Hostile Work Environment Claims Dismissed Against JP Morgan Chase Bank

In Esar v. JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A., 15-cv-382, 2018 WL 2075421 (E.D.N.Y. May 3, 2018), the court (inter alia) dismissed plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims.

Plaintiff asserted that she was subjected to an “atmosphere of adverse action”, namely

(i) lobby cleaning assignments, (ii) covering for one week at another branch, (iii) unpacking branch supplies, (iv) picayune coaching, often in a room referred to as the “detention room” by Chase employees, (v) scrutiny of Plaintiff’s attendance and tardiness, (vi) refusal to allow Plaintiff to feed her parking meter while allowing others to take coffee breaks, and (vii) frequent name-calling in Russian, a language Plaintiff did not speak.

After summarizing the legal requirements for a hostile work environment claim, the court, applying the law, explained:

Assessing “the totality of the circumstances,” Gorzvnski, 596 F.3d at 102, the court finds that Plaintiff cannot establish a hostile-environment claim. First, the events Plaintiff sets out were not sufficiently severe or pervasive to support her claim. While the allegations may have been annoying to Plaintiff, no single incident comes close to having been “extraordinarily severe,” see Alfano, 294 F.3d at 374. While Plaintiff has alleged incidents that were “continuous and concerted,” the court is unable to conclude, as it must to allow Plaintiff’s claim to proceed, that this series of incidents “altered the conditions of her working environment.” See id. The conduct was not facially discriminatory or excessive; rather, the record indicates “only limited [and] infrequent” conduct that could, at worst, be described as “mildly offensive” and that cannot support Plaintiff’s hostile-environment claim.

Furthermore, plaintiff was unable to establish that any of the alleged actions occurred because of her protected status; “[t]hat three of four co-workers were of a different national origin and did not experience the same minimally offensive mistreatment does not establish a nexus with Plaintiff’s national origin.”

As to her age-based hostile work environment claim, the court noted that while a manager’s use of the term “old lady” was age-related, “no reasonable juror could conclude on that basis alone that the alleged mistreatment was on account of her age,” particularly where plaintiff’s key comparator was 12 years older than her, and that her position was filled by someone 6 years older than her.

The court likewise dismissed plaintiff’s claim under the broader New York City Human Rights Law, holding that “the conduct alleged by Plaintiff does not rise above the level of ‘petty slights and trivial inconveniences[.]'”

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