Instead of engaging in what the court was suppose (sic) to do 

which is liberally interpreting the law to accomplish its 

purposes, the court literally invented legislative history to 

justify a narrow result” (Craig Gurian, Statement at the 

Meeting of the New York City Council [Sept. 22, 2004]).67 

At this same hearing, a gay brewery worker testified about the importance of 

individual liability based on his experiences with discrimination, including an incident 

6

 At a later hearing, Gurian again referenced Priore on the issue of individual liability: 

“A court has recently ignored the Council’s language in 

making individual employees liable for their own 

discriminatory conduct. [] So, it’s just not going to work with 

the individual fixes, the broad fix is necessary, and, really, it 

only brings us back to where we were supposed to be in the 

first place, having the law liberally construed” (Craig Gurian, 

Statement at the Meeting of the New York City Council [April 

14, 2005]). 

7

 The majority rejects Gurian’s interpretation of the 2005 amendment and Priore , citing to 

post-2005 First Department cases that cite to Priore (see majority op at 14 n 4). However, 

those cases do not provide any analysis of the statutory text or an explanation for their 

reliance on Priori in light of the amendment NYCHRL. Although the majority suggests 

that Gurian has no special insight into the NYCHRL, the First Department has cited him 

approvingly in the past (Williams, 61 AD3d at 68, quoting Ochei v Coler/Goldwater Mem. 

Hosp., 450 F Supp 2d 275, 283 n 1 [SD NY 2006] [noting Gurian’s article was described 

by SD NY as, “an extensive analysis of the purposes of the Local Civil Rights Restoration 

Act, written by one of the Act's principal authors”). And more importantly for our purposes 

here, there is no evidence in the legislative history that Gurian’s interpretation of the 

NYCHRL and the Council’s intent was erroneous or a minority view. To the contrary, each 

hearing on the 2005 amendments favorably referenced Gurian and his interpretation of 

Priore. 
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during which a bartender punched him and called him a derogatory epithet, concluding, 

“people need to be liable for their own actions... as a deterrent...If they know, oh, they can 

only sue the company, nothing is going to change” (Carl Ferrentino, Statement at the 

Meeting of the New York City Council [April 14, 2005]). Thus, it was clear to the Council 

that individual employee discriminatory conduct is harmful to individuals, but also poisons 

the workplace and undermines the Council’s policy of eliminating discrimination and bias 

in our communities. And the Council was also fully aware that a victim of employee 

harassment had no recourse against the employee under existing federal or state law unless 

the harasser acted pursuant to supervisory authority (id.; Murphy, 251 AD2d at 471 [only 

individual liability for supervisors under NYSHRL]; Tomka v Seiler Corp., 66 F3d 1295, 

1314 [2d Cir. 1995] [no individual liability under Title VII]). 

In 2009, the Appellate Division, First Department, acknowledged that the 2005 

amendments “legislatively overruled” cases that misconstrued the law, citing the section 

of the 2005 Council debates that mentioned Priore by name (Williams, 61 AD3d at 67-68). 

The court explained that “the Restoration Act notified courts that (a) they had to be aware 

that some provisions of the City HRL were textually distinct from its State and federal 

counterparts, (b) all provisions of the City HRL required independent construction to 

accomplish the law’s uniquely broad purposes and (c) cases that had failed to respect these 

differences were being legislatively overruled” (id. at 67-68 [emphasis added]). 

The New York City Commission on Human Rights has noted that, in its discussion 

leading up to the 2005 amendments, “the City Council cited several specific judicial 

decisions as examples of overly narrow judicial construction of the City HRL,” footnoting, 
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“Priore v. N.Y. Yankees, 307 AD2d 67 (1st Dept 2003) (holding individual employees not 

liable for their discriminatory conduct).” Indeed, during hearings, “[t]he [City Council] 

Committee [on General Welfare] opined that several principles should guide courts in 

interpreting the City HRL: discrimination should play no role in employment decisions; 

traditional methods and principles of law enforcement should be applied in the civil rights 

context; and victims should receive full compensation for injuries” (Chauca v Abraham, 

30 NY3d 325, 329 [2017], Brief for Amicus Curiae City of New York, 9-10, available at 

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/NYSCA-Punitive-DamagesVERONIKA-CHAUCA-v-JAMIL-ABRAHAM-Individually-PARK-MANAGEMENTSYSTEMS-LLC-aka-Park-Health-Center-and-ANN-MARIE-GARRIQUES-2017.pdf). 

As explained in a 2018 Commission on Human Rights Decision and Order comparing the 

Second Department’s Murphy decision and Priore: 

“The Second Department interprets the NYCHRL to cover 

discrimination claims against individual co-employees, 

regardless of ownership interest or the power to make 

personnel decisions. Murphy v ERA United Realty, 251 A.D.2d 

469, 471 (2d Dept 1998). While the First Department held to 

the contrary in 2003, before passage of the Restoration Act, see 

Priore v N.Y. Yankees, 307 AD2d 67, 74 (1st Dept 2003), it has 

subsequently made clear that such restrictive interpretations of 

the NYCHRL are untenable” (In the Matter of Commission On 

Human Rights Ex Rel. Dong C. Joo, Petitioner v Ubm Building 

Maintenance Inc., Kuang H. Lee, and Jehwan Kim, 

Respondents, 2018 WL 6978286, at *5). 

Simply stated, Priore is no longer good law.8 And the majority’s reliance on Priore

8

 While none of the majority’s cited cases analyze the import of these amendments, 

whenever courts specifically analyze the impact of the 2005 amendments on individual 

liability, they find that the as-amended NYCHRL supports individual liability against 
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and case law from the First Department which the City Council expressly disavowed years 

ago as wrongly decided (see majority op 13-14) is inexplicable. 

IV. 

The majority once again adopts a narrow interpretation of the NYCHRL to bar 

individual coworker liability despite the City Council’s several admonishments of the 

judicial branch’s counter-textual and ahistoric reading of its legislation. Moreover, the 

majority disregards the Council’s repeated commands that this Court interpret the 

NYCHRL broadly to achieve its remedial purposes. The Council enacted a law to ensure 

accountability for all harassers in the workplace—regardless of their status, and regardless 

of whether their employer is on notice. The majority fails to give meaning to that intent, 

leaving it again to the Council to correct this Court’s mistake. 

Order affirmed, with costs. Opinion by Judge Garcia. Chief Judge Wilson and Judges 

Singas, Cannataro, Troutman and Halligan concur. Judge Rivera dissents in part in an 

opinion. 

Decided April 25, 2024 

employees (see e.g. Caravantes v 53rd St. Partners, LLC, 2012 WL 3631276, at *21 [SD 

NY Aug. 23, 2012, No. 09 CIV. 7821 RPP]; Sanderson v Leg Apparel, LLC, 2023 WL 

8039499, at *2 [SD NY Nov. 20, 2023, No. 1:19-CV-8423-GHW]).