Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—D.D.C.: Black male employee’s HWE claim, based on White co-worker’s disrespectful treatment, is dismissed, (Feb 12, 2026)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

He alleged that his co-worker cursed at him, flipped him off, and called him a “pathological liar” in front of other employees after discovering that he “was not a ‘die hard’ Baltimore Ravens fan.”

A Black employee’s hostile work environment claim was dismissed by the federal district court in the District of Columbia where he failed to allege it was because of his race and where the conduct the employee complained of was neither severe nor pervasive. His White co-worker’s “boorish” conduct, the court noted, began after he learned that the employee was not a “die hard” Baltimore Ravens fan, there were no slurs or charged language, and it was mostly limited to two company sponsored events. Because the employee failed to adequately allege that any of his complaints put his employer on notice that he was complaining of discrimination based on race, his retaliation claim also failed (Brandon v. Outpost 24, Inc., No. 25-cv-1188 (D.D.C. Feb. 10, 2026)).

The employee worked as an Account Executive for the employer (in a fully remote capacity) and reported to the Senior Vice President of North American Sales, who is a White man. In November 2023, the employee attended a company-sponsored outing at the “Misconduct Tavern” in Philadelphia. During the event, a White co-worker, who was drunk, quarreled with him over football trivia regarding the Baltimore Ravens NFL football team. The salesman repeatedly yelled, “f*ck you,” and called the employee a “bitch” in front of his supervisor and other team members. A few times after the November event, the co-worker also called the employee a “pathological liar” because of the discussion about NFL football teams.

Complaints, more name-calling. The employee complained to his supervisor about the salesman’s conduct. Then, in January 2024, the supervisor reassigned a deal from the employee to the co-worker without explanation. When the employee later complained to the supervisor about the deal being reassigned, the supervisor brought up the fact that the employee had only closed a handful of deals up to that point.

In March 2024, at another company-sponsored event at the same tavern, the co-worker’s behavior at the previous event was brought up and he flipped a middle finger at the employee, told him he was “just being sensitive,” and laughed at him. Subsequently the employee emailed his supervisor, “I can take a joke just as good as anybody else, but [the co-worker is] OBVIOUSLY crossing the line. This is the second time he got drunk and disrespected me in front of you and our teammates.... He’s called me a bitch to my face. He said fuck you way too many times at this point. And then has the audacity to give me the middle finger right in front of you and everyone.” The employee did not indicate in his email that he thought the co-worker’s behavior was racially charged or motivated.

Complained to HR. The employee then filed a formal complaint with HR. In it, the employee described “two separate occurrences” involving the co-worker. In the first occurrence, the co-worker began cursing at him “after learning I was not a ‘die-hard’ Baltimore Ravens fan.” The employee conceded that, although the co-worker “wasn’t trying to punch me or really hurt me,” he did “put his hands on me.” The employee noted that the co-worker called him a pathological liar because of the discussion about NFL football teams. He also described the second incident involving the middle finger. Nowhere in his formal complaint to HR did the employee mention race or discrimination or otherwise indicate that the co-worker’s conduct towards him was racially motivated.

Fired. On April 9, 2024, the supervisor called the employee and told him that he was being let go. The employee was told that he was “the most expensive guy on the team” and his termination was for cost cutting reasons, not performance.

In March 2025, the employee filed suit under the D.C. Human Rights Act (DCHRA) alleging that the employer created a hostile work environment against the employee because of his race and that the supervisor aided and abetted this hostile work environment. The suit also alleged that the employer retaliated against the employee when he complained about the harassing conduct and that the supervisor aided and abetted the retaliation. The employee sought $2 million in damages. The employer and manager moved to dismiss.

HWE claim. To assert a hostile work environment claim, an employee must plausibly allege that he was subjected to “severe or pervasive” harassment based on his membership in a protected class.

The court explained that the employee’s hostile work environment claim failed for two reasons. First, he alleged nothing in the complaint to support a plausible inference that he was subjected to hostility because of his race. Second, the conduct that the employee complained of was neither severe nor pervasive.

No slurs or charged language. On the first point, the employee’s own allegations advanced an “obvious alternative explanation” for the co-worker’s alleged behavior, which indicated that discrimination was not a plausible inference. Specifically, the complaint alleged that the co-worker’s boorish conduct began only after he learned that the employee was not a “die hard” Baltimore Ravens fan. And nowhere in either his email to HR or to his supervisor, did the employee indicate that the co-worker’s behavior was motivated by race. Accordingly, said the court, the employee’s own pleadings raised an obvious alternative explanation for the conduct: a drunken co-worker overzealous about football. Notably, the employee did not allege that the co-worker used any racial slurs or racially charged language at any time.

Although such direct evidence of animus is not necessary, without it the employee must at least allege circumstantial evidence of discrimination, such as evidence that he “was treated differently from similarly situated employees’ outside his protected class.” The employee attempted to make this showing—he vaguely asserted that the co-worker did not treat his other colleagues (who were not African-American/Black) in the same manner. But it is not enough to simply allege that the plaintiff was treated differently from a “similarly situated” comparator, without additional allegations showing the comparators are in fact “similarly situated” in some meaningful respect, said the court. Such an allegation amounts to a “threadbare recital” of a legal conclusion, “devoid of further factual enhancement.” The employee’s conclusory allegation was exactly that, said the court.

Workplace not transformed. The employee’s claim also failed because he did not adequately allege that the co-worker’s conduct transformed his workplace into a hostile work environment. The DCHRA is not a “general civility code” for policing “the ordinary tribulations of the workplace,” said the court. The series of acts giving rise to the alleged hostile environment must be of such severity or pervasiveness as to “alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment,” to the degree that the workplace is “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and/or insult,” or is otherwise transformed into a comparable toxic, discriminatory milieu on a day-to-day basis.

Not objectively abusive. Although a “single” extreme incident, such as the use of an egregious racial epithet by a supervisor, “may be severe enough,” a plaintiff must usually point to “more than a few isolated incidents” of hostile conduct. Moreover, a plaintiff must demonstrate not only that he felt the environment was abusive, but that it “objectively” was. The employee’s allegations, accepted as true, fell short of this “demanding” standard, the court determined.

Sporadic abuse, infrequent exposure. Although the co-worker’s alleged behavior was decidedly boorish, it amounted to two separate occurrences four months apart, interspersed with a “few” instances of the co-worker calling the employee a “pathological liar.” That sort of “sporadic use of abusive language” by a single co-worker was insufficient to transform the workplace into an abusive working environment on a day-to-day basis, said the court, especially here, since the employee worked fully remote and was not exposed to the co-worker on a regular basis. And notably, the employee did not allege that the co-worker used any racial slurs or otherwise racially charged language, much less the sort of extreme racist language that could render more infrequent harassment sufficiently severe. Thus, notwithstanding his aggressive behavior, the co-worker’s conduct only amounted to isolated incidents of mostly verbal, non-racial harassment.

In addition, the court noted that the co-worker’s lack of authority over the employee and lack of status in the workplace meant his harassing conduct had less ability to humiliate the employee or alter his working conditions. Simply put, said the court, the employee’s allegations were not “extreme” enough to establish a hostile workplace “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and/or insult.”

Retaliation claim. To plead a retaliation claim under the DCHRA, a plaintiff must allege, among other things, that he “engaged in protected activity by opposing or complaining about employment practices that are unlawful under the Act.” To satisfy this requirement, the plaintiff must have clearly voiced opposition to the illegal discrimination and must connect the mistreatment to membership in a protected class. Employer awareness that the employee is engaged in protected activity is essential.

The employee alleged that he engaged in protected activity by (1) complaining to his supervisor about the co-worker’s conduct sometime after the November event, (2) emailing a complaint to the supervisor in March, and (3) submitting a formal complaint to HR that same month. But he failed to adequately allege that any of these complaints put his employer on notice that he was complaining of discrimination based on race. True, he stated in conclusory terms that he reported the co-worker’s “discriminatory” behavior. But the employee did not allege that he described the co-worker’s behavior as discriminatory to management, nor did he assert that his complaints mentioned his membership in a protected class, connected the mistreatment he experienced to that membership, or otherwise described the conduct as discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic.

The employee’s emails to the supervisor and HR likewise did not mention “discrimination” by the co-worker, nor did they describe mistreatment motivated by race, only mistreatment motivated by a quarrel over Baltimore Ravens trivia. The employee therefore did not say enough to alert his employer that he was objecting to discrimination based on a protected characteristic.

Because the employee failed to state predicate claims of a hostile work environment or retaliation, his aiding-and-abetting claims against the supervisor necessarily failed. The court therefore granted the motion to dismiss.

The case is No. 25-cv-1188 (TSC).

Judge: Chutkan, T.

Attorneys: Carla Denette Brown (Charlson Bredehoft Cohen Brown & Nadelhaft) for Chad Brandon. Matthew E. Kreiser (Jackson Lewis) for Outpost 24, Inc. d/b/a Specops Software USA, Inc.

Companies: Outpost 24, Inc.; Specops Software USA, Inc.

Cases: RaceDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation StateLawClaims Discharge DistrictofColumbiaNews