Opinion ID: 669656
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Timeliness of the Original Complaint

Text: 57 Under federal law, which governs the accrual of claims brought under Secs. 1983 and 1985, see, e.g., Morse v. University of Vermont, 973 F.2d 122, 125 (2d Cir.1992), a claim generally accrues once the  'plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury which is the basis of his action,'  Singleton v. New York, 632 F.2d 185, 191 (2d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 920, 101 S.Ct. 1368, 67 L.Ed.2d 347 (1981), (quoting Bireline v. Seagondollar, 567 F.2d 260, 263 (4th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 842, 100 S.Ct. 83, 62 L.Ed.2d 54 (1979)). When a plaintiff experiences a  'continuous practice and policy of discrimination,'  however,  'the commencement of the statute of limitations period may be delayed until the last discriminatory act in furtherance of it.'  Gomes v. Avco Corp., 964 F.2d 1330, 1333 (2d Cir.1992) (quoting Miller v. International Telephone & Telegraph Corp., 755 F.2d 20, 25 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 851, 106 S.Ct. 148, 88 L.Ed.2d 122 (1985)); see also Association Against Discrimination in Employment, Inc. v. City of Bridgeport, 647 F.2d 256, 274 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 988, 102 S.Ct. 1611, 71 L.Ed.2d 847 (1982) (Association Against Discrimination in Employment ). While discrete incidents of discrimination that are not related to discriminatory policies or mechanisms may not amount to a continuing violation, see, e.g., Lambert v. Genesee Hospital, 10 F.3d 46, 53 (2d Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1612, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1994), a continuing violation may be found where there is proof of specific ongoing discriminatory polices or practices, or where specific and related instances of discrimination are permitted by the employer to continue unremedied for so long as to amount to a discriminatory policy or practice. 58 Where a continuing violation can be shown, the plaintiff is entitled to bring suit challenging all conduct that was a part of that violation, even conduct that occurred outside the limitations period. See Association Against Discrimination in Employment, 647 F.2d at 274; Acha v. Beame, 570 F.2d 57, 65 (2d Cir.1978). In Association Against Discrimination in Employment, for example, we considered whether the plaintiffs had filed their administrative complaint with EEOC within the required 300-day period, see 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(e) (after charges filed with local agency, complaint to EEOC must be filed within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, or within thirty days after receiving notice that the State or local agency has terminated the proceedings), with respect to conduct that had occurred years before that filing. We held that a consistent pattern of discriminatory hiring practices from 1971 to 1975 constituted a continuing violation and that the plaintiffs' claims accrued in 1975 when the last act of discrimination occurred. Thus, we concluded that plaintiffs' 1975 filing with the EEOC was timely even with respect to claims arising from discriminatory hiring from 1971 to 1973. 59 In the present case, the district court correctly ruled that the discrimination and harassment suffered by Cornwell was a continuing violation that began in 1981 and did not end until she finally left MacCormick in 1986. This ruling was supported by the same evidence that established her hostile-environment claim, which required her to show harassment sufficiently severe or pervasive 'to alter the conditions of [her] employment and create an abusive working environment,'  see generally Meritor Savings Bank FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) (quoting Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 904 (11th Cir.1982)). The district court found that defendants' personnel policies discriminated on the basis of gender and that Cornwell suffered race- and gender-based harassment that DFY and its supervisory personnel permitted to continue. It found that in 1986 Cornwell suffered the same kinds of harassment at the hands of some of the same YDAs, and under the aegis of some of the same supervisory personnel, as in 1981-1983. The court found that the only reason the harassment had not continued in the interim between February 1983 and March 1986 was Cornwell's absence on account of the illness precipitated by the first set of incidents. Against the background of DFY's gender-discriminatory policies and the hostile work environment created by those male YDAs who sought to rid MacCormick of female YDAs, the court properly concluded that the acts of discrimination and harassment by the individual defendants constituted a continuing wrong that did not end until April 1986, when Cornwell was finally driven from MacCormick for good. Cornwell's original complaint, filed in June of that year, was therefore timely. 60