The New York Times recently reported on ECBAWM’s lawsuit filed with co-counsel Vladeck, Raskin & Clark P.C. challenging UPS’s package delivery practices at the Park Hill and Fox Hill apartment complexes on Staten Island.

The lawsuit challenges a policy that UPS has maintained for decades, which requires residents of those complexes to retrieve packages from a designated UPS truck pickup location, rather than receiving direct building delivery. ECBAWM’s lawsuit brings claims under a disparate impact theory: that UPS treats the residents of Park Hill and Fox Hill complexes, who are 99% non-white, less well than similarly situated neighboring complexes with a higher proportion of white residents.

The article describes the practical impact of the policy on residents, including seniors and individuals with mobility limitations, and notes allegations in the complaint that UPS provides different delivery service at other residential buildings on Staten Island.

The New York Times also spoke with Gordon Flowers, the lead named plaintiff in the lawsuit, who said that after an injury left him reliant on a walker, he became more dependent on package deliveries for prescription medications and other necessities. According to the article, Flowers spent years petitioning for a change in UPS’s delivery practices before turning to legal action.

The plaintiff class is represented by ECBAWM attorneys, Andrew Wilson, Diane Houk, Matthew Brinckerhoff, and Laura Kokotailo, as well as paralegal, Toby Shore.. 

The case is pending in federal court in Brooklyn. The New York Times feature can be read in full here.

To read ECBAWM’s post on the case, click here.