In Yuvienco v. Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, 2024 WL 727712 (D.D.C. Feb. 22, 2024), the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims.
Initially, the court summarized the relevant black-letter law, highlighting the requirement that a plaintiff asserting such a claim “must establish that the allegedly harassing conduct complained of was based on a protected characteristic.”
Here, the court held, that requirement was not met. It continued:
Assuming that Ms. Yuvienco had sufficiently alleged a linkage to her protected characteristics, not all abusive behavior, even when it is motivated by discriminatory animus, is actionable. Ms. Yuvienco supports her hostile work environment claim using undetailed allegations that she was inaccurately criticized for poor performance, improperly disciplined, and had her requests for leave delayed. Without more information to spell out the gravity of these events, these allegations are insufficiently severe to show a hostile work environment.
While hostile work environment claims depend on the totality of circumstances, Plaintiff’s allegations resemble those that the Circuit has found insufficient to support a claim. For example, in Brooks v. Grundmann, 748 F.3d 1273, 1276–77 (D.C. Cir. 2014), the plaintiff failed to state a hostile work environment claim based on “selective enforcement of a time and attendance policy,” poor performance reviews, and “outbursts” from coworkers, see also Baloch, 550 F.3d at 1195, 1200–01 (finding no hostile work environment claim when plaintiff received letters of reprimand and sick leave restrictions and had verbal altercations with supervisor). And at the district level, other courts have also dismissed claims that are akin to Plaintiff’s claim. See Nurriddin v. Bolden, 674 F. Supp. 2d 64, 94 (D.D.C. 2009) (dismissing hostile work environment claim based on “criticisms of [plaintiff’s] work” and “removal of important assignments, lowered performance evaluations, and close scrutiny of assignments by management” as well as “denial of leave”); Harris v. Mayorkas, No. 21-cv-1083, 2022 WL 3452316, at *16 (D.D.C. Aug. 18, 2022) (dismissing a hostile work environment claim in which plaintiff alleged, among other things, that her supervisors “provid[ed] only negative feedback during evaluations; impos[ed] unreasonable and impossible deadlines; fail[ed] to provide clear communications or timely meet with her to discuss her performance plan for an upcoming year; [and] deni[ed her] leave”) (internal quotations omitted). Like in those cases, Plaintiff has not alleged sufficiently “severe or pervasive” conduct to make out a hostile work environment claim.
Finally, use of the same discrete acts, upon which the plaintiff bases [her] discrimination claims, to support a hostile work environment claim is disfavored. Discrete acts constituting discrimination or retaliation claims are different in kind from a hostile work environment claim. But although a plaintiff may not combine discrete acts to form a hostile work environment claim without meeting the required hostile work environment standard, neither can a court dismiss a hostile work environment claim merely because it contains discrete acts that the plaintiff claims (correctly or incorrectly) are actionable on their own.
Ms. Yuvienco’s hostile work environment claim is based on the same conduct as her discrimination claim, including the Letters of Instruction regarding her performance and leave management, the Demonstration Opportunity period, and her being “forced to retire.” Even if Ms. Yuvienco had adequately alleged a discrimination claim based on these actions, this duplicative pleading is insufficient for a hostile work environment claim unless Ms. Yuvienco pleaded that she met the required standard of demonstrating that these various actions combine to form a cohesive hostile work environment claim.
[Citations, quotation marks, ellipses, and bracketing omitted.]
Based on this, the court held that dismissal was warranted.