In Butterfield-Bajinan v. City of New York, 2017 WL 4045175 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 11, 2017), the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s Title VII race discrimination claim as insufficiently alleged.
The court explained what a plaintiff asserting such a claim must allege:
To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint alleging employment discrimination under Title VII must plead facts that plausibly support the following elements: (1) the plaintiff is a member of a protected class, (2) she was qualified for her position, (3) she suffered an adverse employment action, and (4) there is “at least minimal support for the proposition that [her] employer was motivated by discriminatory intent. … With respect to the fourth element in particular, “[t]he facts required by Iqbal to be alleged in the complaint need not give plausible support to the ultimate question of whether the adverse employment action was attributable to discrimination. They need only give plausible support to a minimal inference of discriminatory motivation.” Id. Nevertheless, “[a] claim for discrimination under Title VII is properly dismissed where the plaintiff fails ‘to plead any facts that would create an inference that any adverse action taken by any defendant was based upon [a protected characteristic of the plaintiff].
Applying the law to the facts, the court held that plaintiff failed to meet this standard. Specifically, while plaintiff plausibly alleged the first three elements, her case fell apart at the fourth element – the “inference of discrimination”.
The court explained that “[a]n inference of discrimination can arise from circumstances including, but not limited to, the employer’s criticism of the plaintiff’s performance in ethnically degrading terms; or its invidious comments about others in the employee’s protected group; or the more favorable treatment of employees not in the protected group; or the sequence of events leading to the plaintiff’s discharge.”
Applying the law to the facts, the court explained:
With respect to the August 2016 demotion, the Amended Complaint pleads no facts that even arguably give rise to an inference that Butterfield-Bajinan was demoted because she is African-American. Heaping speculation upon speculation, it jumps abruptly from the observation that Butterfield-Bajinan was demoted after failing her exam, together with the observation that a Caucasian colleague whose name was not on the pass list (and who Butterfield-Bajinan “believe[s]” – that is, speculates – was also required to take the exam) kept his position, to the conclusion that she was demoted, and he was not, for racially discriminatory reasons. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 27-31.) It makes no allegations about racially degrading criticism or indivious comments, and pleads no facts to suggest that the exam was administered unfairly. Although it perhaps attempts to encourage an inference of unequal treatment by alluding to the 2014 occasion when an African-American employee was demoted after failing an exam while a Caucasian employee with the same job title was instead transferred, the attempt is unsuccessful because the Amended Complaint does not allege facts to show that the two employees were similarly situated in relevant respects – that they had comparable qualifications, took their exams at the same time, or even took comparable exams. Instead, the allegations about the 2014 incident also rest on bald and speculative assertions about Butterfield-Bajinan’s “belie[f]” that the personnel decisions were motivated by racial discrimination. (Id. ¶ 23.) Without a factual basis for her beliefs, though, Butterfield-Bajinan’s allegations are mere legal conclusions, which the Court is not required to accept.
The court concluded by noting that “[i]t is axiomatic that mistreatment at work … is actionable under Title VII only when it occurs because of an employee’s … protected characteristic”, and that “[a]lthough at this stage Butterfield-Bajinan need only plead facts that support a ‘minimal inference’ of a causal link between racially discriminatory motivation and demotion or disparate pay, her Amended Complaint fails to satisfy even that modest requirement.”