In Roper v. City of Cincinnati, 2023 WL 4466974 (S.D.Ohio July 11, 2023), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim, due to plaintiff’s failure to exhaust his administrative remedies as to that claim.
From the decision:
To bring a hostile work environment claim, a plaintiff needs to point to harassment that “unreasonably interferes with his work performance and creates an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.” Id. (cleaned up). Roper’s EEOC charge asserts that he had been passed over for promotions because of his race, disability, and in retaliation against his protected complaints, “among other things.” (Charge, Doc. 17-5, Pg. ID 415.) (The words “among other things” refer to things he accused the City of retaliating against him for—not other forms of unlawful conduct, such as a hostile work environment.) But not getting promoted is a significant distance from enduring workplace harassment that unreasonably interferes with his work performance or harassment that creates an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. See id. Roper fails to meet that standard. Indeed, by comparison, Roper’s EEOC charge is even vaguer than the one in Younis.
Based on this, the court held that plaintiff has failed to show that he exhausted his administrative remedies tied to his claims for hostile work environment.