Simmons-Grant v. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

915 F. Supp. 2d 498, 2013 WL 30057, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 969
District Court, S.D. New York·Decided January 3, 2013·No. No. 11 Civ. 7706(LTS)·Published·Cited by 21 cases

Opinion

Opinion and Order

SWAIN, District Judge.

Kisshia Simmons-Grant (“Plaintiff’) brings this action against her former [500] employer, the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP (“Quinn” or “Defendant”), asserting claims for race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., 42 U.S.C. § 1981a; the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 296; and the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107 et seq. The gravamen of Plaintiffs discrimination claim is that, as an African American contract attorney, she was assigned less lucrative work than other non-African American contract attorneys retained by Quinn. The Court has jurisdiction of this matter pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5f and 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1367.

Defendant has moved for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. The Court has carefully considered all of the parties’ submissions, and for' the following reasons, Defendant’s motion is granted:

BACKGROUND

The following facts are undisputed unless otherwise noted. Plaintiff, an African American woman, was employed as an hourly contract staff attorney by the Defendant law firm from November 2006 until her resignation on August 5, 2010. (Defs 56.1 St.1 ¶¶ 6, 7, 178.) When Plaintiff worked at Quinn, contract attorneys were paid by the hour, and were only paid for hours actually worked. (Id. ¶ 13.) Todd Riegler (“Riegler”) became the Senior Discovery Attorney and the New York contract attorney coordinator at Quinn on September 1, 2009, which meant that he was responsible for managing the pool of contract attorneys and assessing who was available to work on cases. (Id. ¶¶ 25, 28.) Associates and contract attorneys at Quinn could, however, correspond directly with each other about working on discovery projects, rather than going through Riegler. (Id. ¶ 17.) Prior to September 2009, Riegler was involved in managing and staffing two projects. (Id. ¶ 26.) Plaintiff admits that she was personally satisfied with the overall number of hours that she worked in 2009, although she asserts that these hours were still less than those of non-African American attorneys. (Pi’s 56.1 St. ¶¶ 31-34.)

On November 10, 2009, while Plaintiff was working on a document review project for Ambac, a Quinn client, Riegler sent an email to Plaintiff to ask whether she was “willing” to switch to Morgan Stanley/Safeguard, which was a “very large” project “with [overtime] approval,” and Plaintiff agreed to switch. (Defs 56.1 St. ¶¶ 48-49.) Another African American attorney was also asked to switch to the Morgan Stanley project, while two Caucasian attorneys who, in Plaintiffs opinion, were “unqualified” to work on the Ambac project, were not asked to switch. (Id. ¶¶ 54, 61-64.) The Caucasian attorneys remained on the Ambac project because they were assigned to do second-level review and privilege review for that project, while Plaintiff had been assigned to do first-level review. (Id. ¶ 61.) Plaintiff admits that it was generally a matter of individual opinion as to which review assignment was preferable. (Id. ¶ 43.) Several other African American attorneys also remained on the Ambac project. (Id. ¶ 57-58.)

In December 2009, after Plaintiff began work on the Morgan Stanley project as a first-level reviewer, the client unexpected[501] ly decided not to use Quinn’s contract attorneys for first-level review, leaving Plaintiff and at least eight other attorneys without work. - (Id. ¶¶ 71-72.) Two Caucasian attorneys were assigned to work on a project for another client, Rabobank, in January 2010, to which Plaintiff was not assigned. (Pi’s 56.1 St. ¶ 69). Plaintiff was assigned to a document review project for United Guaranty in January 2010; however, the delayed arrival of the documents for that project meant that review could not commence until February 2010, and so Plaintiff was assigned back to the Ambac project until the United Guaranty review began. (Def s 56.1 St. ¶¶ 76, 78-81.) Plaintiff billed 70 hours in December 2009, and 48 hours in January 2010. (Id. ¶ 74).

On February 11, 2010, Plaintiff requested a meeting with Peter Calamari, the managing partner of Quinn’s New York office, to “discuss the system by which contract attorneys receive work.” (Id. ¶ 89-90.) At the resultant meeting on February 12, 2010, Plaintiff complained that Riegler was distributing work based on favoritism, and that white attorneys received more assignments than the rest of the attorneys. (Id. ¶¶ 91-92, 94, 98.) After the meeting, Calamari spoke with Riegler about Plaintiffs concerns. (Id. ¶¶ 105-107.) Calamari asserts that he did not identify Plaintiff as the complainant. (Id- ¶¶ 108-109,104.) Calamari asked Riegler to send him data regarding past work assignments, and. how assignments were issued; Riegler did so on February 21, 2010. (Id. ¶¶ 110-13.) Calamari also notified Quinn’s director of human resources, Debbie Klaeger, and Eric Emanuel, who acted as the firm’s General Counsel, that Plaintiff had made a complaint of discrimination. (Id. ¶¶ 102-03.) Calamari reviewed the information provided by Riegler, which did not include information on the attorneys’ races, and concluded that there was nothing suspicious about Plaintiff having lower hours in December 2009 and January 2010. (Id. ¶¶ 117-19.) Calamari emailed Plaintiff on February 26, 2010, with these findings, and asked her to report any other assignment that she felt was unfair. (Id. ¶ 123.) Plaintiff replied on March 2, 2010, saying that she would go through her notes for past incidents, but never followed up with further, information. (Id. ¶¶ 124-25.)

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Simmons-Grant v. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, 915 F. Supp. 2d 498, 2013 WL 30057, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 969 (S.D.N.Y. 2013).

915 F. Supp. 2d 498 (Simmons-Grant v. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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