Opinion ID: 2977465
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hostile-work-environment claims

Text: In order to establish a hostile-work-environment claim, a plaintiff must present evidence of harassment that “unreasonably interfer[es] with [his or] her work performance and creat[es] an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.” Grace v. USCAR, 521 F.3d 655, 678 (6th Cir. 2008). We have little doubt that, but for the administrative-exhaustion requirement, the plaintiffs in this case presented sufficient evidence of hostile, racist behavior in their work environment to survive a motion for summary judgment on this claim. See Baltimore v. City of 7 No. 08-5180 Jones v. City of Franklin Franklin, No. 3:06-0578, 2007 WL 2123906 at -15 (M.D. Tenn. July 20, 2007) (holding, in a companion case to the one before us, that evidence submitted by the black firefighter with the City of Franklin was enough to present a hostile-work-environment claim to a jury where the firefighter had alleged sufficient facts in his EEOC charge to exhaust his administrative remedies). The issue presented here, however, is whether the present four plaintiffs exhausted their administrative remedies so that the district court could hear their hostile-work-environment claims. See Strouss v. Mich. Dept. of Corrections, 250 F.3d 336, 342 (6th Cir. 2001) (noting that district courts may not hear Title VII claims “unless the claimant explicitly files the claim in an EEOC charge or the claim can be reasonably expected to grow out of the EEOC charge.”). In addition, we must consider whether the plaintiffs complied with the one-year statute of limitations under the THRA.
In granting summary judgment in favor of the City, the district court concluded that the EEOC charges filed by the plaintiffs did not include sufficient allegations to trigger an investigation of the allegedly hostile work environment. The court itemized the plaintiffs’ various filings with the EEOC, discussed above, and stated that “[t]he EEOC would not have been prompted to investigate racially derogatory statements and epithets used against . . . African Americans in the Fire Department because no such racial harassment was reported to have occurred.” For that reason, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had not exhausted their administrative remedies with respect to the hostile-work-environment claims. 8 No. 08-5180 Jones v. City of Franklin The plaintiffs argue that they provided sufficient notice to the EEOC to satisfy the administrative-exhaustion requirement. But each of the plaintiffs’ written filings with the EEOC focused on discrete acts of discrimination, such as the reduction of evaluation scores and the failure of the City to award promotions to the plaintiffs. Only one racist comment was mentioned—the “rug head” remark—and that comment was directly tied to the failure to promote one of the plaintiffs’ black colleagues. The plaintiffs claim to have verbally notified EEOC officials about other facts that support their hostile-work-environment claim, but the record contains no evidence beyond bald, nonspecific assertions that they did so. No decision in this circuit has held that EEOC charges regarding discrete acts of discrimination are alone sufficient to put the EEOC on notice of a hostile-work-environment claim. Several unpublished decisions of this court have in fact held to the contrary. See, e.g., Brown v. City of Cleveland, No. 07-3535, 2008 WL 4372950 at  (6th Cir. Sept. 23, 2008) (holding that an EEOC investigation of a hostile work environment could not reasonably be expected to grow out of a charge describing the denials of a promotion and a handicapped parking space); Scott v. Eastman Chem. Co., 275 F. App’x 466, 475 (6th Cir. April 22, 2008) (“[The plaintiff] failed to exhaust her hostile environment claim, as she offered no evidence that the EEOC actually investigated this claim or that such claims could reasonably be expected to grow out of the charge.”). Published decisions in at least two other circuits have reached similar conclusions. See Chacko v. Patuxent Inst., 429 F.3d 505, 511 (4th Cir. 2005) (“The sharp differences between [the] evidence [presented for trial] and the allegations in [the plaintiff’s] administrative charges compel the conclusion that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.”); Cheek v. Western & Southern 9 No. 08-5180 Jones v. City of Franklin Life Ins. Co., 31 F.3d 497, 503 (7th Cir. 1994) (“When an EEOC charge alleges a particular theory of discrimination, allegations of a different type of discrimination in a subsequent complaint are not reasonably related to them unless the allegations in the complaint can be reasonably inferred from the facts alleged in the charge.”). In sum, we agree with the district court’s conclusion that the plaintiffs did not alert the EEOC to the offensive incidents they now report. The district court therefore did not err in dismissing the plaintiffs’ hostile-work-environment claims brought under Title VII.
The plaintiffs also brought their hostile-work-environment claims under the THRA. Regarding the THRA, the district court concluded that the claims had not been filed within the oneyear limitations period imposed by the statute. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-311(d). On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that, “[g]iven that [they] . . . filed suit within one (1) year of the last act in a hostile environment, their claims are timely.” But they identify no specific facts probative of a hostile work environment that occurred during the year that preceded the filing of their complaints. Instead, they simply assert that, “[f]or purposes of computing the applicable period of time, it is important to note that Plaintiffs’ claims for racial discrimination are under a ‘hostile working environment theory.’” Because no allegations were made of specific incidents that occurred within the one-year period, we conclude that the THRA claims are time-barred. See Brown v. City of Springhill, No. 01:06-0098, 2008 WL 974729 at  (M.D. Tenn. April 8, 2008) (holding that where the plaintiff’s allegations concerning a hostile work environment consist of facts that occurred more than one year before the filing of the complaint, such a claim is time-barred). 10 No. 08-5180 Jones v. City of Franklin