Court of Appeals strikes down Cuomo's restrictions on religious gatherings

Covid-19 caselaw is developing at a brisk pace. The Constitution says nothing about pandemics, and it does not speak to emergencies in general, at least not in the context of civil rights such as equal protection or religious freedom. That's the theme of the latest ruling from the Second Circuit, which strikes down Gov. Cuomo's executive order that restricted the size of church and other religious congregations.

The case is Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, issued on December 28, only 10 days following oral argument. In October 2020, Cuomo issued an order that identified three zones, determined by the rate of Covid-19 infections. At issue in this case are the red and orange zones. In the red zones, non-essential gatherings are prohibited, restaurants can remain open for take-out only, and schools may continue with in-person instruction. Houses of worship have a 25% capacity limit or 10 people, whichever is fewer. In orange zones, non-essential gatherings can have up to 10 people, and gyms and tattoo parlors are closed. Restaurants can provide outdoor service, other businesses may operate without additional restrictions, and schools may remain open. But houses of worship have a 33% capacity limit or 25 people, whichever is fewer.

The Supreme Court has already entertained this issue on a couple of occasions, including in this case, holding the government to strict limits on how it can restrict religious gatherings. Following that lead, the Second Circuit (Livingston, Menashi and Park) hold the Governor to "strict scrutiny," which is a legal phrase that means the government cannot get away with certain restrictions without a compelling reason, and the challenged rule or order must be narrowly-tailored to satisfy that compelling interest. The Governor's order in this case fails strict scrutiny because it singles out houses of worship for restrictive in-person gatherings that do not apply to other establishments, including so-called essential services like liquor stores. While a facially-neutral limit on public gatherings might be constitutional, even if they have the effect of restricting religious observances, that's not on the table in this case. And, while some businesses (such as news media and certain retail stores) are deemed "essential," non-essential activities, such as religious worship, have greater restrictions.

The unequal treatment of religious and non-religious services creates a presumption that the distinction violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which protects the right to worship.  But the Court of Appeals also says the restrictions are not sufficiently narrowly-tailored to get around the strict rules against these restrictions. The court says the restrictions stem from broad generalizations about church-going behavior, such as the assumption that people enter and leave the building together and remain in the building for long periods of time. But even if these generalizations are true, the Governor's order does not require masks or distancing, which might also reduce infections. The Court of Appeals notes that we cannot assume that churchgoers will ignore these alternative protective measures. For one of the two cases that are the subject of this appeal, the narrow-tailoring issue is sent back to the trial court to take that up in the first instance. But it looks like the Second Circuit has foreshadowed how that issue should turn out: against the Governor's order.

The Second Circuit wraps up with a discussion about the role of the courts in a public health emergency.  I wonder if the court anticipates other judges borrowing this language in their own pandemic cases. The Second Circuit quotes from a recent Supreme Court ruling stating that the Constitution cannot be "cut . . .  loose during a pandemic." While the court recognizes that regulating public health during a pandemic is a compelling government interest that would justify a strict governmental response, it also says the response must be carefully tailored in order to prevent any unnecessary infringement on constitutional rights. 

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Arbitrator properly handled dispute involving the hiring of temporary, non-union workers

The whole point of arbitration is to keep labor-management disputes out of court. This means that when a party challenges an adverse arbitration ruling in court, they face an uphill battle. In this case, after losing the arbitration, management took the issue to court, which rules that the arbitrator did not violate the rules and that the arbitration ruling will stand.

The case is A&A Maintenance v. Ramnarian, issued on December 16. A&A provides janitorial and maintenance services to commercial real estate and educational institutions. Its workforce is unionized and the parties must therefore comply with a collective bargaining agreement that addresses when A&A may employ "substitute employees" to fill in for people who are out on disability or worker's compensation or extended leaves. When the union noticed an unusual number of new, non-union employees at a college one day, it tried to resolve that issue without arbitration, but the dispute eventually went to an arbitrator, who ruled in the union's favor, finding that A&A had hired and rehired these people to perform bargaining unit work, and it did so to save money and to effectively keep them on as probationary employees with fewer rights in the workplace.

We have two issues here. First the employer says the arbitrator improperly allowed the union to frame the arbitration issue differently throughout the process. The first issue statement was in the original grievance, claiming the employer violated the CBA in hiring these "substitute employees." The union later framed the issue for the arbitrator as whether the employer violated the CBA by using "temporary employees," "a term undefined in the CBA and broader in scope than substitute employees," to perform bargaining unit work. The difference between the two issue statements was that the first one mentioned substitute employees, and the second mentioned temporary employees. Management said the first issue statement was proper, not the second, because "substitute employees" carries a narrower definition than "temporary employees."

The arbitrator said the union could frame the issue the second time around this way, and the Court of Appeals (Sullivan, Katzmann and Calabresi) agrees, finding the arbitrator did not resolve an issue that was not properly before him. The Court says that management's argument elevates form over substance, as the substance of the union's initial grievance was its contention that non-union workers were improperly performing bargaining unit work, a dispute which covers A&A's use of temporary employees. The union's grievance was based on facts that were known to management when the union filed the grievance, even though the grievance did not explicitly use the terms "temporary employees" and "probationary employees."

Relatedly, the Court says, the arbitrator did not rewrite the CBA in ruling that A&A violated the contract by hiring temporary employees even though the CBA does not mention "temporary employees. This technical argument is also rejected, as the dispute arose when A&A tried to hire non-union temporary workers "by means of a strained interpretation of the probationary period [under the CBA]." Since the issue resolved by the arbitrator concerned the interpretation, application, or claimed violation" of the contract, the arbitrator was able to resolve this issue and did not exceed his authority in doing so.

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No retaliation claim for teacher who filed an EEOC charge

Proving causation in retaliation claims under Title VII and the First Amendment remans a tricky proposition without direct evidence ("we are firing you because you complained about XYZ") and the plaintiff has to rely on circumstantial evidence ("management loved me until I spoke out and then they issued a paper trial to fire me"). This case highlights that difficulty.

The case is Agosto v. New York City Dept. of Education, issued on December 4. I have written about the First Amendment part of the case at this link. But plaintiff (a teacher) also had a Title VII claim. He says that 3.5 months after filing the EEOC charge in March 2017, a "letter to file" was placed in his personnel folder in June 2017. Is that time-gap enough to prove retaliatory intent? The Court of Appeals (Menashi, Lohier and Cabranes) says it is not enough.

The Second Circuit notes that "this court has not imposed a strict time limitation when a retaliation claim relies exclusively on temporal proximity." Some cases extend it to eight months. Others limit it to three months. Really, the cases in this area are all over the place. Of course, plaintiff's lawyers will highlight the eight-month rule. Management lawyers will cite the two-month rule that turns up in cases from time to time. But in this case, the plaintiff "acknowledges that the gap of more than several months is typically too like by itself to survive summary judgment." 

That concession hurts plaintiff in this case, but what also hurts him is evidence that the letter to file was triggered by an independent actor, the Parent Chairperson of the School Leadership Team, who complained that plaintiff had made a threat after a meeting. This indicates that the letter to file "was not a contrived excuse to penalize Agosto for prior protected activity." We call that the independent causation principle, which allows courts to exercise their judgment in determining what a jury can legally accept in finding causation. At some point, the court will decide that an independent event in the chain of events will absolutely kill the retaliation case. This is one of those cases. 

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Court clarifies retaliation standards for Federal Railroad Safety Act cases

A relatively obscure federal statute protects railroad workers from retaliation for certain protected activity. The statute is the Federal Railroad Safety Act. In this case, the Court of Appeals clarifies how the Act applies in practice, issuing this ruling a full year after oral argument.

The case is Tompkins v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad, issued on December 17. The Act says the railroad cannot retaliate against employees "for refusing to work when confronted by a hazardous safety or security condition related to the performance of the employee's duties." Plaintiff was disciplined because he refused to walk to a wheel shop at his work location, claiming it was too icy and dangerous, as evidenced by other workers slipping on their way to the wheel shop. 

To win a case like this, the plaintiff has to show the hazardous condition presented an "imminent danger of death or serious injury" and "the urgency of the situation did not allow sufficient time to eliminate the danger without such refusal." The Second Circuit (Walker, Sullivan and Nathan [D.J.]) says for the first time in this Circuit that the plaintiff must objectively prove such a danger, and that his subjective belief of a dangerous condition is not enough. Other Circuits have applied this formulation, and now it applies in the Second Circuit. Under the rule, plaintiff loses. The Court says he submits no evidence to support his generalized statement that the walkways at the rail yard were unsafe, other than that other employees had slipped when they walked. In addition, "it is not necessarily true that an employee slipping on a walkway indicates that the trip as a whole presented a hazardous condition." Other employees did not refuse to make that walk to the wheel shop, and while they ultimately drove to the wheel shop, that could mean it they were tired or cold. The foremen also believed the walk was safe. While plaintiff could have argued that the foremen reached this conclusion as a means to convince the workers to get to the wheel shop and continue working, plaintiff did not make such an argument. 

Plaintiff also claims that management retaliated against him for reporting the unsafe walkway condition. This issue also allows the Court of Appeals to clarify the standards for these cases, holding for the first time that plaintiffs must provide some evidence of retaliatory intent. As other Circuits have held, the statute expressly requires the plaintiff to show that management "discriminated" against him for engaging in protected activity. That implies a requirement that the plaintiff show retaliatory intent. While the plaintiff need not show that retaliatory intent was the sole factor behind the discipline, or that management acted only with retaliatory motive, "the plaintiff must . . . show more than a temporal connection between the protected conduct and the adverse employment action" to win the case. This standard is in line with that reached in other Circuits, from which the Second Circuit devises the following guidelines: 

we will consider the following factors: (1) whether and to what extent the disciplinary measures were related to the protected activity, (2) the temporal relationship between the protected activity and the disciplinary measures, including whether any intervening incidents occurred that could independently justify the discipline, (3) whether the disciplined employee was represented by counsel or a similar representative in the disciplinary proceedings, and whether the disciplinary measures were upheld on appeal, (4) whether, if applicable, the disciplinary measures were upheld following Department of Labor proceedings, and (5) whether the persons accused of hostility towards the employee’s protected activity participated in the disciplinary decision.

Under the retaliation test, plaintiff loses. Factors 3 and 5 favor Metro-North. Factor 4 is inapplicable because DOL did not get involved, and factors 1 and 2 favor plaintiff, but only slightly. "Rather, the record supports that Tompkins was disciplined for failing to meet a legitimate expectation by an employer that when orders are given employees will comply." 

Plaintiff further claims retaliation because he was disciplined for conduct unbecoming an employee after speaking to his foreman in the lunchroom about the discipline and discrepancies between the foreman's account and that provided by other witnesses (a conversation that made the foreman feel threatened). Plaintiff says this discipline was also motivated by his safety complaint. While factor 3 favors plaintiff because an arbitrator overturned the discipline from that incident, factors 1 and 2 strongly favor management; the lunchroom incident with the foreman was an intervening event that killed off the causation between the protected activity relating to safety and the discipline. The fact that the discipline was overturned does not support plaintiff's argument.

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You can sue government defendants for religious discrimination under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act

The Supreme Court has held that plaintiffs in religious discrimination cases against the government can name individual governmental supervisors in their lawsuit. This is the rare unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of civil rights plaintiffs. 

The case is Tanzin v. Tanvir, issued on December 10. Plaintiffs claim the federal government violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by placing them on the no-fly list solely because they are practicing Muslims who would not act as informants against against their religious communities. The Second Circuit interpreted RFRA to allow plaintiffs to sue individual defendants, and the Supreme Court agrees.

RFRA was enacted by Congress in the 1990s after the Supreme Court, in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), made it more difficult for plaintiffs to sue the government under the Free Exercise Clause. The Smith court said that neutral governmental policies or rules that incidentally disadvantage people on the basis of their religious practices do not violate the Establishment Clause. This controversial ruling deviated from prior Supreme Court cases, so Congress (back in the days when Congress still worked together) made passing RFRA a priority. The questions is how do we interpret RFRA and does it allows plaintiffs to sue individuals or only the government.

Statutory analysis is not the most exciting topic in the legal world, but it's actually pretty important, because if the court views the statute in a particular way, that is how the statute will be applied in the future unless Congress deals with the misinterpretation. Here, the Court finds that since the statute says plaintiffs can sue "the government," defined as "a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, and official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States." That language seems clear, that you can sue an individual in his personal capacity. The federal government had its own interpretation, though, which the Court rejected: that you can only sue governmental officials in their official capacities. The feds said this interpretation makes sense because the statute references "official[s]" as among the appropriate defendants. Writing for the Court, Justice Thomas says this argument may be "plausible," but it does not work here in part because the statute also says you can sue an official "or other person." This language "clarifies that 'a government' includes both individuals who are officials acting under color or law and other, additional individuals who are nonofficial acting under color of law." In Section 1983 litigation, suing people acting under color of law means suing them in their individual capacities. Congress presumably had that principle in mind when it enacted RFRA.

The final question in this case is what can plaintiffs under RFRA sue for? The statute says you can recover "appropriate relief." What does that even mean? The Court says that phrase encompasses damages claims. The Court notes that such relief has always been available under Section 1983, and it seems that Congress wanted plaintiffs under RFRA to recover the relief that had been available to them under the Smith ruling that RFRA was intended to correct.

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No Cat's Paw for plaintiff claiming retaliation for filing safety objections at the railroad

Every now and then the Court of Appeals decides a retaliation case brought under the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA). This is a little-known statute that provides relief for employees who suffered retaliation for speaking out against safety violations on the railroad. These cases are normally resolved under the same legal principles that guide cases under Title VII and the other well-known anti-retaliation laws. And like those cases, lawsuits brought under the FRSA often lose under the complex evidentiary model covering all retaliation claims.

The case is Petronio v. National Railroad Passenger Corp., a summary order issued on December 2. Plaintiff says he was fired after sending emails to Amtrak management requesting trainings and reporting safety concerns. But this claim fails, the Second Circuit says, because there is no evidence that the Amtrak officers who charged and terminated plaintiff even knew about his protected activity. To get around this, plaintiff relies on the Cat's Paw theory of liability, which holds that even if the decision makers did not know about the protected activity, the organization is liable if a lower-level supervisor who did know about the retaliatory activity played a meaningful role in the plaintiff's termination. (If you are wondering what this has to do with the cat's paw, it has something to do with Edgar Allen Poe and a story he wrote about a monkey who fooled the cat with a chestnut near the fireplace).

The Cat's Paw is a nice evidentiary tool for plaintiffs who need to connect their protected activity with their termination, but it will not work in every case, like this one. Plaintiff says that Collins, who knew about his safety reports, played a meaningful role in his termination because he suspended plaintiff and testified at his disciplinary hearing. But someone else, Obey, was responsible for filing the charges, and it was Obey who advised Collins on how to proceed against plaintiff. While Collins testified at the hearing, others testified against plaintiff also, and decision makers relied on that testimony as well in finding that plaintiff had violated company policies. 

Plaintiff tried to show that Collins was biased against him because Collins said that he thought it was odd that a new employee like plaintiff would complain about safety violations outside the chain of command. But this testimony does not show bias against plaintiff; it only shows that Collins thought plaintiff's conduct was unusual. A fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.

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Pretext not enough to avoid summary judgment in discrimination case

Here is another case demonstrating that even if the plaintiff can show the employer lied about the reason for his termination, the court can still dismiss the case on a summary judgment motion if that lie is not enough to prove discriminatory intent.

The case is Palencar v. New York Power Authority, a summary order issued on December 8. Prior to 1997, the Second Circuit usually held that if the employee makes out a prima facie case of discrimination and can prove the employer's articulated reason for his termination (or demotion, etc.) was knowingly false, the case will go to the jury on the discrimination claim. That changed in 1997, when the Circuit issued Fisher v. Vassar College, an en banc ruling that said pretext is not always enough to prove discrimination, and that plaintiff may still have to proffer other evidence of discriminatory intent. We call that the "pretext plus" theory. Although the Supreme Court in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing (2000) suggested that pretext alone is usually enough and that pretext plus is the exception, the Second Circuit continued to adhere to a pretext-plus evidentiary model, though every few years it reverses the grant of summary judgment on pretext alone. That's rare, though.

The Court of Appeals in this case assumes plaintiff has made out a prima facie case. It focuses on whether plaintiff can prove he was fired for discriminatory reasons. In doing so, the Court (Sullivan, Park and Nardini) reminds us that this requires a totality-of-the-circumstances approach, drawing from cases that were decided in the last 1990s and early 2000s. 

From that angle, the Court says, plaintiff has no case because the record shows that plaintiff's subordinates "lodged repeated complaints against him over the course of several years, that he was consistently combative and defiant toward his supervisors, and that he was unwilling to incorporate constructive feedback in response to his reviews over that time." What it all means is that even if plaintiff can show "some evidence of pretext," that evidence cannot override the evidence of plaintiff's performance deficiencies. The Court finds that plaintiff cannot prevail on his sexual orientation discrimination claim.

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Sexual harassment and assault at Suffolk County jail may violate Section 1983

This case is disturbing on several levels. It involves inmates at the Suffolk County jail who claim one of the correction officers got away with sexually harassing and assaulting them for years because jail management knew about it but looked the other way. The primary question raised on appeal involves whether the plaintiffs can prove municipal liability under Section 1983. The Court of Appeals says they can.

The case is Lucente v. County of Suffolk, issued on November 17. The offending officer's name is Joseph Foti. The Court of Appeals (Kearse, Carney and Bianco) lays out the allegations. After Internal Affairs investigated, it found that Foti had violated departmental guidelines in the course of sexually assaulting the inmates. But prior to Foti's ultimate retirement (which he claimed had nothing to do with the Internal Affairs report), none of his supervisors ever spoke to him about this. Yet, the district court dismissed this Section 1983 case against the County, holding that Foti was merely a rogue officer whose actions cannot give rise to the "policy and practice" that plaintiffs need to prove municipal liability under Monell v. Dept. of Social Services, the seminal Supreme Court ruling on this issue from 1978. The district court also excluded allegations of Foti's misconduct from the 1990s as time-barred, and ruled that no county policymaker had knowledge of Foti's actions. The district court also ruled that plaintiffs cannot sue the county, focusing on whether management knew about the assaults rather than the allegations of sexual harassment. The Court of Appeals reverses, rejecting the district court's analysis in its entirety.

First, there was nothing isolated about Foti's misconduct, the Court says, because "the record is replete with evidence of inappropriate touching and/or other sexual harassment of female inmates on a regular basis by Foti" over the course of 18 months. And it was not limited to the six plaintiffs in this case. The evidence suggests this harassment was "open and notorious" as others at the jail saw Foti as an "accident waiting to happen." Foti also created opportunities for himself to get the female inmates alone so he could engage in the inappropriate behavior. This was not isolated behavior but severe, persistent, and pervasive, "executed in a manner that would have been difficult to conceal from supervisory personnel at the Riverhead facility, including policymakers."

Plaintiffs' case is strengthened by evidence that the Sheriff knew about Foti's sexual misconduct from the 1990s outside the jail. Off-duty conduct may be relevant in proving a Monell claim, as per Vann v. City of New York, 72 F.3d 1040 (2d Cir. 1995). Internal affairs reports from the 1990s involving jail-related sexual misconduct also support plaintiffs' claims. While some supervisors were aware of sexual harassment but not sexual assault, their knowledge of the harassment can hold the County liable for the overall sexual misconduct because even sexual harassment violates the Equal Protection Clause. These officials knew about Foti's unconstitutional misconduct, and that is enough under Monell. 

Finally, we have a statute of limitations issue. The district court rejected evidence that fell outside the three-year limitations period, but the Court of Appeals finds the older harassment constitutes the kind of continuing violation that is unique to sexual harassment claims, as the harassment as a whole was part of the overall policy and practice. We associate this principle with employment discrimination claims, but the Court of Appeals notes that it applies in other contexts as well, including land-use claims under Section 1983.

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