IN RE: STATE DIVISION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (2005)

Application pursuant to Executive Law § 298 to enforce petitioner's order, dated June 3, 1999, as revised by its order dated August 26, 2003, finding that the complainant suffered mental anguish and humiliation as a result of a hostile work environment caused and allowed to exist by respondents, and awarding the complainant $20,000 (transferred to this Court by order of Supreme Court, New York County [Harold B. Beeler, J.], entered January 28, 2004), unanimously granted, without costs.

The record, based on the complainant's unrefuted allegations, evinces sufficient evidence of a hostile work environment created by same-sex harassment (see Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., 523 U.S. 75, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 [1998] ), amounting to constructive termination of employment (Matter of State Div. of Human Rights v. ARC XVI Inwood, 17 A.D.3d 239, 796 N.Y.S.2d 238 [2005] ). The matter is distinguishable from Yukoweic v. International Bus. Machs., 228 A.D.2d 775, 643 N.Y.S.2d 747 [1996], lv. denied 88 N.Y.2d 816, 651 N.Y.S.2d 17, 673 N.E.2d 1244 [1996] in that here the purportedly crude humor or horseplay targeted the complainant and was gender-specific.   The complainant was a member of a protected class, a hostile work environment was created by respondent co-worker's harassment, and respondent owner failed, upon notification, to take corrective action, and indeed acquiesced in the offending conduct (see Matter of State Div. of Human Rights [Greene] v. St. Elizabeth's Hosp., 66 N.Y.2d 684, 496 N.Y.S.2d 411, 487 N.E.2d 268 [1985] ).