In Parham v. The City of New York, No. 450008/2021, 2024 WL 4373349 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County Oct. 2, 2024), the court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims of race-based hostile work environment under the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
From the decision:
A racially hostile work environment under NYSHRL exists when the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment. The court must consider the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance. Isolated remarks that a reasonable person would consider nothing more than petty slights and trivial inconveniences cannot support a hostile work environment claim under the NYCHRL.
Here, the complaint plausibly pleads hostile work environment claims under the NYSHRL and the NYCHRL. The complaint’s detailed allegations demonstrate that Plaintiff was subjected to a constant barrage of disparaging and derogatory remarks about fried chicken over the course of three months and beyond (Sims v Trustees of Columbia Univ., 168 AD3d 622, 623 [1st Dept 2019] [plaintiff stated a cause of action for hostile work environment by alleging that his supervisors repeatedly made racially derogatory comments, including calling him ‘Bubbles,’ which he testified was a reference to Michael Jackson’s pet chimpanzee, and referring to him as ‘boy’ using a Southern accent”]). Further, Finkelstein purportedly tossed watermelon-flavored candy at Plaintiff while stating that it was his favorite flavor and made an Oreo sandwich while standing between Plaintiff and a colleague on more than one occasion. Finkelstein and Segreti also allegedly joked about the lazy work ethic of black support staff members, likened SLU’s black support staff to “lint, on a jacket,” and copied Fabian on emails that were sent to and from Plaintiff (see Hribovsek v United Cerebral Palsy of NY City, 223 AD3d 618, 621 [1st Dept 2024] [excessive tracking or monitoring of the plaintiff sufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim]).
These derogatory and degrading comments are not just mere isolated incidents, as Defendants have suggested (see Batemen v Montefiore Med. Ctr., 183 AD3d 489, 490 [1st Dept 2020] [issues of fact on hostile work environment claims where “plaintiff was disparaged and treated unfairly for months, including being repeatedly subjected to remarks, thinly-veiled and on one occasion express, which slighted black people as a group”]). Plaintiff claims that he was “clucked” at and subjected to invidious fried chicken comments approximately forty to fifty times over the span of months. While defendants maintain that the terms and condition of Plaintiff’s employment were not altered, these allegations “if true, could affect his ability to do his job and create an abusive working environment.
[Citations, bracketing, and internal quotation marks omitted.]
Based on this, the court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss these causes of action.