In Buckner v. AT&T Inc. et al, No. 4:25-CV-01569-JMD, 2026 WL 2793530 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 17, 2026), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s race-based hostile work environment claim.
From the decision:
To establish a prima facie case for hostile work environment, a plaintiff must show: (1) she belongs to a protected group; (2) she was subject to unwelcome harassment; (3) a casual nexus exists between the harassment and the protected group status; (4) the harassment affected a term, condition, or privilege of employment; and (5) her employer knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take proper action. As to the fourth element, at the pleading phase, the court must determine whether the alleged harassment is severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environment and the victim must subjectively believe her working conditions have been altered. This is a high threshold. The Court looks at the totality of the circumstances, including the frequency and severity of the discriminatory conduct, whether the conduct was physically threatening or humiliating, as opposed to a mere offense utterance, and whether the conduct unreasonably interfered with the employee’s work performance. Also, the Court examines the evidence as a whole, treating allegations as examples, not as an exhaustive litany of incidents. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has cautioned courts to be alert for workplace behavior that does not rise to the level of actionable harassment. Considering Buckner’s complaint as a whole, the Court concludes that her complaint does not plausibly allege a hostile work environment.
First, Buckner alleges that Lynch referred to her “predominantly Black training group as the ‘lynch mob’ during a Microsoft Teams training session. As already explained, Buckner has failed to allege any additional context necessary to draw an inference of racial harassment, especially in light of the obvious alternative explanation that Lynch’s single use of the term “lynch mob” was a reference to her own last name. And even assuming that the Court could draw the inference, the single remark is legally insufficient to establish a claim for a hostile work environment. Although a single, extremely serious incident may be sufficient to establish an effect on an employee’s work condition, Title VII is not necessarily violated by a few isolated racial slurs. Lynch’s remark was not unambiguously a racial slur, and it was not directed specifically at Buckner. … Buckner identifies a single ambiguous incident, not a steady barrage of opprobrious racial comments. … At most, Lynch’s comment was a mere offensive utterance. That is not sufficient to satisfy the high threshold for a claim of a hostile work environment.
Second, as discussed above, Buckner alleges that Lynch issued inaccurate attendance warnings, and she also alleges that AT&T’s stated reasons for terminating her—e.g., stretching her leg, applying makeup during a training call—were inconsistent with how other employees were treated. Disparate treatment of employees of different races might be evidence of a hostile work environment. But Buckner never mentions the protected characteristics of other employees. Thus, the Court is unable to conclude that Buckner was treated differently based on protected characteristics.
Finally, Buckner alleges that she was subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment during her termination—including being escorted from the building under surveillance. But this conduct occurred during and after termination, so it cannot be said to have unreasonably interfered with her work performance. Also, Buckner does not provide any facts to suggest that her being escorted out of the building had a racial character or purpose.
(Citations, bracketing, and quotation marks omitted; cleaned up.)
The court concluded by noting that, without more facts, plaintiff’s complaint does not plausibly allege a hostile work environment.