| Carryl v MacKay Shields, LLC |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 02381 [93 AD3d 589] |
| March 29, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Rudolph C. Carryl, Appellant, v MacKay Shields, LLC, etal., Respondents. |
—[*1] Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP, New York (Mark W. Lerner of counsel), forrespondents.
Appeal from order, Supreme Court, New York County (Ira Gammerman, J.H.O.), enteredMay 20, 2010, which granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing thecomplaint, deemed appeal from judgment, same court and Justice, entered June 18, 2010,dismissing the complaint, and, as so considered, unanimously affirmed, without cost.
In this action for racial discrimination, plaintiff, an African-American, alleges that his formeremployer, defendant MacKay Shields, LLC, an investment firm, discriminated against him bypaying him less than a Caucasian peer. During the relevant period, plaintiff and his Caucasianpeer were coheads of the firm's growth equity products team and both held the title of seniormanaging director, but they were not paid equally.
Plaintiff met his initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of racial discrimination inpay by showing that he was a member of a protected class and was paid less than a Caucasianpeer (Bennett v Health Mgt. Sys.,Inc., 92 AD3d 29, 35 [2011]). However, the firm offered legitimate, nondiscriminatoryreasons for the disparity. Defendant Ravi Akhoury, MacKay Shields' former chief executiveofficer, explained that, though they shared the same title and primary responsibilities, plaintiffand his Caucasian "peer" were not similarly situated, with his peer, inter alia, taking on additionalduties and having a larger role with regard to the product which brought in the majority of theteam's revenue and drove its bonus pool.
In opposition to the motion, plaintiff failed to show that defendants' stated reasons for thedisparity were false or pretextual or that, "regardless of any legitimate motivations thedefendant[s] may have had, the defendant[s] [were] motivated at least in part by discrimination"(Bennett at 39; see alsoWilliams v New York City Hous. Auth., 61 AD3d 62, 78 n 27 [2009], lv denied13 NY3d 702 [2009] ["discrimination shall play no role in decisions relating toemployment"[*2](emphasis added)]; Weiss v JPMorganChase & Co., 2010 WL 114248, *1, 2010 US Dist LEXIS 2505, *2 [SD NY 2010] [the CityHuman Rights Law "requires only that a plaintiff prove that [protected status] was 'a motivatingfactor' for an adverse employment action"]). Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Saxe, Catterson,Acosta and Román, JJ.