| Stewart v Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP |
| 2007 NY Slip Op 07376 [44 AD3d 354] |
| October 4, 2007 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Mildred Stewart, Appellant, v Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP,Respondent. |
—[*1] Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, New York (Holly H. Weiss of counsel), for respondent.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Sallie Manzanet, J.), entered July 26, 2006, which, inan action for employment discrimination based on race, granted defendant's motion for summaryjudgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiff, an African-American hired by defendant law firm as a paralegal, failed to adduceevidence responsive to defendant's showing that its termination of plaintiff was based onwell-documented, ongoing poor performance reviews by many of the attorneys for whomplaintiff worked (see Ferrante v American Lung Assn., 90 NY2d 623, 629, 631 [1997]).Plaintiff's evidence does not address these performance reviews, but instead focuses on thetransfer of some of her cases to her only similarly situated coworker, a Caucasian, therebyreducing her billable hours and denying her credit for work she performed. Although informed ofdefendant's antidiscrimination policies, including a requirement that discrimination complaintsbe reported to certain individuals, plaintiff, while employed, never complained that this shiftingof work was discriminatory, and even now does not show circumstances permitting an inferencethat it was. Defendant's reason for terminating plaintiff was not insufficient billable hours or anunwillingness to work, but the poor quality of her work and an inability to accept suggestionsthat might improve her work. There is no evidence tending to show that the poor performancereviews were inaccurate, much less the product of collusion among the reviewing attorneys tosupply a pretext for race discrimination. We have considered plaintiff's claims of hostile workenvironment and retaliation and find them also without merit. Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P.,Saxe, Sullivan, Catterson and Kavanagh, JJ.