Murphy v Citigroup Global Mkts., Inc. |
2020 NY Slip Op 03987 [185 AD3d 486] |
July 16, 2020 |
Appellate Division, First Department |
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. |
David James Murphy, Appellant, v Citigroup Global Markets, Inc., et al., Respondents. |
David James Murphy, appellant pro se.
Proskauer Rose LLP, New York (Joseph Baumgarten of counsel), for respondents.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Shlomo Hagler, J.), entered on or about April 12, 2019, which granted defendants' CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss the complaint and denied plaintiff's cross motion to compel arbitration, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
The motion court properly dismissed plaintiff's discrimination claims as precluded by res judicata (see Matter of Hunter, 4 NY3d 260, 269 [2005]; Fajemirokun v Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Ltd., 27 AD3d 320, 321-322 [1st Dept 2006], lv denied 7 NY3d 705 [2006]). The discrimination claims which plaintiff seeks to assert in the first two causes of action of the instant complaint "aris[e] out of the same transaction or series of transactions" as the claims resolved in the prior arbitration between himself and the corporate defendants herein (O'Brien v City of Syracuse, 54 NY2d 353, 357 [1981]; Carol v Madison Plaza Apts. Corp., 137 AD3d 453, 453 [1st Dept 2016]). Plaintiff offers no response to the defense of res judicata, other than that his discrimination claims were not arbitrable. Plaintiff, however, has failed to make any showing in support of the non-arbitrability of those claims at the time they were decided[FN*] (see Sphere Drake Ins. Ltd. v Clarendon Natl. Ins. Co., 263 F3d 26, 31 [2d Cir 2001]; McCaddin v Southeastern Mar. Inc., 567 F Supp 2d 373, 379 [ED NY 2008]).
Plaintiff's third cause of action, against defendant Okan Pekin, fails to state a claim, as the conduct he complains of is simply not substantial enough to support a claim for hostile work environment, even under the maximally protective New York City Human Rights Law (see Ji Sun Jennifer Kim v Goldberg, Weprin, Finkel, Goldstein, LLP, 120 AD3d 18, 26 [1st Dept 2014]).
We have considered plaintiff's remaining arguments, and find them unavailing. Concur—Gische, J.P., Kapnick, Webber, Kern, Gonzàlez, JJ.