In Calvert v. Allosource, No. 24-CV-03165-CYC, 2025 WL 3550963 (D. Colo. Dec. 11, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim.
From the decision:
The plaintiff asserts that the defendant created a hostile work environment because he reported discrimination and unsafe working conditions. ECF No. 9 at 6. The underlying allegations are insufficient.
To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff’s hostile work environment allegations, taken as true, must sufficiently support that ‘the workplace [was] 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.’ ” Porter v. Regents of Univ. of Colo., No. 22-cv-00335-MDB, 2023 WL 2664207, at *11 (D. Colo. Mar. 28, 2023) (quoting Davis v. U.S. Postal Serv., 142 F.3d 1334, 1341 (10th Cir. 1998)). Where the hostile work environment is alleged to be retaliatory, “a plaintiff must [also] present allegations tending to show…that the harassment was committed ‘in retaliation for protected behavior.’ ” Id. (citing Slover v. Univ. of Colo., No. 1:21-CV-01378-SKC, 2022 WL 833364, at *4 (D. Colo. Mar. 20, 2022)).
The Amended Complaint lacks sufficient factual detail to state such a claim. After all, it “must explain what each defendant did to him or her; when the defendant did it; how the defendant’s action harmed him or her; and, what specific legal right the plaintiff believes the defendant violated.” Nasious v. Two Unknown B.I.C.E. Agents, 492 F.3d 1158, 1163 (10th Cir. 2007). It does not. To be sure, the plaintiff repeatedly offers the allegation of a “hostile work environment.” ECF No. 9 at 5–7. But “[a] pleading that offers ‘labels and conclusions’ or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.’ ” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). And the Amended Complaint alludes generally to “slurs” and “verbal abuse,” ECF No. 9 at 6, but such “general allegations [are] insufficient to state a hostile work environment claim because” they do “not provide any details, such as when and how frequently these incidents occurred…or what was said.” Rivera v. JP Morgan Chase, 815 F. App’x 603, 607 (2d Cir. 2020). As such, the plaintiff fails to allege specific facts showing that his workplace was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult” that was “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment.” Williams v. FedEx Corp. Servs., 849 F.3d 889, 897 (10th Cir. 2017) (quoting Penry v. Fed. Home Loan Bank of Topeka, 155 F.3d 1257, 1261 (10th Cir. 1998)).
Based on this, the court held that dismissal was warranted.