Prince v. Madison Square Garden
| Decision Date | 10 April 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 04 Civ.8151 RWS.,04 Civ.8151 RWS. |
| Citation | 427 F.Supp.2d 372 |
| Parties | Courtney PRINCE, Plaintiff, v. MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, a corporation; Jason Vogel, an individual; and Ryan Halkett, an individual, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Outten & Golden, New York, NY (Kathleen Peratis, Tammy Marzigliano, of counsel), for Plaintiff.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, New York, NY (Christopher P. Reynolds, Melissa C. Rodriguez, of counsel), for Defendants.
Defendants Madison Square Garden, L.P. (the "Garden"), Jason Vogel ("Vogel"), and Ryan Halkett ("Halkett")1 (collectively the "Defendants") have moved pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), Fed.R.Civ.P., to dismiss the First, Second, and Third causes of action against the Garden and the Second, Third, Fifth, and Sixth causes of action against Halkett set forth in the Amended Complaint of plaintiff Courtney Prince ("Prince" or the "Plaintiff'). For the reasons set forth below, the motion is denied.
The prior proceedings in this action were set forth in the opinion of this Court of May 6, 2005, Prince v. Cablevision Systems Corporation, No. 04 Civ. 8151(RWS), 2005 WL 1060373 (the "May 6 Opinion"), familiarity with which is assumed.
Following the entry of the May 6 Opinion, Prince filed her Amended Complaint. The First, Second, and Third causes of action allege claims arising out of a hostile work environment under federal, state, and city laws respectively. The Second and Third causes of action also allege a claim against Halkett as well as the Garden. The Fifth and Sixth causes of action allege that Halkett aided and abetted the retaliation alleged to have been committed against Prince in violation of New York State and New York City law.
Defendants moved to dismiss the Complaint on June 6, 2005. This motion was heard and marked fully submitted on September 7, 2005.
Prince is a professional figure skater who was employed as a member and captain of the Ranger City Skaters (the "Skaters"). The Skaters are ice skating cheer-leaders of the New York Rangers (the "Rangers"), a professional hockey team. (See Am. Compl. ¶ 1).
The Garden is a limited partnership, and the former employer of Prince. .
Vogel is an employee of the Garden and deputy director of public relations for the Rangers. (See id. ¶ 23).
Halkett, who was Prince's immediate supervisor, is employed by the Garden as the director of game-day presentation for the Rangers. (See id. ¶ 22).
The following facts are drawn from the allegations contained in the Complaint. All well-pleaded allegations are accepted as true for the purposes of this motion. See Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir.2002). The following statements do not constitute findings of the Court.
Prince was hired by the Garden in the fall of 2002 to be a member of the Skaters, a group which was formed in 2002. (See Am. Compl. ¶ 21). She was made captain of the team in August 2003. (See id. ¶ 25). In this capacity, Prince's duties included communicating to the Skaters the directives of management. (See id.).
During her employment as captain of the Skaters, a period of less than six months, from August 2003 until she was fired on January 22, 2004, ( ), Prince has alleged that she was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment, that the Garden and her supervisors Halkett and Vogel, as well as unnamed Garden managers, treated her and the other Skaters not as employees whose job it was to work hard and perform with excellence as skaters on the ice at Ranger hockey games, but as sex objects who were expected to be large breasted, sexually alluring, to accompany or be available to Garden managers and others at after-hours parties and events, who were subjected to inappropriate and unwelcome sexual conversation and physical contact from Garden managers. Prince has alleged sixteen examples of this sexually hostile work environment:
• The Garden and Halkett required that the Skaters, including Prince, be sexually alluring. Am. Compl. 28(a).
• Halkett told Prince that a Skater named Trina was too small breasted and directed Prince to tell Trina to stuff her bra. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(a).
• Halkett took steps to ensure that the Skaters did not get fat. Am. Compl. ¶ 51.
• Halkett made unwelcome sexual remarks to a Skater named Amea Bunting regarding her sex life and his. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(c).
• Halkett made disparaging remarks about the sexual morals of a Skater named Bridie. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(d).
• Halkett pressed Prince to tell him who the "wild girls" were among the Skaters. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(e).
• Vogel made unwelcome sexual advances to Prince and sexually assaulted her, and when the Garden and Halkett learned that Prince had complained about it, they fired her. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 33, 38.
• Vogel made unwelcome sexual advances to other Garden employees and the Garden is aware of such advances. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(f).
• The Garden managers including Halkett required some of the Skaters, including Prince, to fraternize with the Garden management. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(g).
• The Garden managers, including Halkett, routinely initiated unwelcome sexual conversations with Prince and other Skaters, both in their offices and also at Garden-sponsored post-game parties and gatherings in which the Skaters, including Prince, were expected to participate. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(h).
• Garden managers and supervisors, including Rososco, Vogel, and Halkett, took underage Skaters to bars and restaurants and purchased alcohol for them. Am. Compl. 28(i).
• High level Garden manager Josh Rososco asked Prince about her relationship with her boyfriend and about which Skaters had boyfriends. Am. Compl. ¶ 28(j).
• At a Garden event, a guest of the Garden management made an inappropriate gesture of sexual arousal toward Prince. When she complained about it to Vogel, he told her that she engendered the same sexual arousal in him as the guest had manifested. Am. Compl. ¶ 30.
The appropriate standard for this motion and for Title VII, NYSHRL, NYCHRL claims was set forth in the May 6 Opinion, at *3, and need not be rehearsed here.
Here, the sexual harassment claim is alleged to arise from Vogel's conduct directed to Prince on December 22, 2003 at Danny-O's, a statement by Vogel adopting a sexual arousal gesture by a guest directed to Prince (Am.Compl ¶ 30), the requirement that the Skaters be sexually alluring and requiring that "some of the skaters fraternize (sic) with MSG management" (Am.Compl. ¶ 28(g)), that managers and supervisors met or took Skaters to bars and restaurants and bought alcohol for underage Skaters, and sexual remarks that Halkett told Prince that a Skater had to stuff her bra (Am.Compl. ¶ 28(a)), that Halkett spoke to Prince about pubic hair and oral sex (Am.Compl. ¶ 28(b)), that Halkett spoke to a Skater about her sex life and his (Am.Compl. ¶ 28(c)), that Halkett disparaged the morals of a Skater, that Halkett and his superior sought information from Prince about the romantic and sex lives of some of the Skaters (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 28(c)(j)), that managers "routinely initiated unwelcome sexual conversations with Prince and other Skaters, both in their offices and also at the Garden, sponsored post-game parties and gatherings in which the Skaters, including Prince, were expected to participate." (Am.compl. ¶¶ 28(k)).
Whether these allegations as alleged are sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment and whether Prince subjectively perceived the environment to be abusive as set forth in Feingold v. New York, 366 F.3d 138 (2d Cir.2004), quoted in the May 6 Opinion, is a close question. For the reasons set forth below, it is concluded that Prince has adequately alleged a claim of hostile work environment.
In order to state a cause of action for hostile work environment, Prince must allege that: (1) her workplace was permeated with conduct that was "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her work environment;" and (2) "a specific basis exists for imputing the conduct that created the hostile environment to the employer." Van Zant v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, 80 F.3d 708, 715 (2d Cir.1996). The conduct in question "must be severe or pervasive enough to create an environment that `would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile or abusive.'" Schwapp v. Town of Avon, 118 F.3d 106, 110 (2d Cir.1997). In other words, the first element of a hostile work environment claim requires allegations that demonstrate that the environment was both objectively and subjectively hostile or abusive. See Gregory v. Daly, 243 F.3d 687, 691-92 (2d Cir.2001).
Courts are to look at the totality of the circumstances in determining whether conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment. Whidbee v. Garzarelli Food Specialties, Inc., 223 F.3d 62, 70 (2d Cir.2000). These circumstances "may include the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee's work." Gregory, 243 F.3d at 694 (quoting Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 22-23, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993)).
As an initial matter, Defendants argue that Prince may not support her claims with any alleged comments of Halkett regarding Bridie and Ms. Bunting. In response to this argument, Prince has cited Whidbee v. Garzarelli Food Specialties, Inc., 223 F.3d 62, 70 (2d Cir.2000), and Perry v. Ethan Allen, Inc., 115 F.3d 143, 150 (2d Cir.1997). (Pl. Opp. at 9-10). However, the Defendants continue to contend that Prince cannot rely on inadmissible hearsay statements, about which she has not...
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