In Rosenson v. Bloomfield, Civil Action No. 24-1365 (SLS), 2025 WL 958254 (D.D.C. March 31, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s retaliatory hostile work environment claim asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
To prevail on a retaliatory hostile-work-environment claim, “a plaintiff must show that his employer subjected him to ‘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.’ ” Baloch v. Kempthorne, 550 F.3d 1191, 1201 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (quoting Harris, 510 U.S. at 21); Bergbauer, 934 F. Supp. 2d at 79 (finding that courts in this District “typically apply the same legal standard” to discriminatory and retaliatory hostile work environment claims); see also Poland v. D.C. Water and Sewer Auth., No. 16-cv-2031, 2022 WL 2452609, at *8 (D.D.C. July 6, 2022) (applying the same standard). “To determine whether a hostile work environment exists, the court looks to the totality of the circumstances, including the frequency of the discriminatory conduct, its severity, its offensiveness, and whether it interferes with an employee’s work performance.” Baloch, 550 F.3d at 1201 (citing Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 787–88 (1998)). “The Supreme Court has made it clear that ‘conduct must be extreme to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of employment.’ ” George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 416 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (quoting Faragher, 524 U.S. at 788). By adhering to these standards, a court “ensure[s] that Title VII does not become a general civility code” that involves courts in policing “the ordinary tribulations of the workplace[.]” Faragher, 524 U.S. at 788 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Dr. Rosenson argues that she was subject to a retaliatory hostile work environment that was so pervasive that it altered the conditions of her employment. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 96–100. The Amended Complaint details several incidents that allegedly contributed to a hostile work environment, including (1) her placement on performance feedback plans, (2) repeated criticisms of her work, (3) interference with her job responsibilities, (4) changes to her reporting structure, and (5) ultimately, her termination. See id. ¶ 97. But these are merely a series of ordinary “work-related actions by supervisors,” which “courts typically do not find … to be sufficient for a hostile work environment claim.” Munro v. LaHood, 839 F. Supp. 2d 354, 366 (D.D.C. 2012); see, e.g., Crews v. Carson, No. 19-cv-3538, 2020 WL 12948520, at *5–7 (D.D.C. Oct. 16, 2020) (low performance reviews, unfair scrutiny, interference with management of subordinates, a letter of reprimand and disciplinary proceedings were insufficient to establish a hostile work environment); Aldrich v. Burwell, 197 F. Supp. 3d 124, 138 (D.D.C. 2016) (finding no hostile work environment for claims of an undesirable office move, reprimand, leave restriction, and ultimately suspensions); Davila v. Mayorkas, No. 22-cv-357, 2023 WL 2072455, at *9 (D.D.C. Feb. 17, 2023) (collecting other cases).
The court concluded that these instances did “not amount to a pattern of behavior that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to support a hostile work environment claim.”
It rejected plaintiff’s reliance on cases which involved “excessive ridicule, verbal assault, falsehoods about the plaintiff’s violent character, and threatening emails.”