In Shaw v. University of Maryland, 2023 WL 1767455 (D.Md. Feb. 3, 2023), the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s race-based hostile work environment claim.
This case illustrates the level of factual specificity courts require when assessing such a claim based on a plaintiff’s allegations in their complaint.
From the decision:
Here, the Defendants argue that the incidents alleged by the Plaintiff fail to state a plausible claim as they are not “sufficiently pervasive or severe.” Plaintiff contends that he met his burden because his “supervisor constantly yelled and berated him.” However, in its Reply, Defendants correctly contend that Plaintiff does not allege in the Amended Complaint that his supervisors “constantly yelled and berated him.” Allegations within the Amended Complaint include: (1) workplace intimidation from other engineers such as excluding him from communications and certain projects, which Defendant Romano condoned; (2) the non-competitive promotion of a white employee; (3) an inaccurate poor performance review; (4) inaction by Defendant Romano when Plaintiff raised workplace disputes; (5) not receiving co-equal credit for an intellectual property application; and (6) Plaintiff being called a “worker bee.” Furthermore, Plaintiff alleges workplace humiliation at the hands of Defendant Romano, but that claim is not accompanied by a specific factual allegation.
Although these allegations are unacceptable, the Court finds that they do not meet the standard required for a plausible hostile work environment claim. First, the Plaintiff cannot rely on the assertion that his supervisor “constantly yelled and berated him” as it is not in his Amended Complaint. Second, the allegations that do appear in the Amended Complaint either include isolated incidents, e.g., being called a “worker bee,” or generalized assertions that lack any factual detail, e.g., exclusion from meetings. Simply put, even when construing the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, Plaintiff’s allegations fall short of the “severe” and “pervasive” standard. See Perkins v. Int’l Paper Co., 936 F.3d 196, 208 (4th Cir. 2019) (holding that the Supreme Court set forth “steep requirements” for hostile work environment claims); Taylor v. Go-Getters, Inc., Civ. No. ELH-20-3624, 2021 WL 5840956, at *12 (D. Md. Dec. 9, 2021) (finding that “[c]ourts in this [c]ircuit have consistently declined to find a hostile work environment based on facts far worse” when ruling on a case in which the defendant “constantly” called plaintiff outside work hours, reprimanded plaintiff, warned plaintiff that ‘[b]lack [m]ale[s] historically do not do well and failed to provide him with effective assistance’); See also Buchhagen v. ICF Int’l, Inc., 545 F. App’x 217, 219 (4th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (stating that allegations of yelling at the plaintiff in a meeting, consistently criticizing the plaintiff for mistakes, and “unfairly scrutinizing and criticizing” plaintiff’s failure to follow instructions, fall “far short of being severe or pervasive enough to establish an abusive environment”) (emphasis added); Vincent v. MedStar S. Md. Hosp. Ctr., Civ. No. TDC-16-1438, 2017 WL 3668756, at *10 (D. Md. Aug. 22, 2017); Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998) (stating that “offhand comments and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious)” are insufficient to establish a hostile work environment) (emphasis added).
[Cleaned up.]
This case thus teaches, as do many others, that conduct that is (even in the eyes of the court) “unacceptable” does not necessarily give rise to an actionable “hostile work environment” claim.