A federal court has dismissed the retaliation suit brought by an FDNY firefighter who claimed he was improperly detailed out of Rescue 1 after filing an EEO complaint.

Firefighter Daniel Hyland filed suit against the City of New York, FDNY, former Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, and former Fire Commissioner Mark Guerra, alleging retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. The suit was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of New York and was covered here when it was filed.

Hyland had been assigned to Rescue 1 since 2012. In September 2019, he wrote a letter supporting Captain Robert Morris after rumors circulated that members of Rescue 1 did not want Captain Morris to return to the company.

He subsequently complained to an EEO counselor that an interim captain was harassing him because of the letter. He also alleged that a walking cane labeled “Firefighter Attitude Adjustment Cane,” with “Hyland” written on it, was hung in the firehouse office. Hyland interpreted the cane as a threat of violence.

After Hyland filed an internal FDNY EEO complaint in October 2019, he was detailed out of Rescue 1 while the matter was investigated. What began as a temporary detail eventually became involuntary. In July 2020, Firefighter Hyland was scheduled to return to Rescue 1, but three days before the reassignment was to take effect, Fire Commissioner Nigro allegedly canceled it and assigned him to Rescue 5.

Hyland filed additional FDNY EEO complaints in 2022 and 2023 alleging retaliation and made several requests in 2023 to return to Rescue 1. Those requests were denied. He filed a discrimination charge with the New York State Division of Human Rights in February 2024, which was cross-filed with the EEOC, followed by the federal suit in February 2025.

The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that Firefighter Hyland’s Title VII claim was untimely and that, in any event, he had not alleged facts sufficient to establish a retaliation claim.

US District Court Judge Eric N. Vitaliano agreed on both grounds.

Because Hyland filed his EEOC charge on February 28, 2024, Title VII’s 300-day limitations period required the allegedly unlawful employment action to have occurred on or after May 4, 2023. The court concluded that the operative employment decision occurred in 2020, when Hyland’s planned return to Rescue 1 was canceled and he was assigned to Rescue 5.

Hyland argued that FDNY’s denials of his October and November 2023 requests to return to Rescue 1 constituted separate adverse employment actions and therefore fell within the limitations period. Judge Vitaliano rejected that argument, concluding that the 2023 requests were essentially requests to reconsider the 2020 decision rather than new retaliatory acts. As the court explained:

• Hyland’s ongoing efforts to unravel the denial of transfer from 2020 neither restart nor toll the statute of limitations.

The court also rejected application of the continuing violation doctrine, explaining that retaliation claims involving discrete employment decisions are treated differently from hostile work environment claims, which by their nature may involve repeated conduct over time. The court therefore concluded that Hyland’s Title VII retaliation claim was untimely.

Judge Vitaliano went on to conclude that even if the claim had been timely, Hyland failed to allege that he had engaged in activity protected by Title VII. A Title VII retaliation claim requires an employee to have engaged in protected activity, the employer to have known of that activity, an adverse employment action, and a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse action. For an employee’s complaint to constitute protected activity, the employer must have understood, or reasonably could have understood, that the employee was opposing discrimination prohibited by Title VII—discrimination based upon race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The court concluded that neither Hyland’s letter supporting Captain Morris nor his subsequent EEO complaints alleged discrimination based upon a characteristic protected by Title VII.

According to Judge Vitaliano, Hyland’s EEO complaints addressed matters such as reprimands, unexplained detail assignments, and dissatisfaction with the handling of his complaints, but did not indicate that the alleged mistreatment was based upon his membership in a protected class. As a result, the court concluded that FDNY’s actions were not in retaliation for Hyland’s opposition to discrimination prohibited by Title VII.

The court reached the same conclusion regarding Hyland’s 2019 letter supporting Captain Morris. The letter sought to counter rumors that members of Rescue 1 did not support Captain Morris, but did not state or imply that Captain Morris’s treatment involved discrimination prohibited by Title VII. The court therefore concluded that the letter did not constitute protected activity for purposes of a Title VII retaliation claim.

Judge Vitaliano declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state and city retaliation claims, dismissing those claims without prejudice to Firefighter Hyland refiling them in state court if he can do so in good faith.