Transit Attorney Sues Over Age Discrimination
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A Harvard-educated attorney for the transit authority filed suit against his employer for promoting a younger and less experienced attorney instead of him.
The lawyer, Patrick Leach, has the title executive agency counsel and holds one of the top jobs in the legal office at the New York City Transit Authority. In 2004, Mr. Leach wanted to become chief of the transit authority’s Bronx litigation unit, according to a legal complaint filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The transit authority passed him over, giving the job to a much younger attorney, Marie Stanley. Mr. Leach claims Ms. Stanley, his new boss, has since made excessive demands of him at work, according to the complaint.
When Mr. Leach was passed over, he was 64 and had been practicing law for 40 years. Ms. Stanley was 39 and had 12 years experience practicing law, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that by “promoting a much younger, less-qualified individual,” the transit authority discriminated against Mr. Leach because of both his age and gender.
A spokeswoman for the transit authority did not immediately return a phone call late yesterday afternoon. Ms. Stanley could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Leach has had a successful career, according to the account provided in the legal complaint. A graduate of Harvard Law School in 1964, he was a Fulbright Scholar and later an assistant professor at St. John’s University’s law school for several years. In 1988, he joined the transit authority’s law department, where he defends the transit authority against major personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits in the Bronx and in Brooklyn.
Mr. Leach placed a complaint with the MTA’s civil rights office after being passed over. That office took no action, according to the legal complaint.Following that complaint, Mr. Leach claims his job took a turn for the worse. Mr. Leach claims Ms. Stanley is retaliating against him by assigning him back-to-back trials without providing time to prepare witnesses, according to the complaint.
The trial schedule Mr. Leach was assigned in January called for him to begin trying separate cases on January 3, January 10, and January 17, the complaint alleges. Such a schedule, the complaint alleges, “would not have allowed Plaintiff to fulfill his ethical responsibilities to the NYCTA.”
