My colleagues find no merit to plaintiff's arguments and agree with the motion court's analysis as pertinent to plaintiff's State Human Rights Law claim, but take issue with its decision because it failed to construe her claim according to the standard set forth in the Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005. However, neither at nisi prius nor on appeal has plaintiff enunciated a specific claim under the New York City Human Rights Law. Moreover, even if it could be argued that, by amending her verified complaint to add in its introduction that "This is an action pursuant to the New York Executive Law §§ 296 (a) (1) [sic], (6), (7) and New York City Administrative Code §§ 8-107 (a) (1) [sic], (6), (7), of a hostile work environment and retaliation to vindicate the civil rights of plaintiff," she had actually raised the issue, she clearly has not pursued it on appeal.
The question of whether we should be deciding appeals on the basis of arguments not raised by the parties on appeal has recently become a recurring issue in this Court. It
is, however, a fundamental principle of appellate jurisprudence that arguments raised below but not pursued on appeal are generally deemed abandoned, and such arguments, which are therefore not properly before us, should not be considered (see McHale v Anthony, 41 AD3d 265, 266-267 [2007]). The rationale for such principle, as expressed by this Court, is that deciding issues not even raised or addressed in the parties' briefs would be so unfair to the parties as to implicate due process concerns (id. at 267).