Sotolongo v. The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, 2:19-cv-03282

Background

Plaintiff Maria Sotolongo, an administrative law judge at the NYS DMV since 2005, alleges gender discrimination and retaliatory conduct by supervisors Michelle Menzione and Bushra Vahdat.
Sotolongo filed a NYSDHR complaint (April 2017) alleging discrimination; the NYSDHR found no probable cause and the New York State Supreme Court affirmed.
She then amended her federal complaint asserting Title VII retaliation and hostile-work-environment claims, plus § 1983 and New York Constitution claims; she withdrew her Title VII disparate-treatment claim.
Alleged post‑complaint incidents include exclusion from office events and meetings, a copied hard drive on the shared network, being ignored and subject to derisive comments, denial of training/participation, meddling by a colleague, and a later negative evaluation.
Defendants moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The court accepted the complaint’s allegations as true for the motion and granted the motion in full.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Claim preclusion (res judicata) — whether the prior NYSDHR/Supreme Court adjudication bars this suit	Sotolongo: she alleges new facts and post‑NYSDHR incidents that were not and could not have been litigated earlier	Defs: the federal suit arises from the same factual grouping as the NYSDHR action; prior final judgment precludes relitigation	Court: Claims are barred by claim preclusion because the amended complaint adds only additional instances of the same factual grouping adjudicated in the NYSDHR action
Title VII retaliation — whether she plausibly pleaded causation between protected activity and adverse actions	Sotolongo: filing the NYSDHR complaint was protected activity and subsequent adverse acts were retaliatory	Defs: temporal gap (eight months) and no direct evidence of retaliatory animus; no similarly situated comparators shown	Court: Retaliation claim fails—no adequate causal connection pleaded (timing too attenuated; no direct evidence)
Title VII hostile work environment — whether conduct was severe/pervasive and because of sex	Sotolongo: exclusions, increased burdens, ignoring, comments, and negative evaluation created hostile environment	Defs: alleged conduct is not objectively severe or pervasive and plaintiff does not tie treatment to sex	Court: Hostile-work-environment claim fails—allegations are insufficiently severe/pervasive and lack a nexus to sex
§ 1983 and New York Constitution claims — whether they survive independently	Sotolongo: asserts parallel constitutional/state claims	Defs: preclusion and the failure of federal statutory claims undermine these claims	Court: § 1983 and state constitution claims are dismissed alongside the federal claims (they stand or fall together and are precluded/unsupportable)

Key Cases Cited

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009) (pleading must state a plausible claim; Iqbal plausibility standard)
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) (pleading standard requiring more than conclusory allegations)
Smith v. Russell Sage College, 54 N.Y.2d 185 (1981) (transactional approach to claim preclusion; test for factual grouping)
Gropper v. 200 Fifth Owner LLC, 151 A.D.3d 635 (1st Dep't 2017) (additional instances of previously asserted facts do not overcome preclusion)
Yeiser v. GMAC Mortg. Corp., 535 F. Supp. 2d 413 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (claims grounded on same gravamen are precluded)
Natofsky v. City of New York, 921 F.3d 337 (2d Cir. 2019) (retaliation causation: temporal proximity and other circumstantial evidence)
Littlejohn v. City of New York, 795 F.3d 297 (2d Cir. 2015) (examples of workplace conduct that do not establish hostile work environment)
Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993) (factors for hostile-work-environment analysis: frequency, severity, threat, interference)