Court Opinion

ID: 9878008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-27 16:36:48.46994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:30.704200
License: Public Domain

Kahn, J.
(dissenting). I believe that plaintiff’s concededly untimely claims of sexual orientation discrimination under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws (State and City HRLs) are not saved by the CPLR 203 (f) relation-back exception. I further believe that plaintiff’s new claims, as pleaded in the proposed amended complaint, fail to state causes of action. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
The facts as alleged in the complaint are as follows. Plaintiff has been employed by defendants Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) and MTA Bus Company since 1987. Beginning in November 2008, plaintiff, who is a lawyer, served as Assistant Chief Facilities Officer for Business Planning and Administration for NYCTA. She reported to NYCTA’s Chief Facilities Officer and, until 2012, received excellent annual reviews and had never been subject to disciplinary action. In 2011, the Chief of Staff at NYCTA denied plaintiff the opportunity to interview for the position of Chief Facilities Officer and Vice President at NYCTA, although similarly situated male colleagues were granted interviews, and one of them ultimately got the job.
In January 2012, defendant George Menduina became plaintiff’s immediate supervisor. Plaintiff alleges that subsequently and throughout the period ending July 2012, Men-duina and others began to subject plaintiff to discrimination through such actions as making unannounced changes to her staff and imposing unreasonable deadlines on her work.
*93In August 2012, plaintiff filed an internal complaint with NYCTA’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (NYCTA OEEO), based solely on claims of gender discrimination. In filing her claim, plaintiff checked the box on the preprinted form for “Sex/Gender,” but not the box for “Sexual Orientation.”
On November 29, 2012, Menduina brought disciplinary charges against plaintiff. On January 3, 2013, plaintiff filed a second internal complaint with the NYCTA OEEO, asserting that the disciplinary charges were brought against her in retaliation for her first complaint and that she had been denied a reasonable accommodation for an alleged disability. On January 17, 2013, the NYCTA OEEO upheld the disciplinary charges against plaintiff. Subsequently, plaintiff commenced an appeal within the NYCTA OEEO.
On February 5, 2013, plaintiff filed a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (US EEOC) and requested a dual filing with the New York State Division of Human Rights (DHR).
On February 27, 2013, the NYCTA OEEO sustained the disciplinary charges against plaintiff. On February 28, 2013, Menduina sent a letter to plaintiff notifying her that, as a penalty, NYCTA would demote her to a position at a reduced salary, effective March 4, 2013.
On June 4, 2013, the US EEOC issued a right-to-sue letter dismissing plaintiff’s US EEOC and DHR complaints.
On August 30, 2013, plaintiff commenced an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York asserting various causes of action consistent with her NYCTA OEEO, US EEOC, and DHR complaints, alleging claims of gender and disability discrimination, as well as retaliation. Consistent with her administrative complaints; she did not assert any claim of sexual orientation discrimination.
On November 25, 2013, plaintiff withdrew her federal complaint and commenced the instant action. While the original complaint included claims of gender and disability discrimination, as well as retaliation, it did not include any claim of sexual orientation discrimination or gender stereotyping.
*94In March 2016, plaintiff was deposed in the instant action over a period of two days. Based on the record before us, it cannot be determined whether plaintiff made any mention in her testimony of her sexual orientation or of having been subjected to sexual orientation discrimination.1
On May 24, 2016, plaintiff moved for leave to amend her complaint, and submitted a proposed amended complaint. Apart from non-substantive additions and deletions, the proposed amended complaint added claims of sexual orientation discrimination under the State and City HRLs. In support of those claims, the proposed amended complaint includes plaintiffs identification of herself as a lesbian and an allegation that Menduina was aware of her sexual orientation at the time defendants took the job actions adverse to her. In further support of plaintiffs sexual orientation claims, the proposed amended complaint alleged that plaintiffs former supervisor, who is also an out lesbian, wrote a letter in support of plaintiffs NYCTA OEEO appeal and was herself demoted by defendants in retaliation. On June 10, 2016, defendants submitted an affirmation in opposition to plaintiffs motion, arguing that the new claims were barred by the applicable three-year statute of limitations.
In an order entered August 17, 2016, Supreme Court granted plaintiffs motion (2016 NY Slip Op 31567 [U]). The court found that defendants had failed to overcome the heavy presumption of validity in favor of amendment of the complaint. It concluded that the new claims of sexual orientation discrimination were not time-barred, because they were premised on the same subject matter as alleged in the original complaint and therefore related back in time to the interposition of the causes of action in the original complaint, pursuant to CPLR 203 (f). The court further found that defendants were neither prejudiced nor unfairly surprised by the added sexual orientation discrimination claims, because the facts set forth in the complaint remained the same, and the new claims would nei*95ther cause a change in defendants’ position nor hinder the preparation of defendants’ case. However, the court did not address defendants’ request for a further deposition of plaintiff on the subject of her added sexual orientation discrimination claims.
Defendants’ principal argument on appeal is that plaintiff should not have been granted leave to add her concededly untimely sexual orientation discrimination claims to the complaint because the relation-back exception to the timeliness requirement is inapplicable in these circumstances.
Under the relation-back exception to the three-year statute of limitations applicable to claims made pursuant to the State and City HRLs (see CPLR 214 [2]), a new cause of action asserted in an amended pleading is deemed to have been interposed at the same time as the causes of action set forth in the original pleading, provided that the original pleading gave the defendants “notice of the transactions, occurrences, or series of transactions or occurrences, to be proved pursuant to the amended pleading” (CPLR 203 [f]).
“[T]he [relation-back] doctrine enables a plaintiff to correct a pleading error — by adding either a new claim or a new party — after the statutory limitations period has expired. The doctrine thus gives courts the sound judicial discretion to identify cases that justify relaxation of limitations strictures . . . to facilitate decisions on the merits if the correction will not cause undue prejudice to the plaintiff’s adversary” (Buran v Coupal, 87 NY2d 173, 177-178 [1995] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]).
The other departments of the Appellate Division construe the CPLR 203 (f) relation-back exception as applicable to claims stating a new theory of recovery (see e.g. Cady v Springbrook NY, Inc., 145 AD3d 846 [2d Dept 2016]; Matter of Clairol Dev., LLC v Village of Spencerport, 100 AD3d 1546, 1546-1547 [4th Dept 2012]; US Bank N.A. v Gestetner, 103 AD3d 962, 965 [3d Dept 2013]; cf. Robinson v New York City Hous. Auth., 89 AD3d 497, 497 [1st Dept 2011] [declining to permit amendment of complaint to relate back under CPLR 203 (f) where based upon “a new, distinct, and independent theory of liability,” citing Lopez v New York City Hous. Auth., 16 AD3d 164, 165 (1st *96Dept 2005), so holding in a case relying on precedent pertaining to General Municipal Law § 50-e (6)]).2
It is clear, however, that the linchpin of the relation-back exception is universally recognized to be the defendant’s receipt of notice, within the applicable limitations period, of the factual basis for any new claim (see Buran v Coupal, 87 NY2d at 180, citing Schiavone v Fortune, 477 US 21, 31 [1986]; Kirk v University OB-GYN Assoc., Inc., 104 AD3d 1192, 1194 [4th Dept 2013]; Fisher v Giuca, 69 AD3d 671, 672 [2d Dept 2010]; Gaspari v Sadeh, 61 AD3d 405, 406 [1st Dept 2009]; see also Cady, 145 AD3d at 847 [“Where . . . the original allegations did not provide the defendants notice of the need to defend against the allegations of the amended complaint, the (relation-back) doctrine is unavailable”]; US Bank, 103 AD3d at 964-965 [“Plaintiff’s claims . . . are deemed to have been interposed at the time of its original complaint, to the extent that it ‘(gave) notice of the transactions (or) occurrences . . . to be proved pursuant to the amended pleading’ ”], quoting CPLR 203 [f]). Accordingly, if the original complaint fails to fairly apprise defendants of the transaction or occurrence to be proven pursuant to the amended complaint, then application of the relation-back doctrine to permit addition of time-barred claims is improper.
In this case, plaintiff concedes that her proposed new sexual orientation discrimination claims are facially untimely. Additionally, plaintiff has never proffered any explanation for the delay in raising her sexual orientation claims until after the statute of limitations had expired.
With regard to whether the relation-back exception to the timeliness requirement is applicable in this case, while the original complaint included factual allegations in support of its claims of gender and disability discrimination, as well as retaliation, it contained no factual allegations as to any transactions or occurrences attributed by plaintiff to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Indeed, although plaintiff filed a series of complaints both within her own agency and with administrative agencies and courts on both the federal and state level, she never asserted a claim of sexual orientation discrimination in any of those complaints. Neither does the record reveal any mention by her of sexual orientation *97discrimination in two days of deposition testimony. Thus, defendants were provided with no notice of any transactions or occurrences that plaintiff intended to use to prove the sexual orientation discrimination claims she now seeks to add by way of her proposed amended complaint. In any event, even actual notice of a potential sexual orientation claim would not suffice to permit plaintiff to invoke the relation-back doctrine, because notice of the potential claim, including the conduct with which defendants would be charged in the new claim, must be provided in the original pleading itself (Cooper v Sleepy’s, LLC, 126 AD3d 664, 666 [2d Dept 2015]; August Bohl Contr. Co., Inc. v L.A. Swyer Co., Inc., 74 AD3d 1649, 1651 [3d Dept 2010]).
Moreover, this is clearly not a case fitting within the Buran rubric in which plaintiff’s counsel made a pleading error in the original complaint and now, more than three years after raising plaintiff’s original discrimination claims, proposes to correct it. There is nothing in the written submissions or the record evidence before this Court to support the notion that any such error was made. It is highly unlikely that plaintiff, who is an attorney and has been represented by counsel throughout these proceedings, merely overlooked this claim, as the majority suggests. Thus, I believe that in this case there is no basis to apply the relation-back doctrine for error correction purposes, as contemplated in Buran (see Buran v Coupal, 87 NY2d at 177).
Furthermore, as the pertinent language of both the State and City HRLs makes clear, sex/gender discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination are separate and distinct categories (see Executive Law § 296 [1] [a]; Administrative Code of City of NY § 8-107 [1] [a] [3]). Because these statutes expressly proscribe sexual orientation discrimination, this case does not require us to interpret the scope of conduct covered by the State and City HRLs’ prohibitions against sex or gender discrimination.3
As the majority observes, in general, remedial statutes should be liberally construed in order to carry out their *98intended reforms and to promote justice (McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 321; see People v Brown, 25 NY3d 247, 251 [2015]). It is well settled that the terms of the State HRL must be liberally construed to accomplish the statute’s intended purpose (Matter of Cahill v Rosa, 89 NY2d 14, 20 [1996]; Executive Law § 300) and that courts must interpret the City HRL even more broadly than its State counterpart, being “sensitive to the distinctive language, purposes and method of analysis required” by the City HRL (Williams v New York City Hous. Auth., 61 AD3d 62, 65 [1st Dept 2009, Acosta, J.], lv denied 13 NY3d 702 [2009]; Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005 [Local Law No. 85 (2005) of City of NY, amending Administrative Code of City of NY § 8-130] [Restoration Act]).
Here, however, this Court is not being called upon to interpret the State and City HRLs. Rather, this case calls for an application of a pleading requirement, set forth in Buran and its progeny and codified in CPLR 203 (f), to justify an exception to the three-year statute of limitations for bringing claims under the HRLs. It is suggested by the majority that the liberal construction rules of statutory interpretation for the HRLs should be extended to obviate the need for a plaintiff to comply either with the statute of limitations or with the pleading and notice requirements of the relation-back doctrine. However, I have found no cases, including those cited by the parties and the majority, in which a broadly construed provision of the State and City HRLs overcomes statute of limitations or CPLR pleading requirements, such as the relation-back doctrine. Indeed, in Williams, this Court, while explaining and applying the liberal construction principle to give effect to the Restoration Act, rejected a discrimination plaintiff’s efforts to assert a claim of sexual harassment that was not brought within the limitations period (see Williams, 61 AD3d at 80-81).
Additionally, by seeking to bring plaintiff’s claim of sexual orientation discrimination within her original claim for sex and gender discrimination under the State and City HRLs, the majority effectively reads the words “sexual orientation” out of both of those statutes. Unlike title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 and title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the State and City HRLs expressly protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as well *99as on the basis of their sex or gender (McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 231 [“In the construction of a statute, meaning and effect should be given to all its language, if possible, and words are not to be rejected as superfluous when it is practicable to give to each a distinct and separate meaning”]; Criscione v City of New York, 97 NY2d 152, 157 [2001]; People v Destin, 150 AD3d 76, 81-82 [1st Dept 2017, Acosta, J.]; see People v Dethloff, 283 NY 309, 315 [1940] [reviewing court must proceed “upon the assumption that the Legislature did not deliberately place in the statute a phrase which was intended to serve no purpose”]).
In this case, while the original complaint included claims of gender discrimination under both the State and City HRLs, as well as claims of disability discrimination and retaliation, it alleged no claim of discrimination under the separate and distinct category of sexual orientation discrimination found in both statutes.
The same is true of plaintiffs initial federal and state agency filings. The NYCTA OEEO complaint form, filed by plaintiff in August 2012, consistent with the State and City HRLs, sets forth each of those two forms of discrimination as separate categories. At that time, plaintiff checked only the box reflecting discrimination on the basis of “Sex/Gender,” not the one relating to “Sexual Orientation.” Based upon the record, it appears that plaintiff’s first mention of sexual orientation discrimination is in the proposed amended complaint. The allegations in her prior complaints, filed from August 2012 onward and including the original complaint in this action, were devoid of any factual or legal basis supporting a claim of sexual orientation discrimination. Thus, defendants did not receive actual or legally cognizable notice of any of the alleged transactions or occurrences upon which plaintiff’s sexual orientation claims are based. Accordingly, the CPLR 203 (f) relation-back exception does not save plaintiff’s concededly untimely new claims.
In relying on Duffy v Horton Mem. Hosp. (66 NY2d 473 [1985]), Caffaro v Trayna (35 NY2d 245 [1974]) and Giambrone v Kings Harbor Multicare Ctr. (104 AD3d 546 [1st Dept 2013]), the majority misses the mark. In Duffy, the Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff was not barred by the expiration of the statute of limitations from amending the complaint to sue a third-party defendant directly on the same claim as was advanced in the third-party complaint (Duffy, 66 NY2d at 478). The Duffy Court reasoned that because the direct claim was *100based on the same transactions or occurrences as were alleged in the third-party complaint, the third-party defendant had actual notice of those transactions or occurrences (id.). In Caf-faro, the Court of Appeals held that a complaint in a medical malpractice action could be amended by an executor who had been substituted for the decedent as plaintiff, even after the limitations period had expired, to include a wrongful death cause of action where the alleged cause of death was attributed to the same personal injuries as alleged in the original complaint (Caffaro, 35 NY2d at 250). In Giambrone, this Court held that the original complaint for medical malpractice could be amended to add the derivative claim of the plaintiff’s spouse, because the new claim was based upon exactly the same factual allegations and theory of liability as were set forth in the original complaint. Thus, Duffy, Caffaro, and Giambrone all concern the amendment of complaints to add claims based upon the same transactions or occurrences upon which claims advanced in the original complaints were based under circumstances involving the addition or substitution of parties to an action.
Here, by contrast, plaintiffs sexual orientation discrimination claims are not based on the same transactions or occurrences as alleged in the original complaint, but upon the new factual allegations, asserted for the first time in the proposed amended complaint, that she is a lesbian, that Menduina was aware of her sexual orientation, and that her former supervisor was demoted after having written a letter of support for her discrimination claims. In addition to these allegations being post hoc (see Matter of Clairol Dev., LLC v Village of Spen-cerport, 100 AD3d at 1547 [“The relation back doctrine ... is inapplicable where the causes of action are based upon events that occurred after the filing of the initial petition, rather than upon the transactions giving rise to the (causes of action) in the initial petition” (internal quotation marks omitted)]), they cannot serve as a basis for plaintiff’s new claims of sexual orientation discrimination, because they are not allegations of transactions or occurrences of which defendants were provided notice by way of the original complaint. Under these circumstances, the CPLR 203 (f) relation-back exception is inapplicable and does not save plaintiff’s facially untimely sexual orientation discrimination claims.
Moreover, the proposed amended complaint falls short for the additional reason that it fails to state a claim for sexual *101orientation discrimination. To do so, a plaintiff must allege that she was a member of a protected class, that she was qualified for the positions that she sought and held, that she was subjected to adverse employment action, and that the adverse employment action occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination (see Brennan v Metropolitan Opera Assn., 284 AD2d 66, 70 [1st Dept 2001]).
Here, as noted, the original complaint is devoid of any factual allegations suggesting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In the amended complaint, the new factual allegations include plaintiff’s self-identification as a lesbian and the allegation that Menduina was aware of her sexual orientation at the time defendants took job actions adverse to her. Plaintiff also alleges that her former supervisor, an out lesbian, was demoted in retaliation for writing a letter of support for her. Even viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, these allegations, without more, are insufficient to establish that defendants’ alleged discriminatory acts were motivated by animus against plaintiff’s sexual orientation. Moreover, plaintiff makes no mention of defendants having subjected her to any adverse employment actions that were not taken against similarly situated heterosexual colleagues. Plaintiff has not only failed to allege that any adverse employment actions taken against her occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of sexual orientation discrimination (see Matz v Prospect Energy Corp., 63 AD3d 619, 619 [1st Dept 2009], citing Brennan, 284 AD3d at 70), but she has also failed to allege any factual basis whatsoever from which discrimination against her on the basis of her sexual orientation could be inferred.
Moreover, plaintiff’s claim about her former supervisor pertains solely to an adverse employment action taken by defendants against a third party, not plaintiff (and which occurred subsequent to the claimed adverse employment actions against plaintiff). As plaintiff asserts no claim of discrimination by association (see Loving v Virginia, 388 US 1 [1967]), these representations are therefore irrelevant to consideration of whether plaintiff herself was subjected to sexual orientation discrimination.
Far from eschewing the broad construction to be used in interpreting our City HRL, as the majority claims, I would merely require plaintiff to adhere to the notice pleading requirements of the CPLR, which the majority concedes govern claims under these statutes. In failing to give defendants no*102tice in her original complaint of discriminatory action taken against her on the basis of her sexual orientation, plaintiff failed to meet the notice requirements of CPLR 203 (f) and the common law. Further, although the additional facts she seeks to add in her proposed amended complaint might state a discrimination claim that could be pursued by her supervisor (see Albunio v City of New York, 16 NY3d 472 [2011]), they offer no basis to infer sexual orientation discrimination against her.
For these reasons, I believe that had plaintiff’s sexual orientation discrimination claims been advanced in her original complaint, they would not have survived a motion to dismiss (see CPLR 3211 [a] [7]; Matz v Prospect Energy Corp., 63 AD3d at 619, citing Brennan, 284 AD2d at 70). Accordingly, in my view, these claims should not be advanced by way of an amended complaint (see Gonik v Israel Discount Bank of N.Y., 80 AD3d 437, 439 [1st Dept 2011] [unanimously affirming denial of leave to amend complaint where plaintiff “fail(ed) to demonstrate that any of (the proposed new causes of action) state prima facie a viable cause of action”]).
Because I believe that leave to amend the complaint to add plaintiff’s sexual orientation discrimination claims was improvidently granted, I would not reach defendants’ contention that deprivation of their opportunity to depose plaintiff on her new claims constituted an abuse of discretion.
Accordingly, I would reverse the order of Supreme Court granting plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend the complaint to add claims for sexual orientation discrimination and deny the motion.
Richter and Manzanet-D aniels, JJ., concur with Acosta, P.J.; Kahn and Tom, JJ., dissent in an opinion by Kahn, J.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County, entered August 17, 2016, modified, on the law and the facts and in the exercise of discretion, to allow further disclosure as necessary (including the deposition of plaintiff as indicated herein), and otherwise affirmed, with costs.

. The parties dispute whether reference was made to plaintiff’s sexual orientation during her deposition. However, plaintiff did not include a copy of the transcript of the deposition as an exhibit to her written submissions to this Court (see CPLR 3025 [b]; Bag Bag v Alcobi, 129 AD3d 649, 649 [1st Dept 2015] [“a motion for leave to amend a pleading must be supported by . . . evidentiary proof that could be considered upon a motion for summary judgment”]). Therefore, there is no basis in the record upon which this Court may determine whether plaintiff made any reference to her sexual orientation in her deposition testimony.

. Although the majority now finds fault with our recent ruling in Robinson, its disparagement of that decision has no bearing on plaintiff’s claims, which, in any case, fail for the separate reasons stated herein.

. Compare Edwards v Nicolai, 153 AD3d 440 (1st Dept 2017) (requiring interpretation of scope of gender discrimination provision of City HRL, decided herewith); see Whitaker By Whitaker v Kenosha Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 Bd. of Educ., 858 F3d 1034 (7th Cir 2017) (favoring broad interpretation of title IX of Education Amendments Act of 1972 [20 USC § 1681 et seg.]); see also Christiansen v Omnicom Group, Inc., 852 F3d 195, 201-205 (2d Cir 2017, Katzmann, Ch. J., concurring) (favoring broad interpretation of sex discrimination provision of title VII, section 703 of the *98Civil Rights Acts of 1964 [42 USC § 2000e-2 (a) (1)]); Hively v Ivy Tech Community Coll. of Indiana, 853 F3d 339 (7th Cir 2017 en banc) (same).