Pavolo VENEZIA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LUXOTTICA RETAIL NORTH AMERICA INC., Sunglass Hut Trading, LLC, Defendants-Appellees, 699 F. App'x 53

SUMMARY ORDER Appellant Pavolo Venezia, pro se, sued his former employers, Luxottica Retail North America Inc. (“LRNA”) and Sun-glass Hut Trading, LLC, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law for race, religious, and age discrimination and for retaliation.

Venezia alleged that: he was fired when he refused to comply with a demand that he hire only attractive, white applicants; he was denied permission to take Sundays off for church; he was .disciplined in retaliation for complaining about allegedly discriminatory hiring practices; he was subjected to a hostile work environment; and defendants breached an implied contract to pay him for his sunglass designs. The district court granted the defendants’ motion for

summary judgment. Venezia now appeals. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues on appeal. We review de novo a district court’s grant of

summary judgment, with the view that

summary judgment is appropriate only “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Sousa v. Marquez, 702 F.3d 124, 127 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Upon such review, we conclude that the district court properly granted

summary judgment to the defendants. We therefore affirm for substantially the reasons stated by the district court in its thorough and well-reasoned September 28, 2015 decision. As the district court ruled, Venezia failed to offer sufficient evidence of pretext to overcome LRNA’s legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for terminating him, namely that he had abused the company’s discount code program. Further, he failed to establish a prima facie case of either discrimination or retaliation, present evidence of a hostile work environment, or identify an enforceable contract that was breached.

We have considered all of Venezia’s arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. . Venezia brought additional claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act (‘‘FMLA”) and state common law, Those claims are not at issue on appeal because he voluntarily dismissed the FMLA claim and he does not challenge the dismissal of the state common law claims.