In Irrion Conaler v. Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Office of Juvenile Justice, No. CV 25-899, 2026 WL 1030425 (E.D. La. Apr. 16, 2026), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s retaliatory hostile work environment claim.
From the decision:
Defendant argues that Plaintiffs have failed to state a cognizable Title VII retaliatory harassment claim in Count 3 of their Amended Complaint because their claim is “based on the totality of the conduct by their supervisors.”70 Defendant states that a retaliatory hostile work environment claim under Title VII has never been recognized by the Fifth Circuit and is thus foreclosed as a matter of law.71 Plaintiffs respond that both the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court recognize a cause of action under Title VII for unlawful retaliation and that the statute further prohibits “an employer from discriminating against an employee because that individual opposed any practice made unlawful by Title VII or made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in a Title VII proceeding or investigation.72 ” Plaintiffs aver that they have sufficiently pleaded a claim for hostile work environment. Plaintiffs do not deny Defendant’s assertion in its motion that their claim for hostile work environment is one based on retaliation.73
The Fifth Circuit “has not recognized a retaliatory hostile work environment cause of action.”74 While Plaintiff relies on the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Jones v. Flagship International, which found that the plaintiff in that case had established a prima facie case of retaliation under Title VII, the retaliation in that case stemmed from the employer’s suspension and termination of the employee, not a hostile work environment.75 This decision did not create a retaliatory hostile work environment claim in the circuit and, rather, addressed a claim for retaliation under Title VII.76 Because the Fifth Circuit has never recognized such a claim, the Court finds that the claim is not legally cognizable under Fifth Circuit precedent.
Based on this, the court held that dismissal of plaintiff’s claim of retaliatory hostile work environment would be dismissed.