Theodore Barbuto, a University custodian and gay man married to another University employee, received approved intermittent FMLA leave in March 2021 to care for his husband, who suffered from unpredictable episodes of anxiety and depression. When Barbuto enrolled in a pre-calculus class and a yoga class under the University's remitted tuition benefit — which covers up to twelve credit hours per academic year for eligible employees — a senior administrator, Mary Pat Grzymala, imposed a restriction barring him from attending class on any day he called in with an unscheduled absence, including FMLA leave days. Grzymala rescinded the restriction on March 31, 2022, about ten days after Barbuto complained to the University's Office of Human Resources, and it was never reimposed. Barbuto received an A in both courses and was promoted to a higher-paying position in June 2022.
Judge Anthony Brindisi, sitting in the Northern District of New York, held that Barbuto's FMLA interference and retaliation claims failed at the threshold because he could not show a compensable injury. The FMLA's remedial scheme limits recovery to lost wages, employment benefits, or other actual monetary losses. Barbuto's testimony that he would probably have a better job by now absent the restriction was too speculative to survive summary judgment, the court held, and the record showed he continued using the tuition benefit for three years after the restriction was lifted. The only concrete harm the evidence could support was a single missed yoga class on March 29, 2022 — an absence his instructor excused and that did not affect his final grade or the monetary value of the credit hour.
On the FMLA retaliation claim, the court held independently that the restriction did not constitute a materially adverse employment action under the Burlington Northern standard. The restriction was temporary, was lifted within days of Barbuto's complaint, and resulted in the loss of one excused class session. That, the court held, fell short of the significant harm required to sustain a retaliation claim.
The ADA associational discrimination claim — brought on behalf of Barbuto's association with his disabled husband — ran into a different set of obstacles. Barbuto sued under Title III of the ADA, but the court held the claim was more properly a Title I employment claim. Because Barbuto had never filed an EEOC charge, and had not done so as of his April 30, 2025 deposition, a Title I claim was time-barred for failure to exhaust. Assuming Title III could apply, the court held Barbuto lacked standing to seek injunctive relief — the only remedy available under Title III — because the restriction had been rescinded, Barbuto himself testified he no longer wanted to register for classes at the University, and there was no evidence the University had ordered or authorized the restriction or that it was likely to recur.
The court dismissed Barbuto's remaining state law claims without prejudice to renewal in state court, declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction after all federal claims were resolved against him. The opinion also included a reminder to plaintiff's counsel about Rule 11 obligations after the court noted that a quoted passage attributed to two cases did not appear in either of them, flagging the submission in the context of growing judicial concern over AI-generated citation errors.