In Brown v. Valvoline, LLC et al, 2024 WL 2946099 (S.D.Tex. June 11, 2024), the court, inter alia, granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s claims of race-based hostile work environment asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and § 1981.
From the decision:
The facts presented to the Court are as follows: in May 2020, two African American employees “exchanged hostile words” with one another at the La Porte plant, “including the use of the N-word.” (Doc. No. 24 at 15). Harris had a meeting to ask Brown whether the employees should be disciplined. It is undisputed that when Harris spoke with Brown, he repeated the exact phrases used by the African American employees during their exchange. Harris states in his affidavit that he repeated the phrases to seek advice on how the employees should be disciplined. (Doc. No. 24-7 at 4). Brown does not dispute this, but recalls that he told Harris to “stop,” and Brown instructed Harris that he could simply use the term “N-word” instead. (Doc. No. 25-1 at 58:19-25). Brown believes that the use of the racial slurs was intended to be directed at him because “[Harris] kind of had this little grin on his face, and he just kept using that word like he had a hall pass to just go ahead and keep saying it to me.” (Doc. No. 25-1 at 59:22-60:5). Brown recalls that Harris ceased using the language after Brown told him to stop. (Doc. No. 25-1 at 60:13-23).
On a separate occasion, Harris told Brown that the plant needed “more diversity around here,” which Brown speculates to be a veiled reference to the large number of African American employees at the plant. (Doc. No. 25-1 at 46:17-21). Brown further avers in his Declaration that Harris “made it a point to repeatedly tell Brown about how smart his new Caucasian administrator was, so smart that she was tasked with tracking attendance.” (Doc. No. 25-2 at 2). Finally, according to Brown’s deposition testimony, Harris referred to some other African American employees as “a bunch of knuckle heads.” (Doc. No. 25-1 at 46:01-04). ….
The Court recognizes that the use of the N-word is highly objectionable. Indeed, it has been described as “the most noxious racial epithet in the contemporary American lexicon.” Johnson v. PRIDE Indus., Inc., 7 F.4th 392, 401 (5th Cir. 2021) (internal citations omitted). Nonetheless, for a work environment to be deemed sufficiently hostile, this Court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including the frequency of the conduct, whether it was physically threatening or humiliating, and whether it unreasonably interfered with Brown’s work performance. Frazier, 509 F. App’x at 374. In this case, according to the uncontroverted evidence, the use of the language was isolated to the single alleged incident when Harris was seeking advice from Brown as to how to handle a disciplinary situation pertaining to two subordinate employees. While he used the actual N-word to explain what happened in the altercation, Harris ceased using the objectionable language when asked to stop, and Brown does not allege that he was physically threatened or that it unreasonably interfered with his work performance. (Doc. No. 25-2 at 40, Doc. No. 25-1 at 40:611). Moreover, the additional comments cited by Brown as evidence of a hostile work environment (e.g., Harris’ comments regarding “need[ing] more diversity around here”) are unrelated and Brown has not raised a genuine issue of fact that they were anything other than stray remarks. Additionally, the term “knuckle heads,” without more, does not implicitly carry racial implications. Importantly, Brown has not shown that any harassment was frequent – instead, it is undisputed that Harris’ use of the racial epithet occurred on the one occasion described above in a singularly unique situation. Considering the relevant context and the summary judgment evidence presented to the Court, Brown has failed to make the required showing to survive summary judgment on each of his hostile work environment claims.
Accordingly, the court held that summary judgment in defendants’ favor was warranted.