Background
Chantice Griffith began working for MetroPlus Health Plan, Inc. — a subsidiary of NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation — in 2012 and was promoted in January 2014 to Associate Executive Director of Clinical Operations, directly overseeing MetroPlus’s managed long-term care (MLTC) program. In January 2016, the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG) audited MLTC claims submitted by MetroPlus between 2012 and 2016 and identified payments allegedly not utilized for enrollees. MetroPlus agreed to a substantial Medicaid reimbursement. In May 2016, following the audit, MetroPlus terminated Griffith’s employment.
Griffith brought suit in 2017, alleging race discrimination and unlawful retaliation under the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) (Executive Law § 296) and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) (Administrative Code § 8-107). Defendants moved for summary judgment. Supreme Court, Kings County granted the motion. Griffith appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Appellate Division affirmed. On the race discrimination claims, the court applied the burden-shifting framework: defendants met their burden of articulating a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the termination — the Medicaid audit, the significant repayment obligation, and Griffith’s oversight responsibility for the MLTC program at issue. The burden then shifted to Griffith to raise a triable issue of fact that the stated reason was a pretext for discrimination. The court found she did not meet that burden. There was insufficient evidence in the record that race played a role in the termination decision or that similarly situated employees outside her protected class were treated differently.
On the NYCHRL retaliation claims, the court applied the broader NYCHRL standard — which requires only that the plaintiff show she engaged in protected activity and suffered an adverse action causally connected to it — but still found the record insufficient. The court affirmed that Griffith had not raised triable issues establishing either that she had engaged in protected activity under NYCHRL at the relevant times or that the termination was causally connected to any such activity rather than to the audit’s findings.
Key Takeaways
- A post-audit termination of a senior executive with direct supervisory responsibility over the audited program is a legitimate, non-discriminatory basis for discharge that can support summary judgment in an NYSHRL/NYCHRL discrimination case.
- The NYCHRL’s more protective standard — which broadly prohibits adverse treatment “because of” protected characteristics — still requires plaintiffs to raise triable issues linking the adverse action to a protected characteristic rather than to a facially neutral, documented business reason.
- Senior employees in regulated industries (healthcare, financial services) who are terminated following government audits face heightened summary judgment risk in discrimination cases absent affirmative evidence that the audit findings were pretextual or selectively applied.
Why It Matters
This decision illustrates the evidentiary hurdle plaintiffs face in employment discrimination cases where the employer can point to a concrete, business-driven event — a government audit, a compliance failure — as the catalyst for the termination. New York City’s Human Rights Law is notably broader than its state counterpart and federal Title VII, but even under the NYCHRL’s more expansive standard, a plaintiff must marshal more than circumstantial timing evidence when the employer has a documented reason rooted in a regulatory proceeding. Employment practitioners advising clients in healthcare or Medicaid-regulated industries should be aware of this dynamic when assessing discrimination exposure following audit-driven reorganizations.