Murillo-Roman v. The Pension Bds.-United Church of Christ

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DILKA MURILLO-ROMAN, Plaintiff, v. THE PENSION BOARDS - UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST et al., Defendants.

No. 1:22-cv-08365 (JLR)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

January 23, 2024

OPINION AND ORDER

JENNIFER L. ROCHON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.

Dilka Murillo-Roman (“Murillo-Roman” or “Plaintiff”) brings this employment-discrimination action against her former employer The Pension Boards - United Church of Christ (the “Pension Boards”), and supervisors John Linzey (“Linzey”) and Camilia Huggins (“Huggins” and, collectively “Defendants”). ECF No. 41 (the “First Amended Complaint” or “FAC”). Plaintiff alleges violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (“Section 1981”); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (“Title VII”); the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C § 12101 et seq. (the “ADA”); the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (the “ADEA”); the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq. (the “NYSHRL”); the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-101 et seq. (the “NYCHRL”); and the Family Medical and Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. (the “FMLA”). FAC ¶¶ 169-226. Before the Court is Defendants' motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint. ECF No. 43 (“Br.”). For the following reasons, Defendants' motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

Unless otherwise stated, the following facts are taken from the First Amended Complaint and assumed to be true for purposes of this motion. See Hamilton v. Westchester County, 3 F.4th 86, 90 (2d Cir. 2021).

Plaintiff was born and raised in Panama before immigrating to the United States as an adult; she speaks English with a Panamanian accent. FAC ¶¶ 3, 13. In 1999, the Pension Boards hired Plaintiff as a staff accountant in its General Accounting division. Id. ¶ 11. In 2005, Plaintiff was promoted to a new role in the Investment Accounting division. Id. ¶ 20. She received another promotion within the division in 2008. Id. ¶ 21.

In 2005, Plaintiff began interacting with Huggins, then the Pension Boards' Controller, who is Black and of Caribbean descent. Id. ¶ 17-18, 22. Huggins did not supervise Plaintiff, but she possessed the ability to assign Plaintiff work. Id. ¶ 22. Huggins often pretended that she could not understand Plaintiff because of her accent; spoke to Plaintiff in a condescending tone; and yelled at Plaintiff. Id. Plaintiff's direct supervisor at the time, Randy Garrett, also behaved coldly toward Plaintiff and rebuffed her requests for assistance. Id. ¶ 24.

Between 2005 and 2011, Plaintiff communicated her concern with Huggins's and Garrett's behavior several times to the Pension Boards' then-director of human resources. Id. ¶ 26. Between 2011 and 2012, Plaintiff complained more formally to the same director about Huggins's and Garrett's behavior. Id. ¶ 27. Plaintiff reported that Huggins spoke to her rudely; yelled at her; and treated her more harshly than other employees. Id. She suggested that Garrett seemed to mirror Huggins's treatment of her, and that this treatment was because of her ethnicity, national origin, and accent. Id. ¶¶ 28-29. In response, the human-resources director held a meeting with Plaintiff and Garrett to attempt to mediate the situation. Id. ¶ 30.

In the winter of 2014, Plaintiff was demoted, moving back to the General Accounting department to replace an outgoing accountant. Id. ¶ 34. Huggins supervised Plaintiff in her new role, assigning her a heavier workload than that of her colleagues but refusing to answer questions about these assignments. Id. ¶¶ 37, 40-41. Huggins continued to mock Plaintiff's accent. Id. ¶ 38.

While Huggins did not supervise Plaintiff directly for most of 2016, she resumed supervising Plaintiff in October 2016 and continued her previously described behavior: yelling at Plaintiff, ridiculing her accent, and assigning “more work than was her fair share.” Id. ¶¶ 51, 54, 67-69. In late 2016, “after one of Defendant Huggins's screaming tirades,” Plaintiff approached Linzey, the Pension Boards' Executive Vice President who oversaw the Finance and Accounting departments. Id. ¶ 55; see id. ¶¶ 8, 15. Linzey was unmoved and dismissed Plaintiff's concerns. Id. ¶ 55. Plaintiff also reported this incident to the Pension Boards' chief financial officer, suggesting that Huggins's treatment was because of her accent and skin color. Id. ¶¶ 56-57. When the chief financial officer said that she planned to speak with Huggins, Plaintiff expressed concern that Huggins would retaliate against her for complaining. Id. ¶ 58. Approximately one month later, Plaintiff also reported Huggins's treatment to an outside consultant who had been hired to investigate the Pension Boards' work environment. Id. ¶¶ 60-61.

In October 2017, a colleague gave notice that she would retire in about three months. Id. ¶ 73. Huggins and Linzey initially informed Donald Spinelli (who is white) and Jeff Adams (who is not) that they would take on the retiring colleague's work duties. Id. In January 2018, days before the colleague resigned, Huggins and Linzey informed Plaintiff that she would instead assume most of the colleague's job responsibilities. Id. ¶ 74. Spinelli, who took on a “small portion” of the colleague's tasks, was permitted to get help from a coworker; Plaintiff was not. Id. ¶ 79. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants effectively guaranteed her failure by waiting until January to inform her of the reassignment, when she had only a “very short window” during which the outgoing colleague “could train Plaintiff on her new job responsibilities.” Id. ¶ 77. Around this time, Huggins also left uncorrected a journal-entry error so that it would appear during audit season as an unreconciled debit for one of Plaintiff's accounts. Id. ¶¶ 87-88.

Even after the Pension Boards hired a new supervisor in March 2018 to oversee its General Accounting and Investment Accounting Departments, Huggins continued to mistreat Plaintiff. Id. ¶ 82. In May 2018, Huggins instructed several employees to refrain from cooperating with Plaintiff on work-related matters: she told Linzey's administrative assistant “not to assist Plaintiff with anything work-related” and instructed one of Plaintiff's coworkers not to share information with her. Id. ¶ 92. Huggins reprimanded Plaintiff for taking personal calls at her desk but permitted other employees to make personal calls at work. Id. ¶ 93. In January 2019, Huggins purposefully withheld information without which Plaintiff could not complete a time-sensitive assignment. Id. ¶ 94. Only after Plaintiff's supervisor intervened was Plaintiff able to receive the requested information and complete the task. Id. ¶¶ 96-97.

In January 2019, Plaintiff's direct supervisor, Yomara Hernandez (“Hernandez”), shared with Plaintiff her review of Plaintiff's performance for 2018. Id. ¶ 104. Hernandez had graded Plaintiff as “High Performing” in the Individual Performance section of this evaluation. Id. In the comment section, Hernandez wrote:

[Plaintiff] goes over and beyond normal work hours to complete her work. It is clear to me that management needs to realistically reevaluate [Plaintiff] workload, [Plaintiff] is currently responsible for reconciling accounts that she does not handle. It is my recommendation that reconciliations of accounts should be done by the accountant who is responsible for the daily entries of the accounts as they are better suited to investigate discrepancies. Other members of the team and myself are concerned about the number of hours [Plaintiff] works and possible impact on her health.

I believe [Plaintiff] has very strong work ethics and I would like that to continue in 2019. I also think is important for [Plaintiff] to continue to add value is [sic] that we broaden general accounting knowledge. Given her existing commitment to PB she is a staff member that would welcome further career development.

Id. (alterations in original; emphasis omitted). Hernandez submitted her evaluation for final review to Linzey, the head of the Finance and Accounting Departments, who instructed her to change Plaintiff's rating to “Developing.” Id. ¶ 105. Hernandez refused to do so. Id. Later that month, in late January 2019, Plaintiff and Linzey discussed the evaluation, and both signed it. Id. ¶ 107. But on January 31, 2019, Linzey approached Plaintiff about revising her 2018 performance evaluation. Id. ¶ 108. Linzey gave Plaintiff a revised draft of the evaluation, telling her that the “vocabulary wasn't right” in the original evaluation but that “not much was changed.” Id. ¶ 109. The evaluation contained substantive changes, however, including a change to her rating under the Individual Performance section from “High Performing” to “Developing,” and changes to Hernandez's comments, which now read as follows:

[Plaintiff] is committed and shows work ethic, but there are times that she needs to raise her hand for help and work with her manager to better prioritize the workload.

I think it is important for [Plaintiff] to broaden her general accounting knowledge and work on better analyzing reconciliations.

Id. (alterations in original). Plaintiff objected to the proposed changes and asked for 24 hours to review the revised evaluation. Id. ¶ 112. “[T]owering over [Plaintiff] in an intimidating manner,” Linzey replied in a raised voice, “NO! You have to sign it.” Id. Linzey also demanded that Plaintiff return her personal copy of the original evaluation. Id. ¶ 113. Fearing for her safety, Plaintiff complied with both requests. Id.

On her doctor's advice, Plaintiff took about two weeks off to recover from this incident. Id. ¶¶ 116 123. In early February 2019, Plaintiff called the Pension...