Morales v. NYS Dep't of Labor

• Decision Date: 30 March 2012
• Docket Number: No. 5:06–cv–0899 (NAM/ATB).,5:06–cv–0899 (NAM/ATB).
• Citation: 865 F.Supp.2d 220
• Parties: Deborah L. MORALES, Plaintiff, v. NYS DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, and CNY Works, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

865 F.Supp.2d 220

Deborah L. MORALES, Plaintiff,

v.NYS DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, and CNY Works, Inc., Defendants.

No. 5:06–cv–0899 (NAM/ATB).

United States District Court,

N.D. New York.

March 30, 2012.

Webster, Fredrickson Law Firm, Linda M. Correia, Esq., of Counsel, Washington, DC, and Cooper, Erving Law Firm, Phillip G. Steck, Esq., of Counsel, Albany, NY, for Plaintiff.

Office of Attorney General, David B. Roberts, Esq., Steven H. Schwartz, Esq., of Counsel, Albany, NY, for NYS Department of Labor.

Office of Attorney General, Linda M. Correia, Esq., of Counsel, Albany, NY, for Defendants.

Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC, Kerry W. Langan, Patrick V. Melfi, of Counsel, Syracuse, NY, for CNY Works, Inc.

MEMORANDUM–DECISION AND ORDER

NORMAN A. MORDUE, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This case arises out of an employment dispute between plaintiff Deborah L. Morales and her former employer, the New York State Department of Labor, Division of Employment Services (“DOL”). Also named as a defendant is CNY Works, Inc. (“CNY”), a non-profit that worked with DOL out of the same Syracuse, New York office to provide employment assistance to Central New York communities. In her amended complaint, plaintiff alleges that DOL intentionally discriminated and retaliated against her in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and that DOL and CNY retaliated against her in violation of Title VI. Plaintiff is Caucasian and an American citizen, but she claims both defendants violated her rights because she associated with persons of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Columbian, Dominican, Ecuadorian, and Honduran national origin. DOL and CNY move separately for summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's respective claims against them. Plaintiff has responded to both motions, and both defendants have replied.

II. BACKGROUNDA. The Parties

The parties do not dispute the majority of the facts leading up to the filing of this action, though they dispute the factual basis of plaintiff's numerous informal complaints and her characterization of defendants' actions. Plaintiff, who speaks fluent Spanish, obtained employment as a Spanish-speaking Labor Services Representative with DOL in February 2000. Among other things, DOL maintains jobs service offices around New York State that provide employment resources and basic job-search training to the public. Plaintiff first worked for DOL as a labor service representative at its jobs service office in Syracuse, New York. At deposition, plaintiff summarized her responsibilities as such: “Intake interviews, solicitation of information from customers related to employment background and experience, mentoring of job seekers with regard to marketing themselves as a commodity in the job market, which involved consultation on resume preparation and cover letter preparation, [and] coaching preparation for interview[s].” Plaintiff also trained customers to use Internet-based job search resources. The parties agree that DOL hired plaintiff in part because it expected her to use her Spanish language skills to provide these services to Spanish-speaking “Limited English Proficiency” (“LEP”) customers. DOL did not permit plaintiff or other labor service representatives to contact most third parties on behalf of any customer, instructing them instead to refer customers to third parties when needed.

CNY is a Syracuse-based nonprofit that began working with DOL to provide access to employment resources in 2004, using funds made available to it and the State through the Workforce Investment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2801 et seq. DOL moved its Syracuse jobs service office into a building on Franklin Street in Syracuse that CNY owned and operated. Their combined services constituted the Syracuse “One Stop” Center, one of several One Stop locations across New York State, where local residents could take advantage of the resources CNY and DOL offered in one visit. As part of the arrangement, CNY had control over customer intake, meaning that its employees generally determined whether customers should be diverted to DOL staff. The Syracuse One Stop also featured a “resource room,” where customers could go to use one of several public computers or to speak with a member of CNY or DOL staff.

After relocating to the CNY office space, DOL reassigned plaintiff's workstation to a cubicle in the resource room. Plaintiff no longer conducted intake interviews, but she continued to meet with customers to provide employment assistance and help using DOL resources. Plaintiff and other resource room staffers conducted group orientations to give an overview of resource room and One Stop tools to new customers who had already gone through an intake interview. Initially, plaintiff maintained her role as an LEP specialist, and even translated to help other staff members interact with Spanish-speaking LEP customers. Plaintiff emphasizes in her responses, supporting affidavits, and other record evidence, however, that her role in assisting LEP customers at the One Stop varied from day to day. As she put it at deposition,

[M]y role was redefined ... in such a way as to provide an obstacle and hinderance [sic] to that category of customer.... It was touch and go. It was on a shoestring. It was flying by the seat of your pants. It was as if I had a string tied to my nose and management yanked it in whichever di [rec]tion they wanted to when they wanted to. There was not an established protocol. My role was designated as primarily equal to the duties of the unit that I was assigned to, and then if I was needed to “help a Spanish speaking customer,” I was called on.

According to plaintiff, CNY and DOL staff use the same computer database to record customer information. The database, called the One Stop Operating System (“OSOS”), is also used at the other One Stop locations around New York. Plaintiff obtained through discovery a printout from OSOS, which she has filed under seal in support of her responses. The printout shows that staffers at One Stop locations around the state recorded national origin information for at least some Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Columbian, Dominican, Ecuadorian, and Honduran customers. Plaintiff's printout, however, does not specify which One Stop employee or office recorded the information.

Plaintiff describes the roles of many coworkers, supervisors, and managers from DOL throughout her response materials. Those most relevant to this action were: plaintiff's immediate supervisors Cheryl Kane, and after 2006, Sue Stucco; supervisor Colleen McBride; DOL managers Cindy Garrett and Betty Youmans; DOL regional administrators Valerie Seawell and Kelli Owens; DOL Assistant Director of Employee Relations Stacy Hopkins; and New York State Office of Inspector General investigator Ken Dippel. Plaintiff also interacted with many CNY employees, including Alvaro Valencia and Lori Wilson, CNY manager Manny Martinez, and CNY director Lenore Sealey.

B. Plaintiff's “Advocacy”

At her deposition, plaintiff testified that her “advocacy” for Spanish-speaking people in the Syracuse area is part of the “fabric of my personality and my character.” As discussed below, plaintiff shifts between characterizing her advocacy as being on behalf of Spanish-speakers, citizens of Spanish-speaking countries residing in the Syracuse area, and more generally, Hispanic communities in the Syracuse area.¹ Plaintiff alleges that DOL and CNY violated her rights because of this advocacy.

Plaintiff offers evidence indicating that she spent a substantial amount of time at the Syracuse One Stop seeking to remedy perceived shortcomings in DOL and CNY's handling of LEP customers. Emails plaintiff offers in support of her responses show her, inter alia, inquiring about a possible discriminatory job posting residency requirement, offering an extensive critique of One Stop procedures for handling LEP customers in response to a set of proposed changes to DOL and CNY systems, warning supervisors that LEP customers “could not access workshops regarding resume preparation and interviewing skills,” and forwarding her concerns about LEP procedures to upper management and other divisions within DOL. Plaintiff asserts that she complained to “the Regional Administrator of DOL, the Director and Assistant Director of DOL's Division of Employment Services[,] ... the Director of the Division of Equal Opportunity Development[,] ... the office of the Inspector General and the Office of Employee Relations.” Plaintiff also filed formal complaints regarding LEP policies internally with the Office of Inspector General and externally with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The consistent thread across plaintiff's numerous complaints about LEP policies and procedures is that, in her view, DOL and CNY constructed barriers—often linguistic in nature—to prevent LEP customers from accessing their resources. For example, Plaintiff alleges that she volunteered to attend a “Latina Women's Conference” in Syracuse to conduct outreach to Spanish speaking communities on behalf of DOL, but that she was forbidden from doing so. Plaintiff asserts that DOL and CNY did not have many Spanish language versions of common forms, and that on one occasion they prevented her from putting Spanish language pamphlets in the lobby area. Plaintiff asserts that customers who looked Hispanic or who had Hispanic-sounding surnames were diverted to Alvaro Valencia, a CNY employee fluent in Spanish, even if those customers spoke English. Further, at deposition, Valencia admitted that he once stated “[i]f [a customer] don't speak English, we don't help them here [at One Stop]. They have to go to the Spanish Action League or to Jobs Plus.” Plaintiff alleges that even though other DOL staff had recognized specialties, her Spanish language proficiency was not put to use as it should have been, and that procedures often forced LEP customers that were diverted to plaintiff to wait much longer than...