Opinion ID: 6352033
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Age-Based Claims

Text: Next, we conclude that the District Court properly granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Thomas’s age-based claims. The only ADEA claims that survived the motion to dismiss were discrimination and hostile work environment claims based on Paradis’s conduct in 2006, when he was assigned to teach physical education with Thomas and the two teachers had a series of conflicts, and Thomas’s 2007 reassignment to the Teacher Reassignment Center (“TRC,” also known as the “rubber room”) pending an investigation of allegations that she had engaged in inappropriate conduct, which resulted in a Section 3020-a hearing decision in Thomas’s favor in 2009, as well as a hostile work environment claim based on Thomas’s allegation that Chancellor Klein made various comments suggesting that older teachers should be removed. “[T]o establish age discrimination under the ADEA, a plaintiff must prove that age was the ‘but-for’ cause of the employer’s adverse decision.” Lively v. WAFRA Inv. Advisory Grp., Inc., 6 F.4th 293, 303 (2d Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). To bring a hostile work environment claim under the ADEA, a plaintiff must show that her “workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently pervasive to alter the conditions of [her] employment.” Kassner v. 2nd Ave. Delicatessen Inc., 496 F.3d 229, 240 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). This requires a showing that “she was subjected to the hostility because of her membership in a protected class.” Id. at 241 (internal quotation marks omitted). Other than a single reference to her salary and retirement date, Thomas does not allege that Paradis ever mentioned her age, directly or indirectly. In fact, she expressly denied that Paradis discriminated against her on the basis of age; instead, she asserted that she believed Principal Finley had encouraged Paradis to harass her because she was the most “senior” and highest-paid member of his staff. But her allegations about Principal Finley’s motivations are without any factual support; other than her allegation that she was paid more than other teachers at BHSA for reasons related to her seniority (for which she provided no evidence), there is nothing in the record to suggest that Finley ever acted based on Thomas’s age. She does not allege that Finley made any direct mention of her age and she acknowledged that she did not personally know where the alleged comments attributed to Chancellor Klein about reducing the ranks of older teachers came from. The fact that her Section 3020-a hearing was resolved in her favor is not, in itself, proof that the hearing was wrongfully initiated, much less proof that the wrong had something to do with her age, as opposed to — for example — personal animosity against her on the part of either Finley or the students who made the accusations against her.