The employer filed its dismissal motion with zero supporting evidence
A worker with severe vaccine allergies lost her job over COVID-19 mandate. Mount Sinai Health System just lost its bid to end her lawsuit early.
The New York Appellate Division, Second Department, on September 16, 2026, affirmed a lower court order refusing to dismiss the worker's disability discrimination and failure-to-accommodate claims.
The backstory starts in September 2021, when Mount Sinai implemented a policy requiring all employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or face termination. The worker, who alleged she suffered severe and life-threatening allergic reactions to vaccinations, submitted a medical exemption request. It came with a medical record and her physician's advice not to receive the vaccine.
Mount Sinai denied the request. No accommodation was offered. Her employment was terminated.
She sued in November 2024 under both the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law, alleging disability discrimination and failure to provide a reasonable accommodation.
Mount Sinai moved to toss the claims under CPLR 3211(a)(7) - New York's standard motion-to-dismiss mechanism, which tests whether the complaint states a viable legal claim on its face. Here is where the employer's strategy came unstuck: the motion was supported only by a memorandum of law. No affidavits. No documentary evidence. Nothing beyond legal argument.
The trial court denied the motion. Mount Sinai appealed.
The four-justice appellate panel was unanimous. Under New York's pleading standard, a court accepts the complaint's allegations as true, gives the plaintiff every favourable inference, and asks whether those facts fit any cognizable legal theory. The worker's complaint cleared that bar.
The panel also noted that both the state and city human rights laws must be read "broadly in favor of discrimination plaintiffs, to the extent that such a construction is reasonably possible." Mount Sinai's arguments, meanwhile, rested on "information and documents dehors the record" - material that was never properly before the court.
To be clear, the appellate court did not find that discrimination occurred. The ruling means only that the worker's claims, taken at face value, state a viable case. The litigation now proceeds to discovery and potentially trial.
For HR professionals, the case flags a specific procedural risk: an employer that denies a medical exemption and terminates without documenting the accommodation process may struggle to win dismissal at the pleading stage - particularly when it brings nothing but legal argument to the motion.
The decision is a slip opinion, subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.
