Anderson v. HotelsAB, LLC et al

Filing 19

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER: For the foregoing reasons, Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint is denied. This Memorandum Opinion and Order resolves Docket Entry No. 6. The initial pretrial conference in this matter is scheduled for Friday, October 30, 2015, at 10:15 a.m. SO ORDERED. (As further set forth in this Order) (Signed by Judge Laura Taylor Swain on 8/24/2015) (kl)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------x
KAREN ANDERSON,
Plaintiff,
-v-

No. 15CV712-LTS-JLC

HOTELSAB, LLC, ANDRE BALAZS
PROPERTIES a/k/a THE BEACH HOUSE LLC,
and ANDRE BALAZS,
Defendants.
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MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff Karen Anderson (“Plaintiff”) brings this action against Defendants
HotelsAB, LLC, Andre Balazs Properties a/k/a The Beach House LLC (collectively referred to
in the Complaint as the “Company”), and Andre Balazs, (“Balazs” and, collectively,
“Defendants”)1, alleging that Defendants engaged in discriminatory employment practices in
violation of the New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”), codified at N.Y.C. Admin.
Code §§ 8-101 et seq. Plaintiff asserts, and Defendants do not dispute, that the Court has
jurisdiction of this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1332(a).2
Defendants move, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), to

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Defendant Andre Balazs has not yet been served with the Summons and
Complaint in this action, and therefore is not a party to this motion.
See Complaint (“Compl.”) ¶ 3. Plaintiff has not alleged what type of business
entity Defendant Andre Balazs Properties is, has not identified the citizenship of
that entity or of the members of the LLC, and has simply alleged that she resides
in Connecticut and that Defendants have their “corporate headquarters and
principal place of business” in New York.

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dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. For
the reasons stated below, Defendants’ motion is denied.

BACKGROUND3
Defendant HotelsAB is a luxury hotel operator that maintains its corporate
headquarters in New York City. (Compl. ¶ 9.) Defendant Andre Balazs Properties a/k/a The
Beach House LLC is a New York luxury hotel operator that maintains its corporate headquarters
in New York City. (Id. ¶ 10.) Defendant Andre Balazs is the owner and operator of HotelsAB,
LLC and Andre Balazs Properties. (Id. ¶ 11.) Plaintiff appears to assert that Defendants
HotelsAB and Andre Balazs Properties jointly own and operate the Sunset Beach Hotel, which is
located in Shelter Island, Long Island. (See id. ¶¶ 9, 10.) At all relevant times, Defendants have
operated as a single, integrated enterprise, a single employer, or as joint employers. (Id. ¶ 12.)
Defendants share common ownership, premises, directors and officers and financial control, and
are operationally interrelated and interdependent upon one another. (Id. ¶ 13.) Defendants also
share common management and control over labor relations and personnel policies and
practices. (Id.)
In or about July 2014, Plaintiff applied for a position as a controller with the
defendant Company. (See id. ¶¶ 8, 14.) The position would have required Plaintiff to work at
the Sunset Beach Hotel on Shelter Island from May through September (five months), and at the
Company’s corporate office in Manhattan from October through April (seven months), each

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The facts recited herein are drawn from the Complaint filed in this action and, for
the purposes of the instant motion practice, are assumed to be true. (See Docket
Entry No. 1.)

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year. (Compl. ¶ 15.) On July 25, 2014, Plaintiff was contacted by a recruiter with respect to the
controller position. (Id. ¶ 14.) Plaintiff interviewed over the telephone with the recruiter and
several officers of the Company. (Id. ¶ 16.) On August 11, 2014, Plaintiff interviewed in person
with the Los Angeles and London-based CFOs of the Company. (Id. ¶ 18.) They requested that
she meet with Defendant Balazs that day as the final step of the interview.4 (Id. ¶19.)
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Balazs initiated her interview by stating, “you are
a crazy person,” and thereafter proceeded to ask her several personal questions. (Id. ¶ 20.)
When Defendant Balazs asked Plaintiff what her ideal job would be, Plaintiff stated that she
would like to run a restaurant or nursing home. (Id. ¶ 22.) Defendant Balazs allegedly
responded by asking, “do you know how schizophrenic you sound? Did you hear yourself?”
(Id.) Plaintiff then explained that she would like to open a nursing home because she had a
disabled son who lived independently in Maine and received nursing care. (Id. ¶¶ 22-23.) At
that point, Defendant Balazs ended the interview and stated that Plaintiff could never work for
him because her disabled son would prevent her from being able to devote adequate time to her
work. (Id. ¶ 24.) Plaintiff attempted to explain that caring for her son had never interfered with
her work performance, but Defendant Balazs stated that he was no longer interested in her
candidacy for the position. (Id. ¶ 25.) After the interview, Plaintiff sent two emails to one of the
CFOs with whom she had interviewed, reiterating that her son’s care would not interfere with
her professional responsibilities should she be offered the position. (Id. ¶¶ 26-27.) Defendants
never contacted Plaintiff following the interview to inform Plaintiff that she would not be hired.
(Id. ¶ 28.)

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In her Opposition to Defendants’ Motion To Dismiss (“Pl. Memo”), Plaintiff
states that she interviewed in person for the controller position at the Company’s
Sunset Beach Hotel property on Shelter Island. (Pl. Memo at p. 1.)

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On January 30, 2015, Plaintiff filed this suit,5 alleging that Defendants
discriminated against her in violation of the NYCHRL by refusing to hire her because of her
relationship with her disabled son.6 (Compl. ¶ 35.)

DISCUSSION
To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a
claim, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to “‘state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell
Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the
plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Although the Court must
accept all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint as true, “threadbare recitals of the
elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. In
order to survive a motion to dismiss, the complaint must state a plausible claim for relief. Id. at
679. “When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and
then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Id.

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Plaintiff has also filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities
Act. Plaintiff intends to seek leave to amend her Complaint to add an ADA cause
of action upon receipt of a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC. (Compl. ¶ 5-6.)
N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107(20) states that “[t]he provisions of this section set
forth as unlawful discriminatory practices shall be construed to prohibit such
discrimination against a person because of the actual or perceived race, creed,
color, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or alienage or citizenship
status of a person with whom such person has a known relationship or
association” (emphasis supplied).

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To state a claim under the NYCHRL, “a plaintiff must allege that he was
discriminated against by the defendant within New York City.” Salvatore v. KLM Royal Dutch
Airlines, No. 98CV2450-LAP, 1999 WL 796172, at *16 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 1999). Courts have
consistently held that the plaintiff must “plead and prove that the alleged discriminatory conduct
had an impact in New York.” See Hoffman v. Parade Publications, 15 N.Y.3d 285, 291 (2010).
To determine where the alleged discriminatory conduct occurred, “courts have looked to the
location of the impact of the offensive conduct.” Salvatore, 1999 WL 796172, at *16; see also
Regan v. Benchmark Co. LLC, No. 11CV4511-CM, 2012 WL 692056, at *13-14 (S.D.N.Y.
Mar. 1, 2012) (finding that defendants’ discriminatory conduct had an impact in New York City
because all aspects of plaintiff’s employment connected her to the company’s New York City
office, even after she was transferred to an office outside the city). Furthermore, “it is the site of
impact, not the place of origination, that determines where discriminatory acts occur.” Int’l
Healthcare Exch., Inc. v. Global Healthcare Exch., LLC, 470 F. Supp. 2d 345, 362 (S.D.N.Y.
2007).
Where the discriminatory conduct occurs outside the geographical bounds of New
York City, courts have found that the impact requirement is satisfied if the plaintiff alleges that
the conduct has affected the terms and conditions of plaintiff’s employment within the city. See,
e.g., Regan, 2012 WL 692056, at *13-14; Chin v. CH2M Hill Companies, Ltd., No. 12CV4010HB, 2012 WL 4473293, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2012) (finding that defendants “failed to show
that there is no possibility that there was an impact in New York,” since the impact of
defendants’ alleged conduct may have been felt in New York City); Int’l Healthcare Exch., 470
F. Supp. 2d at 362-63 (at summary judgment stage, finding that defendants’ alleged retaliatory
termination, which occurred during a business trip in Paris, affected plaintiff’s employment in
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New York City, and therefore could form the basis of an NYCHRL cause of action).
Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiff’s claim on the basis that Plaintiff has failed
to show that any alleged discriminatory conduct had an impact within New York City, arguing
that Plaintiff allegedly faced discrimination only on Shelter Island, where she was interviewed
and where Defendant Balazs allegedly made the discriminatory statements and hiring decision.
Defendants rely on the two-prong test discussed in Robles v. Cox & Co., 841 F. Supp. 2d 615
(E.D.N.Y. 2012) in support of their argument. In Robles, the Court stated that the “‘impact’ of
discriminatory conduct occurs ‘within’ New York City for purposes of the NYCHRL ‘either
when the initial discriminatory act (for example, a termination) occurs in New York [City] or
when the original experience of injury, which occurs at the employee’s workplace, is in New
York [City].’” Robles, 841 F. Supp. 2d at 624 (E.D.N.Y. 2012) (quoting Rylott-Rooney v.
Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiane Societa Per Azioni, 549 F. Supp. 2d 549, 554 (S.D.N.Y. 2008)).
Defendants argue that both the alleged “initial discriminatory act” and “original experience of
injury” occurred in Suffolk County, where Shelter Island is located, and not New York City, thus
foreclosing Plaintiff’s NYCHRL action. (Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendants’
Motion to Dismiss (“Def. Memo”) at p. 4.)
Defendants misconstrue Robles in applying it to the instant case. The Robles
court cited the two-prong test for the purpose of establishing that a plaintiff’s residence is
irrelevant to establishing territorial jurisdiction under the NYCHRL; the court did not elaborate
on application of that test and did not otherwise limit the “impact” of an allegedly discriminatory
act to such a narrow set of circumstances. Defendants’ strictly literal reading of Robles, as well
as Defendants’ argument that the impact of an allegedly discriminatory failure-to-hire occurs

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only at the time of the act,7 would narrow the impact analysis of a NYCHRL violation to
consideration solely of the physical locations where the plaintiff experienced “the initial
discriminatory act” and “the original experience of the injury,” as opposed to a practical
substantive consideration of how and where the injury actually affected the plaintiff with respect
to her employment. See, e.g., Regan, 2012 WL 692056, at *14.
Because courts have consistently emphasized that the location of the impact of
the offensive conduct is the location where the plaintiff feels the impact of a violation of the
NYCHRL on his or her employment, a similar analysis must be applied to Plaintiff’s failure to
hire claim, premised on the factual allegations that she has presented. Although the alleged
discriminatory conduct here (Defendant Balazs’ decision not to hire Plaintiff) occurred outside
the geographical bounds of New York City, Plaintiff’s Complaint sufficiently alleges that
Defendants’ conduct had an impact with respect to her prospective employment responsibilities
in New York City. Plaintiff has alleged that she would have worked in New York for a period of
seven months and that the requirements of the controller position would have required her to do
so each year. (Compl. ¶ 15.) Reading this allegation together with allegations regarding the
corporate headquarters of the Company (id. ¶¶ 9-10), the Court can reasonably infer that
Plaintiff’s employment responsibilities would have brought her within the boundaries of New
York City.
Defendants argue that, because the job for which Plaintiff was rejected would not

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Defendants cite Mingguo Cho v. City of New York, No. 11CV1658-PAC- MHD,
2012 WL 4364492 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 25, 2012), in support of this contention.
However, Mingguo Cho dealt with a procedural requirement under the statute of
limitations for filing an ADEA claim with the EEOC. Defendants’ reliance on
this case as controlling authority with respect to the impact analysis in Plaintiff’s
failure-to-hire claim pursuant to the NYCHRL is therefore unpersuasive.

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have required her to shift the locus of her employment to New York City until several months
after she commenced work on Long Island, Plaintiff’s claim of an impact in New York City is
overly speculative. While it is true that Plaintiff could have resigned or been fired before the
time set for transition to New York City, Defendants’ argument would cabin unduly the remedial
purposes of the NYCHRL, which was amended in 2005 to broaden its protections “because the
provisions of the City HRL had been ‘construed too narrowly to ensure protection of the civil
rights of all persons covered by the law.’” Williams v. New York City Hous. Auth., 61 A.D.3d
62, 66 (1st Dep’t 2009) (quoting Local Law No. 85 [2005] of City of New York §1). See also
St. Jean v. United Parcel Serv. Gen. Serv. Co., 509 F. App’x 90, 90-91 (2d Cir. 2013) (summary
order) (“‘[I]t is beyond dispute that the City HRL now explicitly requires an independent liberal
construction analysis in all circumstances, an analysis that must be targeted to understanding and
fulfilling what the statute characterizes as the City HRL's uniquely broad and remedial purposes,
which go beyond those of counterpart state or federal civil rights laws.’”) (quoting Bennett v.
Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 92 A.D.3d 29, 34 (1st Dep’t 2011)). Defendants’ interpretation of the
NYCHRL would deny protection against hiring discrimination to anyone who did not actually
cross the employer’s threshold in New York. Such a reading is inconsistent with the letter and
spirit of the law, and the Court rejects it. According to the Complaint, Plaintiff interviewed for,
and was denied, a position that included duties in a New York City workplace. Her rejection
from the position denied her the opportunity to work in New York City, thus providing the
necessary New York City workplace nexus for her claim of a NYCHRL-covered injury. The
Court thus finds Plaintiff’s allegations sufficient to satisfy the impact requirement of the
NYCHRL and that she has successfully stated a claim under the statute.

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CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint is
denied.
This Memorandum Opinion and Order resolves Docket Entry No. 6. The initial
pretrial conference in this matter is scheduled for Friday, October 30, 2015, at 10:15 a.m.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: New York, New York
August 24, 2015
/s/ Laura Taylor Swain
LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN
United States District Judge

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