Hagan v. City of N.Y.
| Citation | 39 F.Supp.3d 481 |
| Decision Date | 15 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 13–cv–1108 JPO.,13–cv–1108 JPO. |
| Parties | Special HAGAN, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, Diane Crothers, Edna Wells Handy, Patricia LeGoff, Katherine Oliver, and Carole Wallace Post, in their individual and official capacities and as aiders and abettors, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Special Hagan, Law Offices of Special Hagan, Saint Albans, NY, pro se.
Mario Gerard Frangiose, New York City Law Depart. Office of the Corporation Counsel, New York, NY, for Defendants.
Plaintiff Special Hagan, an African–American former Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Officer for the City of New York, brings this action pro se against the City and several of its officials pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law (SHRL), N.Y. Exec. L. §§ 290 et seq., and the New York City Human Rights Law (CHRL), N.Y.C. Admin. Code §§ 8–107 et seq. Hagan claims that Defendants discriminated against her on the basis of her race, primarily by maintaining an environment of cronyism that results in preferential treatment for Caucasian patronage appointees. She further alleges that she was subjected to a hostile work environment and retaliated against for attempting to investigate and draw attention to the City's unlawful practices. Defendants have moved to dismiss all claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). For the reasons that follow, their motion is granted in part and denied in part.
The following facts are drawn from the amended complaint (Dkt. No. 11 (“Am. Compl.”)) and the submitted extrinsic documents that may be considered on a motion to dismiss. They are assumed to be true for purposes of this motion.
Plaintiff is an attorney admitted to practice in the state of New York since 2004 whose career has focused upon promoting equal opportunity in employment. Defendants are the City and several officials with whom she worked while at the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) and the Department of Correction (DOC). The individual defendants are Carole Wallace Post, former Commissioner of DOITT; Diane Crothers, Deputy Commissioner of Citywide EEO for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS); Edna Wells Handy, Commissioner of DCAS; Katherine Oliver, Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME); and Patricia LeGoff, Assistant Commissioner of EEO at DOC. They are sued in their personal and official capacities. With the exception of Handy, who is African–American, they are all Caucasian.
Hagan began working at DOITT as Senior Director of EEO on August 30, 2010. Her responsibilities in this role included conducting investigations, training and advising staff on the City's EEO policy, monitoring the hiring process, and organizing diversity activities. She reported directly to Post. She also regularly interacted with and reported to Oliver, Crothers, and Georgia Pestana, head of the Law Department's Labor and Employment Division.
Hagan alleges that she was subjected to discrimination in the terms of her employment in several ways. First, she was required to submit more to verify her income and employment than Rachel Sterne Haot, a Caucasian female hired at the same time who was comparably educated and experienced, reported to a commissioner, and had been self-employed at a comparable income. While Hagan was asked for copies of checks from her former client, Haot was required to submit only an online printout of her tax return. Second, Post and Crothers refused her request to have the title of Assistant Commissioner or Executive Director, even though Crothers had an initiative to hire EEO Officers at the level of Assistant Commissioner or higher and in fact provided Caucasian female officers with superior titles and compensation than their African–American peers. Third, Hagan was given only a part-time staff person while her Caucasian predecessor, Emily Johnson, always had a full-time assistant. Her experience with staffing is allegedly representative of minority EEO Officers at DOITT.
Beyond inferior terms of employment, Hagan describes an environment of cronyism and disdain for diversity policies, facilitated largely by and at the direction of Post. In support of this generalization, she alleges that: (i) she was required to serve as EEO Officer for both DOITT and MOME, even though City policy required each agency to have its own officer; (ii) Post told her it did not really matter if someone filed a racial discrimination complaint because the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rarely investigated claims filed by minorities; (iii) she was hired because of her race, not to promote diversity, but to stem the tide of discrimination complaints without resolving the underlying issues; and (iv) Post encouraged her and other employees not to follow two of the City's hiring policies that promoted diversity—an “open-window” policy requiring positions to be posted online and limiting interviews to those who applied during that period, and a “Rule of 4” policy requiring managers to interview at least four applicants for every position.
When Hagan attempted to investigate complaints and resisted the City's unfair practices, she experienced resistance and retaliation from Post and others. Shortly after arriving at DOITT, for instance, she was tasked with hiring a full-time staff person for the EEO Unit. Post wanted her to choose Raymond Ng, an Asian–American male colleague from the Department of Buildings with no experience in EEO and only a Bachelor's degree. She also wanted to pay him $75,000 a year—$25,000 more than the salary of the former, African–American staff person who had several years of EEO experience and a Master's degree, and had left when her request for a promotion had been denied. During a one-on-one meeting, Post told Hagan that she knew she was going to pick Joao Texiera, an African–American male, instead of Ng and said: (Am. Compl. ¶ 70.) This comment offended Hagan because it suggested that she was hiring based upon race rather than merit. In retaliation for not selecting Ng, Post held up the processing of Texiera's hire for several months. Also in retaliation and on account of her race, Post would “antagonize” Hagan over her job performance and her knowledge of the law throughout her time at DOITT. (Id. ¶¶ 73, 76.) Hagan experienced further “hostility and retaliation” from Post when she pushed back on DOITT's noncompliance with the open-window and Rule–of–4 policies. (Id. ¶ 106.)
Hagan was later approached by Crothers with a request for a list of managerial hires with their racial demographic information. Crothers claimed that she was working with the Department of Investigation (DOI) to investigate confidential complaints of racial discrimination in hiring and promotional practices at DOITT. While she had asked Hagan's Caucasian predecessor, Johnson, for this information only once, she would “relentlessly harass” Hagan for the same because she is African–American. (Id. ¶ 92.) Hagan subsequently emailed Post, Crothers, and Mitchell Ahbaulm, an individual in the Law Department, about the anonymous complaints and asked to review the agency's applicant and interview logs, but she was met with “harassment,” “lack of support,” and “hostility” from “managers, HR and or from Post.” (Id. ¶ 101.)
In September 2010, Hagan was approached by four MOME minority employees with anonymous complaints of discrimination in hiring and promotion. They claimed that Oliver engaged in cronyism and gave Caucasian employees preferential treatment in terms of opportunities, titles, and compensation. During the course of her investigation, Hagan discovered that MOME had a history of discrimination litigation and that Oliver had hired only Caucasian employees. In October, she attempted to mediate an agreement but Oliver refused to address the complaints. She eventually reached out to Pestana, who told her that she was obligated to investigate. Hagan was subsequently approached with a sexual harassment complaint from an Asian female MOME employee against a Caucasian male coworker. During this investigation, Oliver exhibited racial animus against the complainant and said she wanted to transfer or fire her even though she had no issues with her performance. Oliver also sought to unduly interfere with Hagan's investigation by insisting on knowing when interviews would happen and on being involved in the outcome.
On October 29, pursuant to Pestana's directive, Hagan sent an official notice of the MOME discrimination complaints to Oliver, and on November 2, she hand-delivered a copy to Post. Post began to “harass” Hagan about the level of detail in her agendas, allegedly because it imputed knowledge of discrimination to Post. (Id. ¶ 183.) On November 15, Hagan met with Post again to discuss the discrimination and sexual harassment complaints and was asked to conduct a teambuilding exercise with Oliver's Film, Theatre and Broadcasting (FTB) Group.2 On November 30 and December 1, Hagan interviewed six employees about the discrimination complaints and sent emails to eight minority MOME staff members in the FTB Group. After the teambuilding session the next day, Oliver pulled Hagan aside and expressed anger that she had reached out to the eight staff members. She then contacted Bill Heinzen, General Counsel (GC) to then-Mayor Bloomberg, who informed Post and Oliver that Hagan was not authorized to investigate Oliver because she was a commissioner and ordered an end to the investigation. Hagan alleges that, although the EEO Policy in fact prohibits such investigations, the real reason the investigation was called off was because Oliver did not like the direction in which it was going.
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...Dep't of Health Servs. , 917 F.Supp.2d 196, 208–09 (E.D.N.Y. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Hagan v. City of New York , 39 F.Supp.3d 481, 511 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (holding that courts should consider whether "it is fair to say that the employer would reasonably expect the exp......