In Esqueda, M.D., Jonathan v. NYU Langone Hospitals, 2025 WL 1785870 (SDNY June 27, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s race- and national origin-based hostile work environment claims asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and 42 U.S.C. § 1981.
After summarizing the black-letter law applicable to these claims, the court applied it to the facts as follows:
Plaintiff argues he was subjected to a hostile work environment based primarily on his assertion that, on multiple occasions, Dr. Dagher “and others” mocked his accent. (Docket entry no. 79 (“Pl. Mem.”) at 5.) In support, he proffers his testimony regarding a single incident where Dagher allegedly mocked the way Plaintiff said the word “subtle” due to his accent from growing up in Mexico. (Esqueda Dep. at 86:10-15.) Plaintiff also testified that Dagher remarked that he “thought that Mexicans only work in restaurants” and stated, “several times,” that Plaintiff should “go back to Mexico in a very disrespect [sic] – not in a very positive way.”4 (Id. at 86:12-21, 159-60.) Esqueda also testified that unnamed fellows made comments that, “Mexico’s money is not really – has no real value or something like that,” and “they sell organs in Mexico,” (id. at 155:3-6) and that Dr. Stewart-Lewis “probably … said something like go back to Mexico.” (Id. at 167:3-4.) Plaintiff testified that none of the other individual defendants ever made any comments regarding Mexico or Hispanics. (Id. at 165-66.)
From the record presented, Plaintiff has failed to proffer facts sufficient to establish a triable issue of fact as to whether the alleged harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to constitute a hostile work environment. Plaintiff identifies a pattern of offensive comments made over the course of his 17 months of employment at NYU. To support a finding of a hostile work environment, however, the evidence must show that the behavior complained of was so severe or pervasive that his workplace was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult” such that it altered the conditions of his employment. Varughese v. Mount Sinai Med. Ctr., No. 12-CV-8812-CM-JFM, 2015 WL 1499618, at *18 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2015). The identified comments are not threatening or intimidating; they are best described as “mere offensive utterance[s]” which do not rise to the standard of altering the very conditions of Plaintiff’s workplace. Harris, 510 U.S. at 23; see, e.g., Augustin v. Yale Club of N.Y.C., No. 03-CV-1924-KMK, 2006 WL 2690289, at *22 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 15, 2006) (finding that isolated incidents of even extremely offensive comments spread out over a plaintiff’s five years of employment are not sufficient to show a hostile work environment). Furthermore, Plaintiff fails to provide evidence as to the actual frequency of these comments; from the record presented, Plaintiff describes a singular incident where Dr. Dagher mocked his accent and states that he was told to go back to Mexico “several” times, but he does not provide evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude the comments were “ ‘continuous and concerted’ or constituted a ‘steady barrage of opprobrious … comments.’ ” Kho v. N.Y. & Presbyterian Hosp., 344 F. Supp. 3d 705, 722 (S.D.N.Y. 2018) (quoting Tolbert v. Smith, 790 F.3d 427, 439 (2d Cir. 2015)).
Finally, Plaintiff also proffers testimony describing two incidents in which he alleges Dagher “pushed me during the transplant …. He yelled at me, yelled at me and screamed at me and talking [sic] profanity,” and another incident where Dagher said, “if you ever present a patient like … the way that you presented him, I will destroy you.” (Esqueda Dep. at 50:17-25, 86:24-25, 87:1-3.) While this threatening conduct rises above the level of sporadic, “offensive utterances,” the record provides insufficient evidence to support a conclusion that the described incidents were motivated by discriminatory animus. Plaintiff himself conceded that both incidents were caused by Dagher becoming upset about patient care because of Plaintiff’s lack of preparation during rounds or in the OR. (Id. at 87:1:18, 168-69.) Esqueda further conceded that these kinds of outbursts were typical in a high stress environment like the OR. (Id. at 168-69.) Therefore, Plaintiff has proffered insufficient evidence to show that these incidents contributed to a hostile work environment motivated by prejudice against Plaintiff on the basis of his national origin or race.
Based on this, the court held that plaintiff has “failed to frame a triable issue regarding the objective severity or pervasiveness of any discriminatory harassment he endured” and, therefore, defendants are entitled as a matter of law to summary judgment dismissing plaintiff’s federal anti-discrimination claims.