Estate of Paulette Hamilton v. City of N.Y., No. 09-4318

Title VII Discrimination Action

In Estate of Paulette Hamilton v. City of N.Y., No. 09-4318, a Title VII employment discrimination action, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendant in part where 1) plaintiff could not introduce evidence of subsequent remedial measures taken by defendant in order to establish defendant's underlying liability; 2) the decision to consider EEOC findings was left to the "sound discretion" of the district court; and 3) plaintiffs pointed to no evidence indicating that the relevant performance evaluations were biased or manifestly inaccurate.  However, the court vacated in part where plaintiffs deserved an opportunity to present their Labor Law claim to the district court as it inevitably considered whether it would be appropriate to construe defendants' motion for summary judgment as a motion to amend their answer.

As the court wrote:  "Plaintiffs-appellants Gamal Hanna, Nivine Elsharouny, Subhash Naik, and the Estate of Paulette Hamilton1 appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Denny Chin, Judge), dismissing, with prejudice, their complaint against defendants-appellees Scott O'Neill and the City of New York. Plaintiffs brought suit for employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("§ 1983"); under the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq.; and under the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y. City Admin. Code § 8-101 et seq."

Related Resources

• Read the Second Circuit's Decision in Estate of Paulette Hamilton v. City of N.Y., No. 09-4318