June 22, 2026|Franchise Frontlines
June 22, 2026 | United States District Court for the Northern District of New York | Slip Copy — Only the Westlaw citation is currently available (2026 WL 1785195)
Executive Summary
In a Slip Copy decision available only at 2026 WL 1785195, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Brindisi of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York addressed whether Cornell University (the “University”) could be required to answer as a joint employer for pay-discrimination and retaliation claims brought by a former employee of a legally distinct county cooperative-extension association. Plaintiff Corrine Tompkins, a former employee of Cornell Cooperative Extension Delaware County (“CCE Delaware”), asserted unequal-pay claims under the Equal Pay Act (the “EPA”) and the New York Labor Law (the “NYLL”) and gender-discrimination and retaliation claims under the New York State Human Rights Law (the “NYSHRL”) against the University, while pursuing her Title VII claims against CCE Delaware alone. The University moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing that the plaintiff had not plausibly alleged it was her employer; the plaintiff opposed and cross-moved under Rule 15(a)(2) for leave to file an amended complaint adding joint-employer allegations. Applying the Second Circuit’s Carter formal-control and Zheng functional-control tests to the federal and state claims, the court held that the proposed amended complaint plausibly alleged a joint-employer relationship—resting on allegations that the University issued paychecks, maintained compensation guidelines, established operational policies, and, under N.Y. County Law § 224, was responsible for supervising the association’s professional staff—granted leave to amend, and denied the motion to dismiss as moot.
Relevant Background
The University is a private post-secondary educational institution in Ithaca, New York, and New York State’s sole land-grant institution, which as such receives federal funding to provide “cooperative extension services” within the state. In New York, those community-based educational programs are administered by the University in conjunction with “county extension service associations.” Under N.Y. County Law § 224, such an association is a “subordinate governmental agency consisting of an unincorporated organization of citizens” of a particular county. CCE Delaware is the county extension service association for Delaware County; the court noted that, while CCE Delaware has its own constitution and board of directors, its operations are “subject to significant oversight by the University acting as an agent for the state.”
According to the allegations the court accepted as true for purposes of the motions, CCE Delaware hired the plaintiff in 2008 as a seasonal summer camp counselor, and she assumed a full-time camp director position in 2015. The plaintiff alleged that she and other female employees received less favorable treatment on account of their gender—being paid less than male coworkers, denied benefits given to male employees, excluded from meetings, and harshly criticized—and that she was hindered in advancing her career, primarily at the hands of CCE Delaware’s former Executive Director, Mandeep Virk-Baker, who was hired in December 2022. The plaintiff alleged that she repeatedly raised concerns with CCE Delaware and University representatives, that her complaints went unanswered, and that she was terminated on February 23, 2024, shortly after seeking guidance on how to escalate her complaints. After an internal investigation and unsuccessful reinstatement discussions, the plaintiff applied to an opening and was rehired by CCE Delaware in May 2025.
The plaintiff filed this action on July 11, 2025 against both CCE Delaware and the University, asserting claims under Title VII, the EPA, and related state law. On September 12, 2025, the University moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), contending that the plaintiff had not plausibly alleged it was her employer under the relevant statutes. The plaintiff opposed and cross-moved under Rule 15(a)(2) for leave to file a proposed amended complaint adding allegations supporting a joint-employer theory against the University. The court resolved both motions on the parties’ submissions without oral argument.
Decision
Because the plaintiff moved to amend after the University moved to dismiss, the court measured the proposed amendments against the Rule 12(b)(6) standard, explaining that leave to amend “will be denied as futile only if the proposed [amendments] cannot withstand a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.” Turning to the EPA claim, the court observed that EPA liability “is limited to those employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act” (the “FLSA”), under which an entity “employs” an individual if it “suffer[s] or permit[s]” that individual to work, a definition grounded in “economic reality rather than technical concepts.” The court reiterated that a joint-employment relationship may arise where an employee is “employed by more than one entity at the same time,” and that a putative joint employer need not possess “absolute control.”
Evaluating formal control under Carter v. Dutchess Community College, the court found that only the first factor—the power to hire and fire—weighed against joint employment, because the plaintiff had not plausibly alleged the University hired her or that it, rather than Virk-Baker, made the termination decision. The second factor weighed “slightly in favor,” resting on allegations that the University establishes CCE Delaware’s operational policies, is consulted on employment issues, and holds decision-making authority over job classifications, reinforced by County Law § 224, which makes the University responsible for “the proper supervision of the professional staff” and authorizes it “to set standards for professional staff and to make rules and regulations.” The third and fourth factors—rate and method of payment and maintenance of employment records—supported joint employment based on allegations that the University “issued [her] paychecks, paid fringe benefits… maintained compensation guidelines… and assisted with the maintenance of employment records.” With only one of four factors against, the court noted that a positive finding on all four is “not necessary” to establish an employment relationship.
The court then examined functional control under Zheng v. Liberty Apparel Co., looking “beyond an entity’s formal right to control.” It found that the second factor favored joint employment because CCE Delaware “exists only to serve the University,” the fifth factor favored it because the plaintiff plausibly alleged University control over CCE Delaware’s “employment-related policies and their implementation,” and the sixth favored it because the University allegedly “takes on employer prerogatives” such as issuing paychecks and paying fringe benefits; the remaining factors were unsupported, inconclusive, or inapplicable. The court distinguished a prior decision, Kiraly v. Cornell Coop. Extension of Delaware County, which had found the University was not a CCE Delaware employee’s employer “for the purposes of Title VII liability,” reasoning that the EPA applies the FLSA’s broad “employ” definition rather than Title VII’s narrower common-law agency test, and that the present allegations “go beyond those at issue in Kiraly.” The court held the NYLL claim survived for “substantially the same reasons,” because the NYLL’s employer definition is interpreted “coextensively” with the FLSA’s.
For the NYSHRL claims, the court applied the common-law Griffin factors, under which the “right of control” is “the most important.” The hire-and-fire factors weighed against an employment relationship, but the payment factor favored one, and the control factor weighed “slightly in favor” because the plaintiff plausibly alleged that the University established CCE Delaware’s “operational policies, compensation guidelines, and job classification policies.” Emphasizing that the joint-employment inquiry is “heavily fact-bound and… ill-suited for resolution on the pleadings,” the court was careful not to decide that the University in fact was the plaintiff’s joint employer, holding only that the allegations, taken as true, “support a plausible inference” that it was. On that basis, the court granted leave to amend and denied the University’s motion to dismiss as moot.
Looking Forward
This is an unpublished trial-court ruling at the pleading stage, and the court expressly declined to decide that the University was a joint employer—it held only that the plaintiff had plausibly alleged as much. Even so, the control facts that carried the plaintiff past Rule 12(b)(6)—issuing paychecks, maintaining compensation guidelines, establishing operational policies, and supervising an affiliated entity’s professional staff—resemble functions that brand owners and related entities sometimes perform within multi-unit systems, and the decision may inform how some courts approach joint-employer questions where an upstream entity is alleged to control the pay and policies of a downstream workforce. The analogy is imperfect and the ruling is not controlling on franchisors: here the University’s supervisory authority flowed from a state statute, N.Y. County Law § 224, that designates it “responsible for… the proper supervision of the professional staff,” a mandated feature absent from ordinary franchise relationships. The case is best read as persuasive at most, and its statutory backdrop is a meaningful point of distinction a franchisor could press.
The decision is a reminder that pleading-stage survival can itself impose real cost. Once a joint-employer theory clears Rule 12(b)(6), the putative joint employer is drawn into discovery and denied an early exit even where the merits may ultimately favor it—particularly given the court’s observation that this inquiry is “heavily fact-bound” and rarely resolved as a matter of law. Franchisors and multi-entity operators may wish to examine which of these control functions they actually perform and whether operational support can be structured to preserve the separateness of the direct employer. Payroll processing, compensation guidance, and policy templates can often be furnished in ways that promote consistency and compliance without the brand owner setting the terms and conditions of another entity’s employment or supervising its staff.
The opinion also underscores two points worth watching. First, the applicable statutory definition of “employer” can be outcome-determinative: the court reached a different result than Kiraly largely because the EPA and NYLL borrow the FLSA’s broad “suffer or permit” standard rather than Title VII’s narrower common-law agency test—so the same facts may or may not support joint-employer exposure depending on the claim asserted. Second, courts continue to focus on who controls the essential terms and conditions of employment, applying totality-of-the-circumstances frameworks in which no single factor is dispositive and in which, as the court noted, the line runs between “effective control of the terms and conditions of” employment and mere “supervision with respect to contractual warranties of quality.” That distinction echoes the familiar operational-control-versus-quality-assurance line, and disciplined attention to it—ensuring that legitimate brand-standards oversight does not shade into direct control over compensation and supervision of another entity’s employees—remains prudent for branded systems.
Thomas O’Connell is a Partner at Buchalter LLP and Chair of the firm’s Franchise Practice Group. For questions about this article or media inquiries, you can contact Tom at toconnell@buchalter.com.
This article is based solely on the opinion of the Court in this matter. The author has not conducted any independent investigation into the facts. For the avoidance of doubt, each statement related to the law and facts in this article is drawn from the Court’s opinion in this case. It was drafted with the assistance of an artificial intelligence system. AI systems can make mistakes, including in describing legal authority. Readers should independently confirm any legal authority before relying on it.
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