Court Opinion

ID: 9710640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:13:51.542887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:58.681430
License: Public Domain

*524GARIBALDI, J.,
dissenting in part, concurring in part.
This appeal presents the primary issue of whether a single racial slur created a hostile work environment in violation of the Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -42. It also presents the issue of whether a single racial slur can support claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and for prima facie tort. The trial court dismissed all of plaintiffs claims. The Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal. The majority here reversed the dismissal of plaintiffs LAD claim and claim for emotional distress, but affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff’s prima facie tort claim. I would affirm the Appellate Division and dismiss all of plaintiffs claims.
I

LAD CLAIM

I agree with the majority that the standards established in Lehmann v. Toys ‘R’ Us, Inc., 132 N.J. 587, 626 A.2d 445 (1993), apply to racial discrimination cases, that a single incident of racial harassment may be severe enough to produce a hostile work environment, and that the fact the single remark here was made by the Sheriff is a factor to be considered. However, I believe, as did the trial court and the Appellate Division, that “despite the defendant’s deplorable use of a racial slur, ‘the workplace, objectively viewed, [was] not hostile.’ ”
Although a single incident of racial harassment can result in a hostile work environment, “it will be a rare and extreme case in which a single incident will be so severe that it would ... make the working environment hostile.” Lehmann, supra, 132 N.J. at 606-07, 626 A.2d 445. As the majority properly recognizes, “usually repeated racial slurs must form the basis for finding that a hostile work environment has been created.” Ante at 500, 706 A.2d at 690 (citations omitted); see also Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir.1991) (“Although a single act can be enough, ... generally repeated incidents create a stronger claim of hostile *525environment, with the strength of the claim depending on the number of incidents and the intensity of each incident.”) (quoting King v. Board of Regents, 898 F.2d 533, 537 (7th Cir.1990)).
It is the “harasser’s conduct, not the plaintiffs injury, that must be severe or pervasive.” Lehmann, supra, 132 N.J. at 610, 626 A.2d 445. Because the Sheriff, plaintiffs supervisor, made the remark, its severity is exacerbated. Nonetheless, while the Sheriff’s remark was extremely offensive, demeaning and humiliating, he used the racial epithet only once. Moreover, although he was reluctant to apologize, the Sheriff promptly offered a written apology that plaintiff refused. Furthermore, plaintiff, who has worked in the Sheriffs office since 1972, never alleged any other incident of discrimination by the Sheriff or by any other member of the Sheriffs office. Indeed, plaintiff received commendations from the Sheriff for her work.
As the Appellate Division properly concluded, plaintiff experienced no adverse consequences in the terms of her employment. There was no change in plaintiffs employment status. Her working conditions were not altered. There was no interference with her work performance. She remained a sheriffs officer, continued her assigned duties, and lost no time from her work. Furthermore, there was no reduction in salary and plaintiff lost no wages as a result of the incident.
The majority attempts to excuse plaintiffs failure to prove a change in her working conditions by changing the Lehmann standard and asserting that “[t]he test of severity adopted by this Court in Lehmann does not in all cases require evidence of an actual change in working conditions.” Ante at 505, 706 A.2d at 692. I disagree. The majority fails to recognize that “the hostile work environment is the legally recognized harm.” Lehmann, supra, 132 N.J. at 610, 626 A.2d 445. Plaintiff has failed to show that her working conditions were affected by the harassment “to the point at which a reasonable woman would consider the working environment hostile.” Ibid. That she has not proven a change in conditions is not surprising since plaintiffs major contention is *526that, in a racial discrimination ease under LAD, it is not necessary to establish a hostile work environment. Heneé, she has presented little evidence of such an environment. In her complaint, plaintiff merely alleges that she “suffered an emotional insult to her sense of well-being.”
By holding that a single racial slur that does not result in any “actual change in working conditions,” ante at 505, 706 A.2d at 692, is severe enough to create a hostile work environment resulting in a LAD violation, the Court has substantially changed the Lehmann standard and enlarged the scope of LAD. It also reflects a departure from the United States Supreme Court’s treatment of single racial slurs. The Supreme Court has observed that under Title VII, a single racial epithet, although extremely offensive to an employee, does not affect the terms, conditions or privileges of employment. Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405, 91 L.Ed.2d 49, 60 (1986) (‘mere utterance of an ethnic or racial epithet which engenders offensive feelings in an employee’ would not affect the conditions of employment to [a] sufficiently significant degree [so as] to violate Title VII)) (quoting Rogers v. EEOC, 454 F.2d 234, 238 (5th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 957, 92 S.Ct. 2058, 32 L.Ed.2d 343 (1972)); see also Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 904 (11th Cir.1982) (quoting same).
The majority also adopts a different view of a single racial slur than is found in the law of defamation. Recognizing the “chilling effect such a holding would cast over a person’s freedom of expression,” most courts do not find words of “bigotry or racism to constitute actionable defamation, thus protecting the freedom to express even unpopular, ugly and hateful, political, religious, and social opinions.” Ward v. Zelikovsky, 136 N.J. 516, 533, 536, 643 A.2d 972 (1994). Although the Sheriffs remark was morally repugnant and reprehensible, I believe that it was not severe enough to result in a LAD violation. The Court has come perilously close to punishing the Sheriff not for creating a hostile work environment under LAD, but solely for his speech.
*527I conclude that the record fails to support the majority’s conclusion that the Sheriffs single remark was severe enough to constitute a LAD violation. I would affirm the order of summary judgment for defendant on the LAD claim.
II

Infliction of Emotional Distress

In order to state a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, “plaintiff must establish intentional and outrageous conduct by the defendant, proximate cause, and distress that is severe.” Buckley v. Trenton Sav. Fund Soc’y, 111 N.J. 355, 366, 544 A.2d 857 (1988). “The conduct must be ‘so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.’” Ibid, (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 46 comment d).
Even if plaintiffs LAD claim were established, not every instance of discriminatory harassment in the workplace rises to the level of intentional infliction of emotional distress. In a LAD claim, “[t]he plaintiffs injury need be no more tangible or serious than the conditions of employment have been altered and the work environment has become abusive.” Lehmann, supra, 132 N.J. at 610, 626 A.2d 445. Generally, however, that kind of injury will not be sufficient to meet the level of harm required for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
As the majority recognizes, most jurisdictions have held that a supervisor’s uttering racial slurs toward his subordinates is not extreme and outrageous conduct that would give rise to an intentional infliction of emotional distress cause of action. See, e.g., Ugalde v. W.A. McKenzie Asphalt Co., 990 F.2d 239, 243 (5th Cir.1993) (holding supervisor’s repeatedly uttering epithets toward Mexican-American employee was not extreme and outrageous conduct and thus not intentional infliction of emotional distress); Lay v. Roux Lab., 379 So.2d 451, 452 (Fla.App.1980) (finding *528supervisor’s threatening to terminate subordinate and uttering racial epithets was not sufficiently outrageous or atrocious to state intentional infliction of emotional distress claim); Bradshaw v. Swagerty, 1 Kan.App.2d 213, 563 P.2d 511, 514 (1977) (“[T]he trial court was fully justified in regarding the [racial] epithets complained of here as ‘mere insults’ of the kind which must be tolerated in our roughedged society.”); Ante at 510, 706 A.2d at 694. Indeed, the majority fails to cite a single case that holds that a single racial slur is severe enough to support a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Courts also have held that other forms of racial and religious harassment are not sufficient to support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. See Vance v. Southern Bell Tel. and Tel. Co., 983 F.2d 1573, 1575 n. 7 (11th Cir.1993) (holding racial harassment was not intentional infliction of emotional distress); Bouie v. Autozone, Inc., 959 F.2d 875, 877-78 (10th Cir.1992) (holding supervisor’s repeated use of racial slurs outside the plaintiffs presence was not intentional infliction of emotional distress); McCray v. DPC Indus., Inc., 875 F.Supp. 384, 391-92 (E.D.Tex.1995) (holding racial harassment was not intentional infliction of emotional distress); Vaughn v. Ag Processing Inc., 459 N.W.2d 627, 636 (Iowa 1990) (holding religious harassment was not intentional infliction of emotional distress).
Certainly, the use of any religious, ethnic or racial slur must be strongly disapproved and condemned. However, the fact that we view the alleged conduct as being deplorable and reprehensible does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that it arose to such a level that the law must provide a remedy.
[Leibowitz v. Bank Leumi Trust Co. of N.Y., 152 A.D.2d 169, 548 N.Y.S.2d 513, 521 (1989).]
Whether defendant’s conduct occurs at the workplace or on the street, plaintiff must prove not only that she subjectively suffered severe emotional distress, Buckley, supra, 111 N.J. at 366, 544 A.2d 857, but that an average African American would suffer severe emotional distress. Decker v. Princeton Packet, 116 N.J. 418, 430, 561 A.2d 1122 (1989). The Court in Buckley, supra, stated that “[t]he severity of the emotional distress raises ques*529tions of both law and fact,” and it is the trial judge who “decides whether as a matter of law such emotional distress can be found, and the jury decides whether it has in fact been proved.” 111 N.J. at 367, 544 A.2d 857.
Even assuming that the Sheriffs conduct was sufficient to constitute a violation of LAD, his conduct was not sufficiently outrageous to cause the average person to experience severe emotional distress. Being the target of a racial epithet would cause mental anguish and emotional turmoil, including nervousness and sleep loss, in the average person. However, to recover for intentional infliction of emotional distress, as opposed to hostile work environment discrimination, plaintiff must suffer more than aggravation, embarrassment, sleep loss, headaches, and nervous tension. Buckley, supra, 111 N.J. at 368, 544 A.2d 857. I conclude in the circumstances of this ease that a single racial epithet, though uttered by a superior,.would not cause severe emotional distress in an African American of ordinary experience and normal constitution, sensitivity and susceptibilities.
Plaintiffs evidence supports that conclusion. Plaintiff described her distress at her deposition. Although the evidence was clear that she had never been physically threatened by the Sheriff or anyone from the Sheriffs office, in response to the question of why she was going to a psychiatrist, she replied:
A. Because of what I was going through.
Q. What were you going through:
A. I was nervous all the time, scared, I was scared to go anywhere by myself and frightened to walk out from the job alone, and I was just a nervous wreck.
Similarly, those were the kinds of complaints she reported to Dr. Ira L. Fox, the psychiatrist she had seen on a periodic basis from May 1992 to March 1993. In Dr. Fox’s first report dated June 2,1992, he reported that plaintiff told him:
I’m scared because I don’t know what is next for me. I don’t leave home the same time everyday anymore and I don’t go home the same way everyday anymore.
Since this began to unfold I’ve been losing my hair since the problems started. *530I’m scared. I’m a nervous wreck. I live alone. She told me that she feels as if she is being watched at work and that she has to watch my P’s and Q’s. She had to have her phone number changed because of getting hang-ups.
I bought a bullet proof vest.
I’m hyper as I don’t know what.
My friends keep telling me to calm down.
I don’t want to lose my job.
Dr. Fox concluded as his psychiatric diagnosis: “Adjustment disorder with mixed emotional features directly related to and caused by the recent racial slurs which were reportedly said to her by the Sheriff of Burlington County.”
Because the County changed medical plans and Dr. Fox was not approved under the new plan, plaintiff ceased going to him or to any other psychiatrist. In preparation for the ease on March 18, 1994, however, Dr. Fox again examined plaintiff. He repeated what she had told him:
She wakes up approximately every hour and it could take up to another hour for her to fall asleep. She gets approximately four hours of broken sleep per night.
She is still afraid to go out at night and does not go out alone.
She continues to have many thought intrusions about her current situation. Thoughts about it pop into her head for no apparent reason.
She told me that in the recent past, she saw a TV show in which they were discussing racial slurs and negative words and the terms nigger and jungle bunny were on that list.
If I get a letter about a deposition or anything about this case, I just shake.
She told me that she is no better then she was a year ago and I suggested that she enter therapy via her insurance program if she could not return to my office.
Dr. Fox’s psychiatric diagnosis at that time was as follows: “Revised. In view of the length and of her difficulties and intensity, her diagnosis is being revised to Post-traumatic stress disorder, directly related to and caused by the incident to her person when she was reportedly called a jungle bunny by Mr. Metzger.”
In Lingar v. Live-In Companions, Inc., 300 N.J.Super. 22, 692 A.2d 61 (App.Div.1997), the plaintiffs brought an action against a personal case agency and its employees based on an employee’s allegedly abandoning of the plaintiff and theft of items from his home. In Lingar, the Appellate Division agreed with the trial court that plaintiffs did not show the severity of emotional harm *531required to support a cognizable claim. Id. at 35, 692 A.2d 61 (citing Trisuzzi v. Tabatchnik, 285 N.J.Super. 15, 26, 666 A.2d 543 (App.Div.1995)). The court noted that while both plaintiffs were “acutely upset” by reason of the incident, their emotional distress was not “sufficiently substantial to result in physical illness or serious psychological sequelae.” Id. at 35, 692 A.2d 61 (citations omitted).
Likewise, in the present case, the trial court concluded and the Appellate Division agreed, that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Plaintiff has failed to establish that her emotional distress was sufficiently substantial to result in physical illness or serious psychological harm. In view of her twenty years of service at the office and the lack of any change in her working conditions, plaintiffs fears of going out at night and being subjected to physical violence are not those an average person would suffer as the result of a single racial slur. Indeed, her complaints disclose a level of distress that was remarkably similar to that suffered by Buckley supra, 111 N.J. at 368, 544 A.2d 857, where plaintiff described his distress: “I lost sleep. I was aggravated. I was embarrassed. I developed headaches, and I suffered nervous tension----”
By allowing plaintiffs claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the Court has substantially expanded the scope of that tort. The evidence clearly does not establish that plaintiff’s emotional distress was severe under the Buckley standard or that it was reasonable. I am reluctant to permit recovery of damages for infliction of emotional distress in the absence of severe emotional distress. No court has allowed such a claim for the emotional distress caused by a single racial slur — even one made by an employee’s supervisor. I find that the trial court properly granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the emotional distress claim.
Ill
In this case, the majority has substantially increased the scope of the hostile work environment claim by allowing plaintiff to *532recover for a single racial slur that resulted in no actual change in working conditions and by allowing a claim for emotional distress even though the distress was not substantial. The Court has significantly lessened the “severity” of harassment needed to constitute a LAD violation and the “severity” of emotional distress needed to constitute a claim of emotional distress. There is no legislative mandate requiring such changes. Most importantly, in so holding, the majority has violated our holdings in Lehmann and in Buckley.
I concur in the Court’s dismissal of the prima facie tort. I would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.
For reversal in part and remandment — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN, STEIN and COLEMAN — 6.
Concur in part; dissent in part — Justice GARIBALDI — 1.