Rodriguez v. Town of Ramapo

• Decision Date: 26 September 2019
• Docket Number: No. 18-CV-1878 (KMK),18-CV-1878 (KMK)
• Citation: 412 F.Supp.3d 412
• Parties: Eric RODRIGUEZ, Plaintiff, v. TOWN OF RAMAPO; Linda Condon; and Anthony Sharan, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

412 F.Supp.3d 412

Eric RODRIGUEZ, Plaintiff,

v.TOWN OF RAMAPO; Linda Condon; and Anthony Sharan, Defendants.

No. 18-CV-1878 (KMK)

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

Signed September 26, 2019

Allison Mary Walsh, Esq., Gabbard & Kamel PLLC, New York, NY, Counsel for Plaintiff.

Leo Dorfman, Esq., Shaunak Shah, Esq., Sokoloff Stern LLP, Carle Place, NY, Counsel for Defendants.

OPINION & ORDER

KENNETH M. KARAS, District Judge:

Eric Rodriguez ("Plaintiff") brings this Action against the Town of Ramapo (the "Town" or "Ramapo"), Superintendent of the Town Highway Department Anthony Sharan ("Sharan"), and Town Personnel Administrator Linda Condon ("Condon") (collectively, "Defendants"), alleging that Defendants discriminated and retaliated against him on the basis of race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 1981, § 1983, and § 2000e et seq. ; and New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 290, et seq. (Proposed Second Am. Compl. ("PSAC") (Dkt. No. 49).)^{1 ,2} Before the Court are Defendants' Motion To Dismiss, (Not. of Mot. To Dismiss (Dkt. No. 40)), and Plaintiff's Cross-Motion To Amend, (Not. of Mot. To Amend (Dkt. No. 49)).³ For the following reasons, Plaintiff's Motion is granted in part and denied in part, and Defendants' Motion is granted in part and denied in part.

I. Background

A. Factual Background

The following facts are taken from Plaintiff's PSAC and are assumed to be true for purposes of resolving the instant Motions.⁴

1. Plaintiff's Position

Plaintiff, who is Hispanic, (PSAC ¶ 11), was employed in the Highway Department of the Town from April 2008 until November 30, 2017, at which time he was discharged for misconduct and insubordination, (id. ¶ 4). The Town hired Plaintiff as a seasonal laborer in 2008. (Id. ¶ 11.) He was soon thereafter hired in a permanent role and passed his probationary period. (Id. ) Plaintiff possessed a Commercial Driver's license Class B, with multiple endorsements, allowing him to operate heavy machine vehicles. (Id. ) Plaintiff worked in the Highway Department without incident for several years, with no disciplinary memoranda in his official personnel file save one warning him about tardiness. (Id. ¶ 12.)⁵

Plaintiff was employed mainly on the blacktop crew, which involved filling potholes and repaving roads and was allegedly perceived to be the hardest and dirtiest work of the Highway Department. (Id. ) The blacktop crew used shovels and rollers to lift and even out the hot material that the crew obtained at plants where they ordered the amounts of blacktop they were told to obtain, which often varied, sometimes twice per day. (Id. ) Other crews allegedly painted and performed tree and sign work. (Id. )

The blacktop crew workers traveled in pairs in trucks that were equipped with GPS tracking devices. Assignments, work orders, and terms of work allegedly varied over time and with different supervisors. (Id. ¶ 13.) At the end of each day someone on a truck was supposed to take the work orders and fill out a report of what work had been done, and how much blacktop they had picked up from the plants supplying it. (Id. ) Usually, the non-driver in the truck would do the paperwork. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that despite being the driver in most instances, multiple foremen requested that he do the paperwork because of his superior penmanship. (Id. )

2. Discrimination in the Highway Department

Plaintiff alleges that during his tenure in the Town Highway Department, he witnessed and experienced inferior treatment of minorities, and of himself in particular, as he was repeatedly denied training and promotional opportunities that went to Caucasian employees. (Id. ¶ 14.) Sharan was the Superintendent of the Town Highway Department. Plaintiff alleges Sharan "engaged in a campaign of discrimination and retaliation" against Plaintiff. (Id. ¶ 5.)

Sharan allegedly "devised ever-new, arbitrary testing requirements in a seeming attempt to evade having to promote [Plaintiff] to Motor Equipment Operator II (‘MEO II’), a promotional spot for which Plaintiff's experience qualified him." (Id. ¶ 14.) Plaintiff alleges that others, including Robert Van Dunk ("Van Dunk"), believed the work environment to be racist. Plaintiff alleges that he was usually paired on a truck with the other person of Hispanic origin in the Department, Ismael Rosario ("Rosario"). (Id. )

Sharan, Eddie O'Carroll ("O'Carroll"), and other managers and workers in the Highway Department allegedly had a long history of making racially disparaging comments. Plaintiff alleges that O'Carroll, a foreman, "used the term nigger some time ago." (Id. ¶ 15.) Plaintiff alleges that Caucasian employees "isolated minorities and harassed them in petty ways, such as over the break room." (Id. ) Sharan allegedly harassed a nonwhite employee who left the department when he was unable to take the harassment. That employee later committed suicide, and Sharan allegedly said, to an audience of Highway Department workers, upon learning of the suicide, "it's one less person on the payroll." (Id. )⁶ Plaintiff was also troubled by Sharan's preferential treatment of Caucasians, including his son, James Sharan, who held the title of MEO II, even though he allegedly did not even have a driver's license and was therefore without the minimum qualifications for the position. (Id. ¶ 16.)

Condon is the Town's Personnel Administrator, and as such is charged with administering an orderly and fair system of civil service employment. (Id. ¶ 5.) Plaintiff alleges that he and other non-white employees of the Highway Department made multiple complaints to Condon, who routinely dismissed them summarily. (Id. ¶ 16.) Other non-white employees who reported claims to Condon included Rosario, Van Dunk, and Jason Boddy ("Boddy"). (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that, by contrast, Condon took Caucasian employees' complaints about their nonwhite counterparts seriously. Plaintiff further alleges that "[n]on-white employees who did not complain about discrimination fared better than those who did." (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that Condon failed to implement a rational civil service system as she was required to do under New York Civil Service Law, failed to implement EEO training, and failed to establish performance evaluations or other objective measures of performance to prevent discrimination. (Id. ¶ 17.)

In 2015, an MEO II opening was posted in the Department, and Plaintiff applied. Plaintiff alleges that promotions had never been implemented based on a road test before, but now, for the first time, Sharan required one. (Id. ¶ 18.) Plaintiff's coworkers allegedly referred to it as "the Eric test," because nobody had ever been required to submit to a road test in order to become an MEO II. (Id. ) The Rockland County examiner allegedly told Plaintiff he had passed and would be a great MEO II. (Id. ) Soon thereafter, Sharan allegedly told Plaintiff he had failed and showed Plaintiff a written copy of the test report with scores that appeared to have been erased and written over. (Id. ) After this incident, Plaintiff was in despair and "could take no more unfairness." (Id. ¶ 19.) Plaintiff went to Sharan's office and told Sharan that he would expose to the public Sharan's discriminatory treatment of minorities and the fact that Sharan's son was earning a high salary as a MEO II even though he was not qualified for that position. (Id. ) That night, Sharan called Plaintiff at home and told him he would get his promotion. (Id. ¶ 20.) Plaintiff alleges that almost immediately thereafter, Sharan began a campaign of surveillance and harassment against Plaintiff, seeking to establish a record on which he could charge Plaintiff and have him fired. (Id. )

3. The Alleged Harassment Campaign

On several occasions after his warning to Sharan about going public, colleagues told Plaintiff that Sharan had allegedly asked other colleagues to monitor him. (Id. ¶ 21.) A departmental supervisor, Thomas DeMont ("DeMont"), or Van Dunk, would from time to time appear at worksites where they previously would not be present without explanation or apparent purpose. (Id. ) Other friends allegedly told Plaintiff that when they were interviewing for supervisor posts, Sharan asked them if they would be willing to "go after" certain employees at his request. (Id. )

On August 10 and August 12, 2015, Plaintiff worked and filled out the paperwork as he usually did. (Id. ¶ 22.) Plaintiff alleges that if he was asked to obtain four tons of blacktop to fill potholes or pave roads, he ordered four tons in two equal loads, one each morning and one each afternoon. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that he adjusted if his job orders did not warrant a full load of blacktop. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that orders were not always filled precisely. (Id. ) For example, if an employee asked for two tons, he might receive 1.92 tons, because the machinery dispensing blacktop into the truck from the chute was not precise. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that the Highway Department practice was for workers to report at the end of each day the total amount of blacktop requested for the day and to report whether they had completed the work orders they had been assigned. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that on August 10 and August 12, 2015, he reported that he had both completely fulfilled his work orders, and had received four tons for one of the two August days, but the blacktop receipts did not exactly match the work orders. (Id. ) Plaintiff alleges that it "was quite expected and usual for the receipts to not match up with the total tons requested, and this had never been a problem before." (Id. ) The next week DeMont called Plaintiff to his desk to discuss the paperwork, and explained that the receipt should match the report and that Plaintiff's receipts did not match for the dates in August. (Id. ¶ 23.) Plaintiff explained that was not how it had always been done in the past, but agreed to prepare the work...