In Wurtz v. The Boeing Company, No. 4:25-CV-1609-ZMB, 2026 WL 2122941 (E.D. Mo. July 23, 2026), the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim under state law (the Missouri Human Rights Act).
From the decision:
To show harassment, Wurtz alleges that supervisors treated her poorly—for example, by accusing her of “stealing time” and “not working independently.” Id. at 6. But Wurtz fails to indicate the contents of what was said, how it was either “intimidating” or “hostile,” or the frequency of such comments. Courts require more to establish “the type of extreme workplace conduct necessary to constitute a hostile work environment.” Travis v. Perdue, 2021 WL 328916, at *7 (W.D. Mo. Feb. 1, 2021) (granting dismissal of a hostile work environment claim based on “five relatively benign incidents” and collecting cases). Indeed, this Court dismissed a nearly identical claim in a parallel case related to the same supervisors. Speed v. The Boeing Co., No. 4:25-CV-1606-JSD, Doc. 25 at 6 (E.D. Mo. June 15, 2026). And while Wurtz complains that she and other African American employees had to provide daily logs, received fewer breaks, and got less of a raise than Caucasian colleagues, Doc. 6 ¶ 14–16, 21, these allegations do not rise above the level of “ordinary tribulations of the workplace.” See Anderson v. Durham D & M, 606 F.3d 513, 519 (8th Cir. 2010). Even if Wurtz ultimately shows that this treatment was discriminatory, more is needed to establish a hostile work environment claim. See Hassan v. Amazon.com Servs., 2025 WL 591313, at *8 (D. Minn. Feb. 24, 2025) (“A plaintiff’s allegations of discrimination based on a discrete event are not broad enough to encompass hostile work environment claims.” (quotation omitted)). As such, Wurtz’s hostile work environment claim fails at the second element.
Wurtz also failed to sufficiently pled the fourth element because any harassment did not affect a term of employment. This element “involves both objective and subjective components,” requiring allegations that the conduct complained of is “severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environment and the victim must subjectively believe her working conditions have been altered.” Blomker, 831 F.3d at 1056 (quotation omitted).2 Wurtz argues that her manager’s conduct “altered the conditions of [her] employment.” Doc. 13 at 9. But the Petition does not establish an objectively hostile work environment. As noted above, the disparate treatment Wurtz alleges is distinct from harassment, and she fails to describe the severity and frequency of her supervisors’ rude behavior. But to meet the objective component, “[t]he conduct must be extreme, not just rude or unpleasant.” Smith v. Crittenden Cnty., 2024 WL 2194847, at *10 (E.D. Ark. May 15, 2024) (citation omitted). Indeed, this Court has found far more detailed allegations insufficient. See Agnew v. Brennan, No. 4:17-CV-267-CDP, 2017 WL 1684736, at *3 (E.D. Mo. May 3, 2017) (finding no hostile work environment existed where a manager yelled at the plaintiff in front of others and two managers followed plaintiff to her workstation); Pinckney v. Sansone Grp., No. 4:19-CV-2654-JMB, 2020 WL 2114579, at *3 (E.D. Mo. May 4, 2020) (same where plaintiff’s subordinate and supervisor made racially insensitive comments and expressed racist attitudes toward plaintiff).
Accordingly, the court held that plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim fails.