Pierre v. N.Y.C. Fire Department

MEMORANDUM & ORDER On December 7, 2022, Plaintiff Kandy Pierre commenced this fee-paid pro se action against the New York City Fire Department (“FDNY”)¹ alleging claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. §2000e-2000e-17; the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. §§12101-12213; and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. §§621-634. See generally ECF No. 1 (Complaint). On January 20, 2023, Judge Morrison, the judge previously assigned to this case, issued an order allowing Plaintiff to amend her Complaint to address pleading deficiencies identified by the Court and warning that “an amended complaint does not simply add to the first complaint: once an amended complaint is filed, it completely replaces the original.” ECF No. 10 (January 20th Order). Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint on March 31, 2023. ECF No. 15 (Amended Complaint). Thereafter, on June 14, 2023, Defendant moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint. ECF No. 18. For the reasons set forth herein, Plaintiff has failed to cure the pleading deficiencies identified in the January 20th Order and her Amended Complaint is therefore dismissed with prejudice. BACKGROUND Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint raises a single claim under the ADA. ECF No. 15 at 2. Specifically, Plaintiff, who had been employed as an Emergency Medical Technician (“EMT”) with the FDNY, alleges that on March 27, 2021, an FDNY captain — Captain White — advised her that she needed to go home and that she was no longer on the FDNY payroll because she had allowed her EMT certification to expire. Id. 5. She further alleges that the FDNY “made it difficult for [her] to obtain her [EMT] certification,” id. 6, and that after she had obtained the certification on her own, she “was not given any assistan[ce] to [a]ccommodate [her] disability,” id. 7. Plaintiff appears to allege that, because of a prior injury she had sustained, she was not permitted to get recertified through the FDNY until she had been “cleared by the doctor to do [her] refresher [training].” Id. 9(D). Plaintiff makes additional allegations in an affidavit she filed in opposition to the motion to dismiss. See ECF No. 22 (Affidavit in Opposition).² According to the Affidavit, Plaintiff was hired by the FDNY as an “EMT/dispatcher” in 2016. Id. 10. As best as I can tell from the Affidavit, Plaintiff appears to have been the subject of numerous disciplinary infractions in 2017 requiring the intervention of her union. Id.

25-26. Plaintiff claims that she was charged with these infractions in retaliation for her seeking and obtaining a transfer from a duty station in the Bronx to an apparently more desirable assignment in Brooklyn. Id. 24. About two years later, in June 2019, Plaintiff was involved in an automobile accident and sustained a back injury. Id. 4. As a result of this injury, she “was placed on light duty.” Id. 29. Thereafter, in August 2020, an FDNY medical board determined that she was “unfit for full EMS duties.” Id. 33. Plaintiff claims that while she was on “light duty,” she sought the assistance of the FDNY’s Equal Employment Office and was informed that because of her injury the only available “reasonable accommodation” was as a dispatcher. Id. 41. Plaintiff was eventually given a “temporary reasonable accommodation” administering COVID-19 vaccines. Id.