In Singh v. Accutime Watch Corp., 24-CV-8007 (JPO), 2025 WL 2916135 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 14, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to to dismiss plaintiff’s amended complaint asserting a hostile work environment claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.
From the decision:
To prove a claim of hostile work environment under Title VII or the NYSHRL, a plaintiff “must show that the workplace was so severely permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that the terms and conditions of [plaintiff’s] employment were thereby altered.” Nieblas-Love v. New York City Housing Authority, 165 F.Supp.3d 51 (S.D.N.Y. 2016) (quoting Alfano v. Costello, 294 F.3d 365, 373 (2d Cir. 2002)). The NYCHRL has a more lenient standard: Plaintiffs must bring evidence of “unequal treatment based upon membership in a protected class.” Id. at 68 (quoting Fattoruso v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co., 873 F.Supp.2d 569, 579 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)) (emphasis added). Even under the more plaintiff-friendly NYCHRL, Singh fails to state a valid hostile work environment claim.
Singh’s opposition brief asserts that he was subjected to a hostile work environment as he was “doing extra work to compensate for the incompetence of his non-Indian non-Sikh colleagues.” (ECF No. 29 at 9). The only new information in the FAC that relates to Singh’s claim of a hostile work environment is the FAC’s statement that although Singh and Mumu were paid the “same salary,” Singh did “significantly more work” than Mumu. (FAC ¶18.) This information does not establish, as is required for hostile work environment claims, that the actions creating the hostile work environment “were taken against him because of a prohibited factor.” Pouncy v. Advanced Focus LLC, No. 15-CV-6260, 2017 WL 4280949, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 25, 2017) (cleaned up) (emphasis added). Singh does not establish that the uneven distribution of work was an action “taken against him.” Id. Instead, Singh suggests that he worked more than Mumu because he “assume[d] her responsibilities in addition to his own” after concluding that she “lacked the necessary skills to perform her job.” (FAC ¶ 19.) Stating that Singh and Mumu were paid the same amount despite Singh’s autonomous decision to take on extra work does not establish a hostile work environment.
The court concluded that despite plaintiff’s “minimal revisions” to his complaint, his amended complaint “still does not allege facts sufficient to support an inference that Singh was treated less well because of his protected characteristic.”