In White v. Children’s Network of Southwest Florida LLC, No. 2:24-CV-00697-KCD-NPM, 2026 WL 98768 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 14, 2026), the court, inter alia, granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim.
From the decision:
As for the hostile work environment claim, employers can be liable when, despite not taking any tangible adverse action, their harassment is “sufficient to constructively alter an employee’s working conditions.” Mangrum v. Republic Indus., Inc., 260 F. Supp. 2d 1229, 1248 (N.D. Ga. 2003). But “ordinary tribulations of the workplace, such as sporadic use of abusive language, [age]-related jokes, and occasional teasing cannot form the basis of a claim for actionable harassment or hostile work environment.” Short v. Immokalee Water & Sewer Dist., 165 F. Supp. 3d 1129, 1141 (M.D. Fla. 2016). The employer’s conduct “must be extreme to amount to a change in terms and conditions of employment.” Id.
The bar here is high. A hostile work environment is one that is “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.” Johnson v. Fam. Prac. & Inj. Ctr., Inc., 437 F. Supp. 3d 1108, 1127 (M.D. Fla. 2020); see also Comerinsky v. Augusta Coating & Mfg., LLC, 418 F. Supp. 3d 1252, 1262 (S.D. Ga. 2019) (holding that “forcing [plaintiff] to work through lunch breaks off the clock, run personal errands for [her supervisor], and perform tasks against medical advice” is a “concrete example[ ] of how the alleged harassment changed the terms and conditions of Plaintiff’s employment.”). Calling White old—even if as often as three times per week—and assigning him difficult cases with little assistance may be objectively offensive. (Doc. 54 ¶ 50.) But this behavior does not rise to a level that would change the terms of his employment. See King v. CVS Caremark Corp., 2 F. Supp. 3d 1252, 1262 (N.D. Ala. 2014) (holding that a supervisor’s numerous non-threatening retirement-related comments, write-ups for trivial performance issues, a constant barrage of unjustified and petty criticisms of his work, name-calling such as “liar,” “thief” and “lazy,” and a subsequent discharge of employment were not severe and pervasive job-altering harassment).
Based on this, held the court, dismissal was warranted.