liberally and independently construed with the aim of making it the most progressive in
the nation" (Farrugia v North Shore University Hospital, 13 Misc 3d 740, 745
[Sup Ct, NY Co, Acosta, J, 2006]). In 2005, unsatisfied with how courts were applying
the same principles to both the state and city laws, the City Council enacted the Local
Civil Rights Restoration Act ("Local Law 85"), which calls for every provision of the
City's Human Rights Law to be construed "broadly in favor of discrimination plaintiffs,
to the extent that such a construction is reasonably possible" (Albunio v City of New York,
16 NY3d 472, 477-478 [2011]). "As a result of this revision, the City [Human
Rights Law] now explicitly requires an independent liberal construction analysis in all
circumstances, even where State and federal civil rights laws have comparable language"
(Williams v NYC Housing Authority, 61 AD3d 62, 66 [1st Dept 2009, Acosta,
J], lv den 13 NY3d 702 [2009]). Judicial interpretation of similarly worded state or
federal "provisions may be used as aids in interpretation only to the extent that the
counterpart provisions are viewed as a floor below which the City's Human Rights law
cannot fall, rather than a ceiling above which the local law cannot rise" (id. at
66-67, citing section 1 of Local Law 85.
That intentional divergence from analogous federal and state laws created some legal
confusion. Most of the significant, oft-cited decisions clearly stated that the same
principles and analyses applicable to federal and state laws also governed the City's
Human Rights Law (see, e.g., Forrest v Jewish Guild for the Blind,
supra, 3 NY3d 295). Trial courts, navigating City waters, suddenly left rudderless