New York Senate Bill S04427 Latest Draft

   
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 4427 2023-2024 Regular Sessions  IN SENATE February 8, 2023 ___________ Introduced by Sen. FERNANDEZ -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Judiciary AN ACT to amend the civil practice law and rules, in relation to the disclosure of certain settlements to the civil rights bureau of the attorney general's office The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The civil practice law and rules is amended by adding a new 2 section 5003-c to read as follows: 3 § 5003-c. Settlements related to discrimination, sexual harassment or 4 sexual assault. 1. All settlements related to allegations of discrimi- 5 nation, sexual harassment or sexual assault shall be disclosed to the 6 civil rights bureau of the attorney general's office for the purposes of 7 identifying evidence of patterns of unlawful discrimination. For the 8 purposes of this section, the following terms shall have the following 9 meanings: 10 a. "Discrimination" shall mean any discriminatory act prohibited under 11 the civil rights law, the human rights law or applicable federal or 12 local anti-discrimination laws. 13 b. "Sexual harassment" shall mean unwelcome sexual advances, requests 14 for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct on the basis of 15 an individual's gender or perceived gender when submission to or 16 rejection of such conduct, explicitly or implicitly, affects an individ- 17 ual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work 18 performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work envi- 19 ronment without regard to actual economic injury to or discharge of the 20 individual. 21 c. "Sexual assault" shall mean unwanted sexual contact. 22 2. The attorney general's office shall maintain confidential records 23 of all information disclosed under this section and investigate any 24 individual or institution that has entered into three or more settle- EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD08772-01-3 
 S. 4427 2 1 ments related to discrimination, sexual harassment or sexual assault 2 claims. 3 3. Records shall be safeguarded from coming to the knowledge of and 4 from inspection or examination by any person other than the attorney 5 general or other designated officials in the bureau for the performance 6 of their official duties. Authorized persons shall not divulge informa- 7 tion contained therein without the written consent of the attorney 8 general. The authorized disclosure of any such information shall not 9 contain any individually identifiable information for a settling plain- 10 tiff. 11 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.