Opinion ID: 2829921
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiffs’ Time-Barred Claims

Text: We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Jaghory v. New York State Dep’t of Educ., 131 F.3d 326, 329 (2d Cir. 1997). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must plead “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Upon review of the record and relevant law, we affirm for substantially the reasons stated in the District Court’s thorough and well-reasoned order. In particular, we reject, as the district court did, plaintiffs’ contention that the statute of limitations for their discrimination claims under § 1981, § 1985, and Title VII did not begin to run until 2012, when they allegedly became aware of the discriminatory motive for their elimination from the show. Claims under § 1981 and § 1985 accrue “when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury which is the basis of his action.” Pearl v. City of Long Beach, 296 F.3d 76, 80 (2d Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Under Title VII, a charge must be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission either 180 or 300 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1). In analyzing these limitations periods for discrimination claims, “the proper focus is on the time of the discriminatory act.” Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8 (1981) (citing Delaware State Coll. v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250, 258 (1980) (considering statute of limitations for discrimination claims under Title VII and § 1981)); accord Morse v. Univ. of Vermont, 973 F.2d 122, 125 (2d Cir. 1992); see also Washington v. Cty. of Rockland, 373 F.3d 310, 319 (2d Cir. 2004) (Sotomayor, J.) (stating, in considering claims under § 1981 and § 1983, that “[a]s with all discrimination claims, plaintiffs’ claims accrued when they knew or should have known of the discriminatory action,” which, 2 for plaintiffs asserting that defendants selectively maintained disciplinary charges against them, was “when plaintiffs knew or had reason to know that defendants filed the charges”). Here, the district court properly concluded that plaintiffs’ claims accrued when they were eliminated from the show, which was communicated to each plaintiff at the time of their respective eliminations. Insofar as plaintiffs submit that the limitations periods did not begin to run until plaintiffs knew or had reason to know of the allegedly discriminatory motives for their eliminations, we need not here decide whether accrual can ever be so based because plaintiffs have failed in any event plausibly to allege that they did not have reason to know of those motives until 2012.1 Cf. Miller v. Int’l Tel. & Tel. Corp., 755 F.2d 20, 24 (2d Cir. 1985) (stating that limitations period for age discrimination claims “commence[s] upon the employer’s commission of the discriminatory act and [is] not tolled or delayed pending the employee’s realization that the conduct was discriminatory” absent extraordinary circumstances). Indeed, the allegations in the Third Amended Complaint demonstrate that, at least as early as 2005, media outlets publicized the fact that similarly-situated Caucasian contestants were not eliminated or disqualified from the competition. See Third Am. Compl. ¶¶ 905, 911, 937. Thus, the district court did not err in its application of the statute of limitations to plaintiffs’ claims.