Labor & Employment Law

Mother-in-law not an employee under New York State's Executive Law for purposes of numerosity

Goldman v. Stein, ____A.D.3d___(2d Dept. March 24, 2009), illustrates that numerosity issues arise under state employment discrimination as well as federal law. Here, the NYS Human Rights law only applies to employers with 4 or more employees. It excludes from that calculation any "individual employed by his or her parents, spouse or child, or in the domestic service of any person."

Query, whether your mother-in-law would be considered an employee? No says the court, reasoning:

Dr. Stein could be considered Reichman's "child" only if the statutory term "child" were to be extended so far as to embrace sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. Contrary to the conclusion implicitly reached by the Supreme Court, the term "child" is not ordinarily used to refer to sons-in-law or daughters-in-law (cf. Matter of Gustafson, 74 NY2d 448 [construing testamentary term "children" so as to exclude grandchildren]; Caldwell v Alliance Consulting Group, 6 AD3d 761 [interpreting statutory term "parent" so as to include biological father who abandoned his son after birth]), and we see no evidence that the omission of sons-in-law and daughters-in-law from the terms of Executive Law § 292(6) was the result of legislative oversight. There is no basis upon which to conclude that a construction of the statute in accordance with its plain terms would frustrate the underlying legislative intent.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on April 29, 2009 (boomark / email).