In Brickhouse v. School District of Philadelphia et al, 2023 WL 3739062 (E.D.Pa. May 31, 2023), the court, inter alia, held that plaintiff sufficiently pleaded a race-based hostile work environment claim.
In sum, the court held that the plaintiff “alleges just enough to state a plausible hostile work environment claim. Her supervisors frequently subjected her to conduct that interfered with her job duties, while a similarly situated employee of a different race was not.”
The court identified and applied the following hostile work environment elements:
(1) that she suffered intentional discrimination because of her race;
(2) that the discrimination was severe or pervasive;
(3) that the discrimination detrimentally affected her;
(4) that the discrimination would detrimentally affect a reasonable person of the same race in that position; and
(5) the existence of respondeat superior liability.
It concluded its analysis as follows:
Here, Dr. Brickhouse’s allegations just barely tip the scales in favor of showing pervasive conduct because of the frequency of harassing workplace conduct. Unlike Thompkins, Dr. Brickhouse’s supervisors closely monitored her work attendance for months — right after Deputy Berry questioned her sick leave and Dr. Brickhouse filed her formal discrimination complaint. See DI 7 ¶¶ 85, 87, 89, 91, 93. Her supervisors told other coworkers to purposely leave Dr. Brickhouse out of work-related conversations, see id. ¶¶ 86, 114, and at other times, her supervisors simply did not include her, see id. ¶¶ 55, 61, 62, 70, 76, 103. On a multitude of occasions, her supervisors would not respond to her basic work inquiries. See id. ¶¶ 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37. Though the court in Thompkins found no pervasive conduct existed with some allegations like Dr. Brickhouse’s — for example, negative performance reviews, extra work, and vague, derogatory language used by supervisors — the frequency of conduct distinguishes Dr. Brickhouse’s case. It is plausible that the presently alleged conditions — over the course of an entire year — unreasonably interfered with Dr. Brickhouse’s ability to do her job.
Therefore, held the court, plaintiff’s complaint “sets forth enough well-pleaded facts showing pervasive conduct” and, therefore, denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim.