Alexandre v. Town of Hempstead

275 F.R.D. 94, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60157, 2011 WL 2181461
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedJune 4, 2011
DocketNo. 09-cv-1269 (ADS)(WDW)
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 275 F.R.D. 94 (Alexandre v. Town of Hempstead) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alexandre v. Town of Hempstead, 275 F.R.D. 94, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60157, 2011 WL 2181461 (E.D.N.Y. 2011).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

SPATT, District Judge.

The plaintiffs in this case are all current or former employees of the defendants Town of Hempstead Department of Sanitation and Sanitation District No. 2. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants discriminated against them on the basis of race, and otherwise violated their civil rights. The plaintiffs now move to amend their complaint to allege certain additional facts related to this alleged discrimination. For the reasons that follow, the Court grants the plaintiffs’ motion.

I. BACKGROUND

The following facts are drawn from the plaintiffs’ proposed amended complaint. For purposes of this motion to amend, the Court accepts these facts as true and treats them in the best light for the plaintiffs.

On April 19, 2007, the plaintiffs Dave Alex-andre, Anthony Gibbons, John Gillim, Keith Hazel, Phillippe Lavelanet, Andre Mack, and Kevin Nalty, all of whom are African-American, were serving as seasonal sanitation workers for the Town of Hempstead Sanitary District No. 2 (the “Sanitary District”) and the Town of Hempstead Department of Sanitation. On that date, at some point the plaintiff John Gillim entered the Sanitary District garage, and saw a hangman’s noose hanging from the wall. Several of Gillim’s Caucasian co-workers were sitting in the vicinity of the noose. Gillim questioned the Caucasian employees about the noose, but received no response. Gillim then removed the noose from the wall and threw it in the back of a garbage truck. Shortly thereafter, three other plaintiffs, Keith Hazel, Anthony Gibbons, and Phillippe Lavelanet, saw the same noose returned to the place from where Gillim had taken it down, again with a number of Caucasian employees sitting nearby. A Caucasian employee named John Beyer was later determined to have hung the noose, but he was not reprimanded.

All of the plaintiffs — those that saw the noose and those that did not — were offended by the hanging of the noose. The plaintiffs were also offended by the comments of the defendant Michael McDermott, one the commissioners of the Sanitary District, who remarked in response to being informed of the noose that, “[t]en years ago we would have been able to laugh at things like this.” (Am. Compl., ¶ 39.)

According to the plaintiffs, the appearance of the noose on April 19, 2007 was not an isolated event, but rather was a particularly egregious example of the pervasive and condoned racism within the Sanitary District. Other examples of this racism included:

• a Caucasian co-worker who referred to the plaintiffs Gillim, Lavelanet, and Gibbons as “My Nigga,” (Id., ¶ 43);

• an incident in which a Caucasian employee told the plaintiff Gillim, “Hurry up, Nigger. You are working slow,” (Id., ¶ 44);

• a Caucasian employee who told an African-American co-worker, “You niggas are working slow,” (Id., ¶ 45);

• an incident in which a supervisor named Keith Eckles told an African-American employee “Working off the back of the truck is a black man’s job. They can swing off the back of the truck like monkeys,” (Id., ¶ 46); and

• a Caucasian employee who said that “Black people are the only people that should be on the back of the truck. White people should either be driving the truck or working in the office.” (Id., ¶ 71.)

The plaintiffs also allege that they were discouraged from making complaints about their working conditions, and that African-American employees who did complain were [96]*96terminated. In addition, the plaintiffs maintain that African-American employees were denied promotions based on race, and that they were regularly re-classified from “part-time” to “seasonal” workers, because this permitted the defendants to pay the African-American workers a lower wage.

On March 26, 2009, the plaintiffs commenced the present suit against the Town of Hempstead, the Town of Hempstead Department of Sanitation, Sanitary District No. 2, and Sanitary District No. 2’s Board of Commissioners, including Dennis J. Meekins, Brian F. O’Connor, Gerard W. Brown, John A. Cools, Leroy W. Roberts, Robert A. Noble, and Michael McDermott. The plaintiffs asserted causes of action for (1) employment discrimination, pursuant to Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e; (2) employment discrimination, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1981; (3) violations of the plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (4) Section 1983 Monell liability as to the municipal defendants, for violation of the plaintiffs’ federal statutory and constitutional rights; and (5) employment discrimination in violation of the New York State Human Rights Law, New York State Executive Law § 296. As of September 15, 2010, the parties had completed all discovery, with the exception of three depositions that the defendants were later given permission to take. No party has moved for summary judgment, and no trial date has been set.

On October 7, 2010, the plaintiffs moved before United States Magistrate Judge William D. Wall to amend their complaint to assert additional facts. On October 27, 2010, Judge Wall denied that motion without prejudice, and directed the plaintiffs to move to amend before this Court. On December 1, 2010, the plaintiffs then filed the present motion to amend pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 15. In seeking to amend their complaint, the plaintiffs do not assert any new causes of action, but rather seek only to allege additional facts in support of their existing claims. The plaintiffs’ primary new allegations concern three events, and are set forth below:

72. In 2009, [sanitation worker Robert] Hachemeister was suspended following his use of the word “Nigger” while driving a sanitation truck.
73. In July 2010, after the filing of the original complaint in this matter, Plaintiff Gillim received an electronic message from Hachemeister, which message stated, in sum and substance, “I need you on my trucka nucka;” the term “nucka” is a euphemism for the word “Nigger.”
74. Plaintiff Gillim reported the incident to a supervisor, but to date Plaintiff Gillim has heard nothing more about the incident.
75. Since reporting the incident involving Hachemeister, Hachemeister has attempted to intimidate Plaintiff Gillim, and threatened to fight him.
76. Plaintiff Gillim reported this intimidation to a supervisor, but upon information and belief, no action was taken, and no investigation was conducted.
77. [In 2008,] A Caucasian sanitation driver who was working with two African American helpers complained about a Baldwin Fire Department truck that was being driven by one of the District’s Board of Commissioners, Defendant Gerard W. Brown.
78. The Caucasian Fire Department employees yelled out of their truck, when passing the sanitation truck, “Fucking Moolies,” referring to the two African American helpers in the back of the truck.
79.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Murray v. Fischer
820 F. Supp. 2d 472 (W.D. New York, 2011)
Gray v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
806 F. Supp. 2d 619 (E.D. New York, 2011)
Smith v. TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD DEPT. OF SANITATION
798 F. Supp. 2d 443 (E.D. New York, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
275 F.R.D. 94, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60157, 2011 WL 2181461, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alexandre-v-town-of-hempstead-nyed-2011.