Workers in New York City are protected by the statutory rights granted to employees by city, state, and federal law, including the right to be free from certain forms of workplace discrimination. Each of these laws – city, state, and federal – erects its own standards for what a worker must prove to win a discrimination case. For New York City workers harmed by sexual harassment, sexual orientation discrimination, or gender discrimination, the New York City Human Rights Law has a worker-friendly standard that does not require you to allege that your harassment was “severe” or “pervasive” or that you suffered an “adverse employment action.” If you’ve endured sexual requests, questions, threats, or other inappropriate comments, you may have a winning case under the NYCHRL. Contact an experienced New York City sex/gender discrimination lawyer to discuss what happens next.
For one engineer in New York City who sued for perceived sexual orientation discrimination, the problem allegedly was an array of inappropriateness, including questions, threats, and comments of a sexual nature from his supervisor.
The engineer, R.S., started with New York City’s Department of Administrative Services in 2013. In June 2014, the department transferred him to a new location in the Bronx. There, the supervisor, R.C., allegedly “made sexually charged comments” to the engineer. These included statements about the engineer’s clothes as well as questions potentially related to sexual orientation, like asking whether the engineer had a girlfriend, why the engineer was still single, what the engineer’s sexual activities were, and what his “genital configuration” was.
By late November, the harassment had escalated, with the supervisor allegedly threatening to “write up” the engineer unless the engineer allowed the supervisor “to perform oral sex on him.”
The engineer eventually sued as a result of the harassment, asserting claims of discrimination based on perceived sexual orientation as well as retaliation.
The city asked the court to dismiss the engineer’s sexual orientation claims, but the court rejected the motion. The ruling in favor of the employee is important for a couple of key reasons.
The NYCHRL's Worker-Friendly Pleading Requirements
For one thing, the court's decision highlights that the NYCHRL establishes a relatively low (worker-friendly) pleading standard for claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation. The law does not require a worker to assert that the discrimination he encountered was “severe” or “pervasive,” as the federal law demands. Additionally, the employee does not have to allege that he endured a tangibly adverse employment action to pursue his NYCHRL claim; rather, he only must establish that he was treated “less well” than colleagues outside his protected group.
For example, in 2019, the Appellate Division court ruled that a supervisor of nurses sufficiently asserted a claim of gender discrimination based on allegations of wide-ranging harassment for her supervisor, including requests for dates, inappropriate comments, and many varieties of inappropriate touching. These assertions, according to the appeals court, were sufficient to allow a jury “reasonably to find that she was treated ‘less well’ than her male colleagues because of her gender.” In 2017, the court said in a different case that allegations of “sexually-charged comments” by a “lead supervisor," including insinuations that a female supervisor had a “proclivity to engage in workplace affairs,” were enough to cause the female supervisor’s subordinates to lose respect for her and constitute the female supervisor being treated less well because of her gender.
Refusing to Engage Your Harasser Doesn't Reduce the Seriousness
The engineer’s case is important for another reason. The evidence in his case revealed that he never responded to the supervisor’s inappropriate questions or the demand for sexual contact. As a worker, your decision in the moment to deal with harassment by ignoring the harasser’s inappropriate statements does not diminish the potency of that harassment.
The NYCHRL says that discrimination, to be actionable in civil court, must be something more than “petty slights or trivial inconveniences.” As the court explained, the mere fact that the engineer did not reply to the supervisor’s comments, questions, or requests “does not reduce this sexual harassment to petty slights or trivial inconveniences.”
If you think that you encountered unfair treatment at work due to your sex/gender, get in touch with the New York sex/gender discrimination attorneys at Phillips & Associates today. We are a leader in workplace law and have fought successfully for countless victims of on-the-job discrimination just like you. Contact us online or at (833) 529-3476 to set up a free and confidential consultation to get us started getting justice for you.