In Perelman v. Federal Reserve District Bank of New York, No. 1:25-CV-02125 (JLR), 2026 WL 1584729 (S.D.N.Y. June 3, 2026), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s “hostile hiring environment” claim:
Plaintiff also claims that Defendant created a “hostile hiring environment” under these same federal statutes by failing to hire him. AC ¶ 3. The Amended Complaint cites to no authority indicating that such a claim exists, nor is the Court independently aware of any such authority. In asserting this claim, the Amended Complaint cites only to case law concerning hostile work environment. See, e.g., id. ¶ 23. But that claim is unavailable to Plaintiff under the federal laws at issue here, because he was never employed by Defendant or otherwise part of its work environment. See Banks v. Gen. Motors, LLC, 81 F.4th 242, 261 (2d Cir. 2023) (explaining that a hostile work environment plaintiff must show “that the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).5 That is fatal. See Perelman, 2026 WL 696886, at *8 (“[S]omeone who was never interviewed, let alone hired, cannot state a hostile work environment claim.”); see also Areu v. Fox News Network, LLC, No. 20-cv-08678 (RA), 2021 WL 4124226, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 9, 2021) (“[A]n employer logically cannot discriminate against a person in the ‘conditions or privileges of employment if no employment relationship exists,” because “[i]t is inherent in the definition of a hostile work environment that the person against whom the hostility is directed must be in an employment relationship with the employer.” (first quoting Wang v. Phx. Satellite Television US, Inc., 976 F. Supp. 2d 527, 532 (S.D.N.Y. 2012); and then quoting Wimmer v. Suffolk Cnty. Police Dep’t, 176 F.3d 125, 136 (2d Cir. 1999))); Ruggiero v. Dynamic Elec. Sys. Inc., No. 12-cv-00100 (ILG), 2012 WL 3043102, at *8 (E.D.N.Y. July 25, 2012) (discussing Title VII and explaining that “every iteration of the elements of a hostile work environment claim has required an existing employer-employee relationship and a showing that the harassment substantively affected the plaintiff’s working conditions”).
In his opposition to Defendant’s motion to dismiss, Plaintiff cites several cases purportedly supporting the premises that Title VII’s protection of job applicants also “extends to [hostile work environment]” claims, Opp. at 10 & n.2, and that an employer’s harassing conduct prior to an employee’s start date may be relevant to a hostile work environment claim, see id. at 10 & n.3. None of those cases demonstrates the existence of a claim for hostile hiring environment (or so-called “hostile professional ostracism,” id. at 11), and none undermines the Court’s conclusion that a plaintiff cannot bring a hostile work environment claim against an employer for whom he has never worked in any capacity. See, e.g., Popat v. Levy, 253 F. Supp. 3d 527, 531 (W.D.N.Y. 2017) (characterizing plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim as “arising out of his employment”); Morales-Evans v. Admin. Office of the Courts of N.J., 102 F. Supp. 2d 577, 587 (D.N.J. 2000) (finding “evidence of post-interview but pre-employment harassment” relevant to “the hostile work environment inquiry” for plaintiff who was ultimately employed by defendant); Opp. at 10 nn. 2-3 (citing both Popat and Morales-Evans).
Accordingly, the court concluded that plaintiff’s hostile hiring environment claim — both as pleaded and construed liberally as a hostile work environment claim — would be dismissed.