In Yelling v. St. Vincent’s Health System, 2023 WL 6474713 (11th Cir. Oct. 5, 2023), the court, inter alia, affirmed the summary judgment dismissal of plaintiff’s race-based hostile work environment.
This decision is instructive as to how courts evaluate hostile work environment claims where the alleged inappropriate comments are not directed to the plaintiff themselves, as well as where comments, ostensibly racial in nature, do not evidence racial animus.
From the decision:
We conclude that Yelling has not presented evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to find in her favor. Yelling cites her own testimony that St. Vincent’s became “kind of heated” with racist comments, or that her coworkers generally made racist comments multiple times. But that testimony lacks the specificity necessary to show frequency. Cf. Fernandez v. Trees, Inc., 961 F.3d 1148, 1153-54 (11th Cir. 2020) (reasoning that employee’s testimony harassment occurred “every other day” or “nearly every day,” which coworkers corroborated, was more specific than vague testimony harassment occurred “constantly”); Nitkin v. Main Line Health, 67 F.4th 565, 570-71 (3d Cir. 2023) (similar). And Yelling has not cited evidence that her coworkers’ conduct was so extreme as to make up for the infrequency. See Adams v. Austal, U.S.A., L.L.C., 754 F.3d 1240, 1253-54 (11th Cir. 2014) (reasoning that where harassment is isolated but extreme, an employee may still have an actionable claim).
We begin with the comments about the former President and First Lady. We cannot say that all of these comments were race-based—as opposed to political or personal disagreement. For example, comments that the President was “stupid,” the “worst,” or a “piece of shit” are not inherently racial. But even if we considered these comments race-based, and even drawing all reasonable inferences in Yelling’s favor, we conclude no reasonable jury could conclude these comments evince extreme harassment.
This is true even when considering these comments together with other comments—several of which plainly were racist. Those comments were only isolated epithets rather than extreme harassment. The mere fact that a supervisor (Wilhite) uttered at least one does not automatically transform the conduct (still inexcusable) from boorish or crude to extreme. Cf. Adams, 754 F.3d at 1254-55 (considering a supervisor who uttered “n—–” in front of plaintiff). And Yelling does not cite any evidence that her coworkers aimed these or any comments at her personally. To be sure, Yelling need not be the intended target of harassment to succeed. Walker v. Ford Motor Co., 684 F.2d 1355, 1359 n.2 (11th Cir. 1982). But overhearing offensive comments is less severe or humiliating than being the intended target of direct harassment.
…
Yelling also points to the Larimore, Calvert, and Laroe comments about being “confederate flag flyers” or “redneck” gun owners, which the district court did not view as race-based. She argues at length that we must view these statements as racial harassment because of the context in which they were made. But the problem is that Yelling does not cite evidence adequately illuminating the context she says we must consider. She instead relies heavily on generalizations about changing “societal norms”—such as recent civil rights protests and confederate monument removals—that shed no light on what she experienced at St. Vincent’s. The evidence that Yelling does cite to that end is that she was regularly the only black nurse on her shift and that coworkers other than Larimore, Calvert, and Laroe made racist statements about the Obamas and patients. But that does not speak to the context of the conversations in which the statements were uttered. Nothing cited suggests, for example, that a coworker called herself a “confederate flag flyer” in conjunction with a racial slur or in the same discussion as one.
The court ultimately determined that it was unable to “conclude that the comments about the confederate flag or being gun-carrying rednecks were racial harassment since Yelling only offers them in a vacuum” and that even if it “agreed with Yelling that they were race-based harassment, the comments still would not—alone or with everything else Yelling offers—be sufficient to show a hostile work environment.”