| Matter of State Div. of Human Rights v Dom's Wholesale & Retail Ctr., Inc. |
| 2005 NYSlipOp 04131 |
| May 19, 2005 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| In the Matter of State Division of Human Rights, Petitioner, v Dom's Wholesale and Retail Center, Inc., et al., Respondents. |
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Application pursuant to Executive Law § 298 to enforce petitioner's order, dated June 3, 1999, as revised by its order dated August 26, 2003, finding that the complainant suffered mental anguish and humiliation as a result of a hostile work environment caused and allowed to exist by respondents, and awarding the complainant $20,000 (transferred to this Court by order of Supreme Court, New York County [Harold B. Beeler, J.], entered January 28, 2004), unanimously granted, without costs.
The record, based on the complainant's unrefuted allegations, evinces sufficient evidence of a hostile work environment created by same-sex harassment (see Oncale v Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 US 75 [1998]), amounting to constructive termination of employment (Matter of State Div. of Human Rights v ARC XVI Inwood, Inc., 17 AD3d 239 [2005]). The matter is distinguishable from Yukoweic v International Bus. Machs. (228 AD2d 775 [1996], lv denied 88 NY2d 816 [1996]) in that here the purportedly crude humor or horseplay targeted the complainant and was gender-specific. The complainant was a member of a protected class, a hostile work environment was created by respondent coworker's harassment, and respondent owner failed, upon notification, to take corrective action, and indeed acquiesced in the offending [*2]conduct (see Matter of State Div. of Human Rights v St. Elizabeth's Hosp., 66 NY2d 684 [1985]). Concur—Saxe, J.P., Marlow, Sullivan, Williams and Gonzalez, JJ.