Although not prohibited by federal law, employment discrimination based on marital status is illegal in several states. However, the exact contours of “marital status” discrimination have been somewhat unclear, leading to a recent decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that interpreted New York City’s ban on marital status discrimination.
The case – Hunter v. Debmar-Mercury LLC et al. – was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Kelvin Hunter, the ex-husband of well-known talk show host Wendy Williams. Hunter sued an entity that allegedly created and produced the Wendy Williams Show and its principals under the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL). He alleged that he was the show’s executive producer from November 2007 to April 2019, when he was married to Wendy Williams, and that the defendants fired him one week after Williams filed for divorce, “solely because of his marital status” to Williams. He claimed his termination violated the NYCHRL, which bars employment discrimination due to “marital status.”
The District Court Decision in Hunter
The defendants moved to dismiss Hunter’s complaint, arguing that the NYCHRL did not cover discrimination based on an employee’s marital status in relation to a specific person. In other words, according to the defendants, the law did not protect acts undertaken because of whom an employee has married (or not married). Because Hunter did not claim to be fired simply because he was divorced, but rather because the person he was divorcing was Wendy Williams, the defendants argued the law did not apply. Notably, the NYCHRL does not define “marital status.”
The district court denied the motion to dismiss, finding that Hunter stated a valid “marital status discrimination” claim. In its ruling, the court relied on a 2018 decision, Morse v. Fidessa Corporation. The Morse court concluded that certain amendments to the NYCHRL expanded the law’s scope to encompass discrimination based on “whether two individuals are married to each other or not married to each other.” The Hunter court noted that it was skeptical of the Morse court’s expanded view of the law, but nonetheless decided to follow Morse because it lacked “persuasive evidence” that the New York Court of Appeals (a higher court than the Morse court) would reject Morse. In light of the ruling, the defendants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The Second Circuit’s Decision in Hunter
On appeal, the Second Circuit vacated the district court’s decision and rejected the Morse court’s expanded definition of “marital status discrimination.” In its ruling, the Second Circuit relied on a New York Court of Appeals decision, McCabe v. 511 West 232nd Owners Corp., which was issued after the district court’s decision in Hunter. In McCabe, the plaintiff brought a “marital status” housing discrimination claim under the NYCHRL, arguing she was unlawfully denied an automatic transfer of her deceased long-time partner’s lease because the two were not married, as required by the applicable lease. The New York Court of Appeals rejected that claim, reasoning that it was not actionable “marital status discrimination” under the NYCHRL because the plaintiff “was not denied an automatic transfer. . .merely because she was unmarried, but because of her relationship to a particular person.” The Court of Appeals expressly stated – contrary to Morse – that the term “marital status” in the NYCHRL refers to “whether a person is participating in a marriage, not the nature of one’s relationship with another specific person.”
The Second Circuit held that the McCabe decision was “persuasive evidence” that the New York Court of Appeals would reject Morse, and that it “squarely resolv[ed] the question” at issue on appeal in Hunter. Specifically, in light of McCabe, the Second Circuit concluded that “marital status” within the meaning of the NYCHRL does not encompass an employee’s marital status in relation to a particular person, and remanded the case to the district court. In other words, the Second Circuit essentially held that Hunter could not sustain a claim under the NYCHRL due to the fact that he was divorcing Wendy Williams (as opposed to the fact that he was getting divorced, generally).
Takeaways
While the Second Circuit’s decision in Hunter clarifies the meaning of “marital status discrimination” under the NYCHRL, it does not address – and has no binding effect on – the meaning and scope of “marital status discrimination” under any other local, state, or federal law. Nonetheless, it provides a persuasive analogy for states with similar laws, such as Illinois, California, Minnesota, and others.
