Weir v. Montefiore Medical Center

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: January 24, 2025
• Docket: 24-1527-cv
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24-1527-cv Weir v. Montefiore Medical Center

24-1527-cv Weir v. Montefiore Medical Center

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 24th day of January, two thousand twenty-five.

PRESENT: JOSÉ A. CABRANES, REENA RAGGI, ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judges. ___________________________________________

Nicholas Weir,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. 24-1527

Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Evripidis Gavathiotis, Anna Gartner, Littler Mendelson, P.C., Jean L. Schmidt, Emily C. Haigh, Defendants-Appellees. * ___________________________________________

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: Nicholas Weir, pro se, East Meadows, NY.

FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES: Emily C. Haigh, Littler Mendelson P.C., New York, NY.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York (Katherine Polk Failla, Judge).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment is AFFIRMED.

Nicholas Weir, pro se, sued his former employer, Montefiore Medical Center

(Montefiore) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (the College); two former co-

workers, Dr. Evripidis Gavathiotis and Anna Gartner (the employee defendants);

and Littler Mendelson P.C., Jean L. Schmidt, and Emily C. Haigh (the attorney

defendants), the law firm and attorneys who represented the institutional

defendants in prior federal and state court actions brought by Weir. Sua sponte,

the district court dismissed Weir’s claims with prejudice as barred by claim

preclusion as to Montefiore, the College, and the employee defendants and barred

by issue preclusion as to the attorney defendants. See Weir v. Montefiore Med. Ctr.,

* The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption as indicated here. No. 23 Civ. 4468 (KPF), 2023 WL 5747642 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 6, 2023). Weir moved for

reconsideration twice, and the district court denied both motions. Weir appealed

the dismissal of the action and the denial of his first motion for reconsideration.

We assume the parties’ familiarity with the other relevant facts, the procedural

history, and the issues on appeal.

I. Prior Actions

In December 2016, Weir sued Montefiore and the College in federal court

alleging employment discrimination, pay discrimination, retaliation, and hostile

work environment, based on his race, color, and national origin. He amended the

complaint to include Yeshiva University as a defendant in July 2017. The district

court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Weir appealed, and this Court

dismissed the appeal as frivolous. Weir v. Montefiore Med. Ctr., No. 18-813, 2019

WL 4597606 (2d Cir. Jan. 24, 2019).

In April 2019, Weir filed a complaint in New York State court against

Montefiore and the College, which he later amended, alleging retaliation, pay

discrimination, employment discrimination, and hostile work environment under

both the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human

Rights Law, based on essentially the same factual allegations as his dismissed

federal court case. A state trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Weir v. Montefiore Med. Ctr., No. 42000/2020E, 2021 WL 7286472 (N.Y.

Sup. Ct. Nov. 5, 2021). A state intermediate appellate court affirmed, Weir v.

Montefiore Med. Ctr., 175 N.Y.S.3d 498 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep’t 2022), and Weir

was denied leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals, Weir v. Montefiore

Med. Ctr., 39 N.Y.3d 911 (2023).

II. Standard of Review

A district court has the power to sua sponte dismiss claims as claim or issue

precluded. See Salahuddin v. Jones, 992 F.2d 447, 449 (2d Cir. 1993) (claim

preclusion); Curry v. City of Syracuse, 316 F.3d 324, 331 (2d Cir. 2003) (issue

preclusion). And this Court reviews such dismissals de novo, Soules v. Conn. Dep’t

of Emergency Servs. & Pub. Prot., 882 F.3d 52, 55 (2d Cir. 2018), accepting “all of the

facts alleged in the complaint as true and draw[ing] all inferences in the plaintiff’s

favor,” Harnage v. Lightner, 916 F.3d 138, 140–41 (2d Cir. 2019) (quotation marks

omitted).

III. Claim Preclusion

This Court applies “federal law in determining the preclusive effect of a

federal judgment, and New York law in determining the preclusive effect of a New

York State court judgment.” Marvel Characters, Inc. v. Simon, 310 F.3d 280, 286 (2d

Cir. 2002) (citations omitted). “Under both New York law and federal law, the doctrine of res judicata, or claim preclusion, provides that ‘[a] final judgment on

the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues

that were or could have been raised in that action.’” Maharaj v. Bankamerica Corp.,

128 F.3d 94, 97 (2d Cir. 1997) (quoting Federated Dep't Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S.

394, 398 (1981)). Thus, claim preclusion bars re-litigation if “(1) the previous action

involved an adjudication on the merits; (2) the previous action involved the [same

parties] or those in privity with them; [and] (3) the claims asserted in the

subsequent action were, or could have been, raised in the prior action.” Monahan

v. N.Y. City Dep’t of Corr., 214 F.3d 275, 285 (2d Cir. 2000).

The district court properly dismissed Weir’s claims against Montefiore, the

College, and the employee defendants as claim precluded. First, the previous

actions in federal and state court were adjudicated on the merits. A federal court’s

“dismissal for failure to state a claim is a final judgment on the merits and thus has

[claim preclusive] effects.” Berrios v. N.Y. City Hous. Auth., 564 F.3d 130, 134 (2d

Cir. 2009). And as to the state court judgment, a “grant of summary judgment, the

procedural equivalent of a trial, results in a final judgment on the merits” for the

purposes of claim preclusion. Collins v. Bertram Yacht Corp., 42 N.Y.2d 1033, 1034

(1977) (cleaned up); see Bayer v. City of N.Y., 983 N.Y.S.2d 61, 64 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d

Dep’t 2014). Second, Montefiore and the College were defendants in the prior actions,

and the employee defendants were in privity with Montefiore and the College. “It

is well settled in this circuit that literal privity is not a requirement for [claim

preclusion] to apply.” Monahan, 214 F.3d at 285. For these purposes, privity

extends to “a new defendant known by a plaintiff at the time of the first suit where

the new defendant has a sufficiently close relationship to the original defendant to

justify preclusion.” Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Empresa Naviera Santa S.A.,

56 F.3d 359, 367–68 (2d Cir. 1995). Weir referred to both employee defendants,

Evripidis Gavathiotis and Anna Gartner, by name in his complaints in the two

prior actions. In the prior two actions, Weir alleged that Gavathiotis harassed him

and told him he did not fit in and that Gartner, as a Human Resources employee

at Montefiore, said she would look into the alleged harassment but instead

participated in his firing. Gavathiotis and Gartner’s conduct formed the basis of

Weir’s allegations against Montefiore and the College. This is sufficiently close

relationship to justify preclusion.

Third and finally, Weir’s claims either were or could have been raised in his

prior two actions. For example, in his complaint in the instant case, Weir himself

cites his state court complaint to support his assertion that the hospital defendants

and employee defendants engaged in unlawful conduct. There is also no indication Weir could not have named the employee defendants in his prior two

lawsuits. Therefore, the district court was correct to conclude that claim preclusion

bars Weir’s claims against Montefiore, the College, and the employee defendants.

IV. Issue Preclusion

Defensive issue preclusion is usually an affirmative defense that the

defendant must raise, but in appropriate circumstances, district courts may sua

sponte dismiss claims as issue precluded because of the “strong public policy in

economizing the use of judicial resources by avoiding relitigation.” Doe v.

Pfrommer, 148 F.3d 73, 80 (2d Cir. 1998). For federal judgments, federal courts

apply federal common law rules of issue preclusion. Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S.

880, 891 (2008). And for state court judgments, federal courts apply the

“preclusion law of the State in which judgment was rendered.” Marrese v. Am.

Acad. of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U.S. 373, 380 (1985); see 28 U.S.C. § 1738

(providing that state court judgments “shall have the same full faith and credit in

every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they

have by law or usage in the courts of such State.”).

Under both federal common law and New York law, issue preclusion bars

parties from relitigating an issue of fact or law when “(1) the identical issue was

raised in a previous proceeding; (2) the issue was actually litigated and decided in the previous proceeding; (3) the party raising the issue had a full and fair

opportunity to litigate the issue in the prior proceeding; and (4) the resolution of

the issue was necessary to support a valid and final judgment on the merits.”

Cayuga Nation v. Tanner, 6 F.4th 361, 374 (2d Cir. 2021) (cleaned up); accord Conason

v. Megan Holding, LLC, 25 N.Y.3d 1, 17 (2015).

The district court properly dismissed Weir’s claims against the attorney

defendants as issue precluded. Except for his claim under New York Judiciary

Law § 487, Weir’s claims against the attorney defendants rely on the other

defendants having discriminated or retaliated against him. Weir attempts to

distinguish the issues by arguing that he has now brought constitutional claims,

but even reading his complaint with the special solicitude owed to pro se filings,

his only challenge to the conduct of the attorney defendants is that they knew

about the other defendants’ alleged discrimination and retaliation and prevented

Weir from prevailing on his claims against them. See Hansen v. Miller, 52 F.4th 96,

101 (2d Cir. 2022) (holding issue preclusion bars “fraud and negligence claims

against the Attorney Defendants” where such claims “rest on … underlying

allegations” decided against plaintiff in earlier action.). Weir’s allegations of

employment discrimination were previously adjudicated on the merits twice, and

did not survive Rule 12 dismissal in federal court or summary judgment in state court. He does not otherwise explain how the attorney defendants violated his

constitutional or civil rights.

As to Weir’s claim under New York Judiciary Law § 487—that the attorney

defendants responded late to his discovery demands, made false statements, and

conspired to deceive the court—those issues were addressed in the state court’s

summary judgment decision when the court denied Weir’s cross-motion to hold

the attorneys in contempt and to sanction them, and to compel production of

outstanding discovery. See Weir, 2021 WL 7286472 at *6–7. The Appellate

Division’s decision affirming the cross-motion’s denial provided additional

reasoning, holding that Weir “failed to identify frivolous conduct, merely asserting

in conclusory fashion that his supervisor and defendants’ attorneys improperly

delayed discovery and proffered false statements” and that Weir’s “deposition

testimony demonstrated the absence of viable claims, and production of the

requested documents would not uncover material and relevant information.”

Weir, 175 N.Y.S.3d at 501. The state trial and appellate courts reviewed and

balanced the arguments as to these issues, and they were decided on the merits

after Weir had a full and fair opportunity to litigate them. Because each of Weir’s

claims against the attorney defendants relies on issue precluded matters, the

district court did not err in dismissing those claims sua sponte. V. Order Denying Motion for Reconsideration

We review orders denying reconsideration for abuse of discretion. See

Analytical Survs., Inc. v. Tonga Partners, L.P., 684 F.3d 36, 52 (2d Cir. 2012). A district

court abuses its discretion “when (1) its decision rests on an error of law (such as

application of the wrong legal principle) or a clearly erroneous factual finding, or

(2) its decision—though not necessarily the product of a legal error or a clearly

erroneous factual finding—cannot be located within the range of permissible

decisions.” Zervos v. Verizon New York, Inc., 252 F.3d 163, 169 (2d Cir. 2001)

(citations omitted). “A motion for reconsideration is an extraordinary request that

is granted only in rare circumstances, such as where the court failed to consider

evidence or binding authority.” Van Buskirk v. United Grp. of Cos., Inc., 935 F.3d 49,

54 (2d Cir. 2019).

Weir has failed to identify any error of law, clearly erroneous finding of fact,

or manifest injustice that results from the district court’s decision. Accordingly,

the district court was well within its discretion to deny Weir’s motion for

reconsideration. We have considered Weir’s remaining arguments and conclude they are

without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court