In the past several weeks, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed district courts’ grants of summary judgment in two noteworthy employment discrimination cases. In Aulicino v. New York City Department of Homeless Services,1 the court overturned the district court’s grant of summary judgment in a case where a white employee alleged he was denied a promotion because of his race and that he was subject to a hostile work environment. The court held that the record reflected genuine issues of material fact with respect to the failure to promote claim and that the district court failed to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff with respect to his hostile work environment claim.
In Halpert v. Manhattan Apartments Inc.,2 the court held although an employer may not be liable for discrimination against an independent contractor, an employer can be held liable for discrimination by such an independent contractor who works as an agent for the employer. Although a casual observer might conclude from these two cases that the Second Circuit approaches district courts’ grants of summary judgment in employment discrimination cases with a high degree of skepticism, a more comprehensive view of the circuit’s decisions over the last several years reveals that these two cases represent the exception rather than the norm.
