How Employers Attempt To Explain Away A Hostile Work Environment: The Harassment Was “Just Joking”
Through their decades of experience representing hostile work environment harassment victims, our employment discrimination lawyers in Citrus County, Florida know that employers’ resort to a broad array of disingenuous defenses against hostile work environment harassment claims. In the context of racial and national origin harassment claims, employers invariably contend, even in the most egregious cases, that the harasser was only “just joking.” Having characterized the harassment as “just joking,” employers then maintain that the harasser did not intend to offend or cause harm. As the harasser was “just joking” and did not intend to offend or cause harm, employers then attempt to convince courts that the harassment could not create a hostile work environment in violation of employment discrimination law because a reasonable person would not have found the work environment hostile or abusive.
In this article, our employment discrimination lawyers in Citrus County, Florida explain how the decision in Lee v. Riverbay Corporation, 2024 WL 431216 (S.D. N.Y. Sept. 27, 2024) illustrates that an employer’s “just joking” defense does not prevent the creation of a hostile working environment in violation of employment discrimination law.
Hostile Work Environment Harassment
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) protects employees from discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, sex, and religion. Under well-established law, harassment on the basis of race, national origin, sex, or religion is a form of race discrimination, national origin discrimination, sex discrimination, or religious discrimination prohibited by Title VII. To violate Title VII, the harassment must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms, conditions, or privileges of the victim’s employment and create a hostile or abusive working environment.
Showing that the harassment affected a term, condition, or privilege of the victim’s employment consists of an objective and subjective component. The subjective component requires the victim to show that he or she actually perceived the environment to be hostile or abusive. The objective component requires the victim to show that the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive. An employer’s “just joking” defense to hostile work environment harassment claims targets the objective component. If the employer can persuade a judge or jury that the harasser was “just joking,” then the employer will argue that it entitled to prevail because a reasonable person would not have found the work environment hostile or abusive as the harasser was “just joking.”
Hostile Work Environment Lawsuit
In Lee, a man named Lee brought a hostile work environment harassment case against his former employer, Riverbay Corporation (“Riverbay”), pursuant to Title VII. Lee claims that he was harassed because of his race and Korean national origin in violation of Title VII.
Lee alleges that, shortly after he was hired in February 2018, he became the target of derogatory race-based and national origin-based comments from a management-level employee, Mitchell, which continued until the end of Lee’s employment in June 2022. For example, Lee alleges that Mitchell called him “Bruce Lee” whenever the two would encounter each other, and repeatedly asked Lee why he did not own a dry-cleaning business “like other Korean people.” On one occasion, according to Lee, Mitchell interrupted a meeting between Lee and other employees, looked at Lee and said, “Look at Bruce Lee over here, look at what he looks like when he smiles, the look on his face.” On another occasion, in June 2021, Lee alleges that in the presence of other employees, Mitchell looked at him and said, “Look how dark he is, he really looks South Korean now.” Lee further alleges that, around the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, his co-workers began to make comment that “associated [Lee] with COVID-19 due to his Asian heritage.”
“Just Joking” Defense Rejected
Riverbay filed a motion with the trial court seeking dismissal of Lee’s hostile work environment harassment claim. In moving for dismissal, Riverbay argued that the alleged discriminatory comments were just “jokes.” The trial court rejected Riverbay’s “just joking” defense and ruled that Lee had alleged sufficient facts to state a hostile work environment harassment claim.
In rejecting Riverbay’s “just joking” defense, the trial court explained that courts have ruled that “a work environment may be actionable if the conduct is either so severe or pervasive as to alter the working conditions of a reasonable employee.” In applying this principle, the trial court found that because Lee “has alleged frequent insulting and racially-charged comments that continued for years—despite multiple reports and acknowledgement by at least one supervisor that such comments were inappropriate—[Lee] has pleaded sufficient facts to establish that a reasonable person would find the conduct to be hostile or abusive.”
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Citrus County, FL Discrimination Lawyers
Based in Ocala, Florida and representing workers throughout Florida, our employment discrimination lawyers in Citrus County, Florida have litigated employment discrimination cases in Florida courts for more than twenty years. If you have endured workplace discrimination or have questions about your protection from employment discrimination under employment discrimination law, please contact our office for a free consultation with our employment discrimination lawyers in Citrus County, Florida. Our employee rights law firm takes employment discrimination cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that there are no attorney’s fees incurred unless there is a recovery, and our attorney’s fees come solely from the monetary award that you recover.