In Kekovic v. Titan Motor Group LLC et al, 22-CV-2142 (MKB), 2025 WL 2173651 (E.D.N.Y. July 31 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to plaintiff’s claims of a race-based hostile work environment claims asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 1981, and the New York State and City Human Rights Laws.
After summarizing the “black letter” law, the court applied it to the facts as follows:
Defendants have failed to demonstrate that there is no genuine dispute of material fact as to Plaintiffs’ hostile work environment claims under Title VII and section 1981.11 There is a dispute of material fact as to whether Valentino used the N-word at the October 8, 2020 dinner. Plaintiff testified that Valentino used the word “n*****r” twice during a work dinner with Plaintiff and Amendola, and after Plaintiff told him that he was married to a Black woman and had two children who are also Black, Valentino turned to Amendola and asked, “[H]ow much is this going to cost me?” (Pl.’s Kekovic Tr. 129:16–130:17.) Amendola testified he cannot remember any conversation at the October 8, 2020 dinner, (Pl.’s Amendola Tr. 83:6–18, 87:5–24), and Valentino testified that while he does not “recall the conversation” at the October 8, 2020 dinner, the word “n****r” is not part of his vocabulary, (Pl.’s Valentino Tr. 33:12–25; Defs. Valentino Tr. 34:1–11). There is thus a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Valentino used the N-word at the October 8, 2020 dinner. The Second Circuit has “recognized that ‘a single act can create a hostile work environment if it in fact works a transformation of the plaintiff’s workplace.’ ” Banks, 81 F.4th at 262 (quotation marks omitted) (first quoting Cruz, 202 F.3d at 570; and then quoting Feingold v. New York, 366 F.3d 138, 150 (2d Cir. 2004)). “Multiple circuit courts have emphasized that ‘perhaps no single act can more quickly alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment than the use of an unambiguously racial epithet such as “n****r.’ ”” Banks, 81 F.4th at 266 (citations omitted); Daniel, 689 F. App’x at 2 (vacating the district court’s grant of summary judgment where the district court ruled as a matter of law that the one-time use of the word “n****r” could never “support a claim for a hostile work environment”); Albert-Roberts v. GGG Const., LLC, 542 F. App’x 62, 64 (2d Cir. 2013) (explaining that “there may well exist circumstances where a single use of [n****r] would rise to the level of a hostile work environment.”).
Based on Defendants’ actions after the racial epithet, as testified to by Plaintiff, a reasonable juror could conclude that Valentino made the statements attributed to him by Plaintiff at the October 8, 2020 dinner, and after the dinner, Defendants altered their behavior toward Plaintiff and created a hostile work environment after he complained about Valentino’s use of the N-word. Plaintiff recounted that after the October 8, 2020 dinner, his “relationship with Amendola changed completely.” (Kekovic Decl. ¶¶ 22.) Amendola stopped praising his performance on the sales floor and started “avoiding” him at work, (id. ¶¶ 23–26), and other managers changed their behavior towards him as well, (id. ¶ 30). He faced increasingly hostile interactions with his supervisor, culminating in Amendola “no longer answer[ing] Plaintiff’s emails or text messages,” (Pl.’s Opp’n 3 (citing Kekovic Decl. ¶¶ 22–27, 29, 31, 33)), and making it difficult for Plaintiff to do his job. Plaintiff testified that Amendola (1) told him it was Amendola’s job to make him “uncomfortable,” (2) was constantly surveilling him (and only him) through the new security camera footage, and (3) changed his schedule so that he had to work when the dealership was closed to the public. (Pl.’s Kekovic Tr. 144:24–145:3; 147:2–24; 161:17–21.) Plaintiff also recounted that Valentino stopped referring customers to him after the October 8, 2020 dinner. (Id. ¶¶ 31–32.) Although only Valentino’s use of the word “n****r” is overtly racially discriminatory, a reasonable factfinder could conclude that Plaintiff has established Defendants’ actions after the October 8, 2020 dinner “altered his employment conditions for the worse.” Terry, 336 F.3d at 148 (emphasis omitted); see also Howley v. Town of Stratford, 217 F.3d 141, 154 (2d Cir. 2000) (vacating summary judgment of hostile work environment claim where conduct “diminish[ed] the respect accorded the [plaintiff] by subordinates and thereby impair[ed] her ability to lead”); Davis v. Verizon Wireless, 389 F. Supp. 2d 458, 463, 474 (W.D.N.Y. 2005) (finding that the plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim survived summary judgment where defendant “denied her supervisory direction, and undermined her ability to do her job by firing [individuals] that reported to her without first consulting her”). Valentino’s racially discriminatory comment, when considered as part of the “totality of the circumstances”— including Defendants constantly surveilling Plaintiff and forcing him to work outside of normal working hours — preclude summary judgment of the hostile work environment claim in Defendants’ favor. Williams, 61 F.4th at 74 (explaining that courts should include facially neutral events in its “totality of the circumstances” analysis because the analysis is “intended to provide courts with ‘a realistic view of the work environment’ ” and the plaintiff had claimed that the facially neutral events “adversely affected her work environment”) (citations omitted)); Kaytor, 609 F.3d at 547–48 (“Circumstantial evidence that facially [ ]neutral incidents were part of a pattern of discrimination on the basis of [a protected characteristic] may consist of evidence that the same individual engaged in multiple acts of harassment, some overtly [discriminatory] and some not.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).
Defendants’ testimony that Plaintiff was insubordinate and rude could indeed be the reason that Plaintiff experienced growing hostility at work and was ultimately terminated — that is, the increasingly hostile work environment that Plaintiff complains of could be the result of a dislike for Plaintiff “as an individual, or because of some other motivation not prohibited by anti-discrimination law” — but these types of factual questions “must be resolved by a jury, rather than by a court at summary judgment.” Feingold, 366 F.3d 151; see also Brown v. Montefiore Med. Ctr., No. 19-CV-11474, 2024 WL 1367974, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2024) (“Courts may not assess credibility, nor may they decide between conflicting versions of events because those matters are reserved for the jury.”
The court concluded that plaintiff has established that there are triable issues of material fact as to whether the corporate defendants are liable for creating a hostile work environment under federal law, based on the severity and pervasiveness of the harassment, as well as the fact that plaintiff’s supervisor engaged in the harassing conduct.
It also held that since plaintiff’s federal (Title VII and Section 1981) claims survive summary judgment, so do plaintiff’s State and City Law claims, since they employ a “more lenient standard” than federal law.