Which New York court decides my case?

First: is there an arbitration agreement?

If you signed one and it covers this dispute, everything on this page is beside the point. An enforceable arbitration agreement takes the case out of court altogether: a party can apply for an order compelling arbitration, and where there is no substantial question that a valid agreement was made, “the court shall direct the parties to arbitrate” (CPLR 7503(a); in federal court, 9 U.S.C. § 4). The agreement itself normally says where the arbitration happens, so the county rules below stop mattering — they would govern only the court application itself and any later fight over confirming or undoing the award.^*

Check your offer letter, employment agreement, commission plan and handbook before you think about anything else here. See the arbitration question in the commission guide.

* Arbitration agreements are set aside only in narrow circumstances. The Federal Arbitration Act makes a written arbitration agreement “valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract or as otherwise provided in chapter 4” (9 U.S.C. § 2). Expect the agreement to be enforced unless one of those two clauses applies.

The chapter 4 clause is the clearest way out. For a sexual assault or sexual harassment dispute, no predispute arbitration agreement “shall be valid or enforceable” as to that case “at the election of the person alleging” the conduct (9 U.S.C. § 402(a), effective March 3, 2022). That is an election the employee makes, not a showing the employee has to win, and the statute directs that whether it applies is decided by a court under federal law “irrespective of whether the agreement purports to delegate such determinations to an arbitrator” (§ 402(b)) — so an employee with a covered claim does not first have to persuade the arbitrator to let the case leave arbitration.

The other clause — grounds for revoking “any contract” — is narrower than it sounds. Generally applicable contract defenses such as fraud, duress and unconscionability “may be applied to invalidate arbitration agreements without contravening § 2,” but courts “may not… invalidate arbitration agreements under state laws applicable only to arbitration provisions” (Doctor’s Assocs., Inc. v. Casarotto, 517 U.S. 681, 687 (1996)), nor under defenses “that derive their meaning from the fact that an agreement to arbitrate is at issue” (AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333, 339 (2011)). And in New York a finding of unconscionability “generally requires a showing that the contract was both procedurally and substantively unconscionable when made” (Gillman v. Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., 73 N.Y.2d 1, 10 (1988)). Both halves have to be there, which is why the argument is made far more often than it wins.

Both of those clauses assume the FAA applies to the contract at all, and to some workers it does not: nothing in the Act reaches “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” (9 U.S.C. § 1). That is not a carve-out for employment contracts generally — it exempts “only contracts of employment of transportation workers” (Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 119 (2001)) — but the class is defined by what the worker does rather than what business the employer is in (Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC, 601 U.S. 246, 256 (2024)), it takes in independent contractors as well as employees (New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U.S. 105, 113–16 (2019)), and it is not confined to workers who cross state lines or who handle a vehicle that does (Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock, 608 U.S. 380 (2026)). Where that line falls, and what becomes of a case that lands on the exempt side of it, is beyond this page and beyond what this knowledge base covers today.

Why it matters

On several questions in this knowledge base the departments disagree, and the disagreement decides cases:

• Whether an unsigned change to a commission plan binds you. In the Second Department, an employee who keeps working accepts the new terms even if the employer never got a signature (Gross). See changing the plan.
• Whether the 2021 amendment to Labor Law § 193 applies to older conduct. The First Department says no; the Fourth Department says yes.
• Whether § 198(1-a) gives a private right of action for late payment. The First Department says yes (Vega); the Second Department disagrees. The Court of Appeals has not resolved it.

Federal courts add another layer. A federal judge deciding a New York law question is not bound by any department; where the departments split, the judge predicts what the New York Court of Appeals would do. So filing in federal court can take a bad department decision out of the picture — or lose you a good one.

The forum also decides how a settlement gets done. A case on New York Labor Law claims alone can be settled privately: nothing requires a judge to approve it, so the agreement can carry confidentiality and a general release and never be filed. Bring a Fair Labor Standards Act claim in federal court and that changes — a stipulated dismissal settling it needs the approval of the court or the Department of Labor, and the court reviews its terms, including any confidentiality clause and the breadth of the release, before it takes effect (Cheeks, 796 F.3d at 206). When both sides want to settle, that can be a reason to be in state court on state claims. It is not a way around class procedure: a case pleaded on behalf of a class needs court approval, and notice to the class, to settle, certified or not (CPLR 908; Desrosiers v. Perry Ellis Menswear, LLC, 30 N.Y.3d 488 (2017)).

Who picks the county

Where you worked does not decide which court hears the case. Two things do: whether an agreement already fixed the county, and who files first.

If your agreement contains a venue clause, that clause usually controls. A written agreement fixing the place of trial, made before an action is commenced, “shall be enforced upon a motion for change of place of trial” (CPLR 501). Note the word shall — unlike the other grounds below, this one is not left to the court’s discretion. Commission plans, employment agreements and restrictive covenants very often contain one, so the employer may have chosen the county years before any dispute. Look for it before assuming anything else.

Otherwise, the party who starts the case designates the county. “[T]he place of trial of an action shall be in the county designated by the plaintiff, unless the place of trial is changed to another county by order upon motion, or by consent” (CPLR 509). The designation holds even if the county turns out to be an improper one, unless the other side does something about it — a court will not move the case on its own.

Which counties are available comes from CPLR 503(a): the county where any party resided when the case began, the county where “a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred,” or, if no party lives in the state, any county the plaintiff picks. Those are alternatives, not a ranking, and “[a] party resident in more than one county shall be deemed a resident of each such county.” For a corporation, residence is the county of its principal office (CPLR 503(c)), which courts have generally taken from the certificate of incorporation, though that practice has been questioned. So a salesperson who worked in Nassau for a company headquartered in Manhattan may be able to designate either the Second Department or the First — and on the questions above, that is worth money.

Filing first matters, and the employer may be the one who files. Nothing in these rules turns on which side is the employee. An employer that sues first — to recover a commission it says it overpaid, or to enforce a non-compete — designates the county just as a plaintiff employee would.

The designation is provisional. On motion, a court may change the county where it is not a proper county, where an impartial trial cannot be had there, or where “the convenience of material witnesses and the ends of justice will be promoted by the change” (CPLR 510). The deadlines differ sharply by ground. To challenge the county as improper, the defendant must serve a written demand with the answer or before it, and then move within fifteen days; the plaintiff has five days to consent, and five days to serve an affidavit — and a plaintiff who lets that second window pass can find the venue motion heard in the county the defendant chose (CPLR 511). The other two grounds have no demand requirement and only a “reasonable time” limit, so a convenience motion is not lost by missing the early deadline.

All of which is to say: the choice is real, it is made at the very start, the deadlines around it are short, and it is difficult to undo. If more than one county looks available, raise it before anything is filed.

State and federal lines do not match

Do not infer one from the other. The mismatches are systematic:

• Bronx is in the First Department but the Southern District.
• Richmond (Staten Island) is in the Second Department but the Eastern District.
• Sullivan is in the Third Department but the Southern District — the only Third Department county in that federal district.
• Chemung and Schuyler are Third Department but Western District.
• Cayuga is Fourth Department but Northern District, while the rest of its judicial district is Western.
• Tioga and Tompkins are Third Department but Northern District.

Two facts that surprise people: the First Department contains only two counties, New York and Bronx. And the Eastern District covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Nassau and Suffolk — five counties, and a very large share of New York employment litigation.