In Maria Isabel Alvarado Navarro et al v. Building Service, Inc. et al, 23-CV-7343 (ARR) (MMH), 2024 WL 4225747 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 18, 2024), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s discrimination and hostile work environment claims.
After concluding that it was unable to draw an inference of discrimination – as to plaintiff’s claims that defendant Lupe “exploit[ed]” and “target[ed]” Maria in a manner that was “inherently discriminatory” and indicative of “bias against individuals of Mexican origin and undocumented status” – the court turned to plaintiffs’ hostile work environment theory:
A hostile work environment claim typically involves a workplace that is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment. A well-pleaded claim must allege, inter alia, conduct that is objectively severe or pervasive and occurs because of the plaintiff’s protected identity. Generally, the alleged instances of hostile conduct must be “more than episodic; they must be sufficiently continuous and concerted in order to be deemed pervasive. Isolated acts and single incidents are generally insufficient to demonstrate a hostile work environment unless they are extraordinarily severe.
Here, plaintiffs’ hostile work environment claim centers on (1) Lupe’s alleged attempts to “involve” them in “dubious financial transactions,” and (2) Lupe’s failure to use Maria’s full name at work. Neither of these allegations is concrete enough for me to infer that plaintiffs faced an objectively hostile workplace. To start, the allegations of financial treachery are too vague and conjectural for me to evaluate. Plaintiffs do not allege that Lupe has actually victimized them financially—merely that they fear Lupe “may.” Further, the FAC does not clearly allege facts supporting an inference that Lupe targeted plaintiffs because of their national origin or immigration status. Finally, the fact that Lupe addressed Maria in a manner suggestive of intimacy does not, without more, permit the inference that Lupe was deliberately attempting to diminish Maria’s identity and agency within the workplace.
[Citations, internal quotation marks, and bracketing omitted.]
The court thus concluded that “[n]aked assertions of … discrimination without any specific factual allegation of a causal link between the defendants’ conduct and the plaintiff’s protected characteristic are too conclusory to withstand a motion to dismiss.”