In Pouncy v. Advanced Focus LLC, 2017 WL 428094 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 25, 2017), a race discrimination case, the court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s race-based hostile work environment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 1981, and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL).
As for Title VII and Section 1981, the court explained:
Here, even assuming arguendo that Pouncy has demonstrated that the environment at Advanced Focus was so “extraordinarily severe … to have altered the conditions of [his] working environment,” Cruz v. Coach Stores, Inc., 202 F.3d 560, 570 (2d Cir. 2000), his hostile work environment claims under Title VII and Section 1981 must be dismissed because he fails to demonstrate that any of the alleged hostility was “because of” his race. Pouncy identifies seven incidents that, he alleges, add up to a claim of hostile work environment and asserts that they all took place “on account of [his] race.” (Pl.’s SOF ¶ 56). But this conclusory and unsupported assertion aside, there is no evidence at all that any of the identified incidents took place because of Pouncy’s race. See, e.g., Pungitore v. Barbera, 506 F. App’x 40, 42 (2d Cir. 2012) (summary order) (“A court must first ignore mere conclusory statements ….” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Nor does Pouncy attempt to argue with any particularity that the seven alleged incidents had any explicit or implicit racial motivation to them. Cf. Goodwine v. City of N.Y., No. 15-CV-2868 (JMF), 2016 WL 3017398, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. May 23, 2016) (dismissing a hostile work environment claim under Title VII because “there is nothing in the Complaint to suggest that [the alleged hostile activity] was based on Plaintiff’s race or sex”). Thus, Pouncy’s hostile work environment claims under Title VII and Section 1981 also fail.
The court reached the same conclusion with respect to plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim under the NYCHRL. Although such claims are to be analyzed “separately and independently” from claims under federal and state law, a plaintiff asserting claims under the NYCHRL is still required to “prove that the alleged misconduct was caused at least in part by discriminatory or retaliatory motives.”
As with his federal and state law claims, plaintiff “fail[ed] to allege — let alone substantiate — that any of the relevant acts of hostility by his supervisors were on the basis of … [a] protected characteristic.”