In Sawyers v. Christine McMahon, 1:23-cv-05494 (PAE) (SDA), 2024 WL 665681 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 29, 2024), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims.
This decision, like many, illustrates that in order to be actionable, the alleged hostility must be connected to the plaintiff’s membership in a protected class (such as sex, race, etc.).
The court stated and applied the law as follows:
Under the NYCHRL, [t]he standards for discrimination and hostile work environment are the same. [I]n order to succeed on a NYCHRL hostile work environment claim, a plaintiff must show that he was treated less well than other employees on the basis of a protected characteristic. Thus, at a minimum, a plaintiff must ‘plead facts tending to show that actions that created the hostile work environment were taken against him because of a prohibitive factor.
The instances where the Complaint alleges a hostile work environment are insufficiently pleaded. First, Plaintiffs allege that a Fedcap employee/Program Director told Burrell on multiple occasions that if he was unsatisfied with the job, he could find another job. Second, Plaintiffs allege that another Fedcap employee consistently created a hostile work environment and harassed Sullivan, which was brought to another Fedcap employee’s attention, and nothing was done to stop the conduct. In addition, Plaintiffs allege in a conclusory fashion that the Defendants created a hostile work environment against the Plaintiff[s] where serious injuries could have occurred[.] Plaintiffs, however, fail to connect the allegedly hostile conditions to a protected characteristic.
[Citations, ellipses, and internal quotation marks omitted.]
Based on this, the court concluded that dismissal was warranted.