Disability Suit Against Cyber-Security Nonprofit Survives Dismissal, but Plaintiff Must Re-Serve All Defendants by April 27

MANHATTAN (LN) — A federal judge in the Northern District of New York kept alive a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by a former Center for Internet Security employee who alleges he was fired after his supervisor grew openly hostile toward his requests for accommodation for severe anxiety, depression, and chronic back pain, denying the company's motion to dismiss Monday while ordering the plaintiff to re-serve all defendants by April 27, 2026.

Jason Braun, who was hired by CIS as a Help Desk Agent in approximately 2015 and later promoted to Associate Cloud Solutions Architect, alleges the trouble began after a 2019 snowboarding accident left him with persistent back pain that eventually required a spinal fusion surgery on August 10, 2020, and a revision surgery on September 11, 2020. He alleges that Erin Haggerty, who became his supervisor in early January 2022, dismissed his disability-related pain, warned him there would be consequences if he stayed off-camera during a job interview to accommodate his back condition, and told him during a team meeting that he could not use his anxiety disability as an excuse any longer.

Braun's five-count complaint, filed originally in New York Supreme Court, Rensselaer County, in December 2024 and removed to federal court in May 2025, charges CIS with disability discrimination, hostile work environment, failure to accommodate, and retaliation under the ADA. It names Haggerty on parallel New York State Human Rights Law discrimination, hostile work environment, failure to accommodate, and retaliation claims, and names Haggerty, Peterson, Rankin, Comer, and Dukes on an aiding-and-abetting claim under the NYSHRL.

U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd, sitting in Utica, did not reach the merits. Instead, he concluded that Braun had failed to properly serve CIS, Haggerty, and three other individual defendants — human resources representatives Kristina Rankin and Carolyn Comer, and Executive Vice President Curtis Dukes — all of whom work remotely and, according to defendants, maintain no offices, desks, or regular presence at CIS's East Greenbush, New York headquarters where Braun's process server made delivery.

The service problem cut two ways. For the individual defendants, Hurd concluded Braun had not shown that the East Greenbush office qualified as their actual place of business under New York CPLR Section 308(2), which requires delivery at a location where the defendant regularly transacts business or holds themselves out as working. For CIS itself, the judge concluded that a building security guard — whom plaintiff's brief described as having confirmed his authority to accept service — was neither a manager nor a designated agent, and that Braun had offered no evidentiary support for the guard's claimed authority.

Because service was deficient, Hurd declined to address whether Braun's discrimination, hostile-work-environment, failure-to-accommodate, retaliation, and aiding-and-abetting claims were sufficiently pleaded under Twombly and Iqbal — leaving defendants free to re-file their Rule 12(b)(6) arguments once proper service is made.

Braun's complaint describes a workplace that deteriorated after Haggerty took over the Cloud Security Team. He alleges she singled him out with a January 14, 2022 email about performance expectations sent only to him, angrily cut him off during team meetings while remaining cheerful with other colleagues, admonished him in front of the team for his Slack activity, and gave snarky responses to his questions. A co-worker, Ed Oechsner, allegedly told Braun it was obvious that Haggerty treated him differently. Braun alleges he was terminated on April 1, 2022 — two days after an email went out to high-level employees stating that Haggerty would no longer be working at CIS, only to be retracted hours later.

Hurd, exercising his discretion under Rule 4(m), gave Braun one final opportunity rather than dismissing the case outright, noting the court would permit plaintiff one final chance to properly serve all defendants in this matter.

If Braun misses the April 27 deadline, the clerk is directed to dismiss the complaint without further order of the court.