Federal district court judges must evaluate job discrimination claims made under New York City Human Rights Law separately from those under parallel federal and state statutes because city laws may afford employees stronger protections, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled.

The panel said it wanted to “reiterate” in Velazco v. Columbus Citizens Foundation, 14-842, that a New York City statute, the Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005, requires courts to perform the separate analysis.

In particular, the 2005 law directed courts to give a liberal construction to the city Human Rights Law [NYCHRL] to recognize the law's “broad and remedial purposes … regardless of whether federal or New York state civil and human rights laws, including those laws with provisions comparably worded to provisions of [the NYCHRL], have been so construed.”