Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—W.D. Pa.: Isolated use of racial epithet not sufficient to establish hostile work environment, (Sep 26, 2025)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

Whether a single workplace incident can rise to the level of severity needed to be actionable is a context-specific inquiry.

The isolated use of a racial epithet by an HR official was insufficient to establish a pervasively racially hostile work environment, a federal district court in Pennsylvania ruled. The employee, a direct support professional for a residential facility, could not show the epithet—“ni**a”—was directed at her because of her race nor that the language was so extreme that it altered the terms and conditions of her employment. Consequently, her suit alleging hostile work environment did not survive summary judgment (Stallworth v. Weiblinger’s Residential Care, Inc., No. 2:23cv1638 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 23, 2025)).

The employee, an African-American female, worked as a direct support professional for the residential care facility for adults with intellectual and mental disabilities living independently. In October 2022, she attended orientation and training at the employer’s corporate office. The employer’s HR director led the training session one-on-one. During training, the HR director instructed the employee not to swear around clients because they had a demonstrated tendency to repeat unsavory language.

Racial slur. With further anecdotal specificity, he told the employee not to speak the “A-word,” the “B-word” and the “F-bomb.” He then gave an example which the employee recounted as follows: “this guy was on the phone and the person he was on the phone with was saying the word n**ga and the client started saying it and that I shouldn't say the n**ga word because you can't say n**ga around clients because they'll—they'll repeat it.”

Investigation. Upset with the HR director’s language, the employee complained to the employer’s program manger. The employer then described the incident to the Chief Operating Officer. She then spoke with the employer’s certified internal investigator and voluntarily drafted a handwritten statement regarding the incident. An internal investigation concluded that the HR director “used the racial slur not in malice but in ignorance.” Based on this finding, the employer determined that the incident was insufficient to warrant suspension but required the HR director to take a class on sensitivity and tolerance.

Forced resignation. Subsequently, the employer assigned the employee to work with a hostile and violent client, whereupon she became involved in incidents involving the police, an ambulance, and the hospital. Although she complained to the manager, the employer allegedly did nothing to alleviate the situation. Consequently, the employee contended that the work environment forced her to resign.

She then sued, alleging hostile work environment and retaliation under Title VII and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. The employer moved for summary judgment.

Racially hostile work environment claim. The employer maintained that the employee failed to show the conduct in question was directed at her because of her race. For her part, the employee implied that the HR director chose that specific anecdote and spoke the slur aloud because she was African American, she pointed to the official’s flippant assertion he could use such language because he attended diversity training, and she contended that she became upset after hearing the narrative and the manager immediately sought to comfort her and assist her in making a report of the incident.

Rather crucially, however, she testified that the HR director did not use the language with a racist tilt. Instead, she opined that he was using the slur “in the context as like you would to talk to a friend, like a nickname you would have for a friend. Like in a - - almost endearing kind of way.” Viewing the evidence as a whole, the court found it insufficient to create a material fact dispute as to whether he intended to subject the employee to racial harassment through a pernicious anecdote.

To the contrary, said the court, the record only supported a finding that the HR director stumbled through a teaching moment and made the statement “ignorantly but without malice.” In other words, a reasonable factfinder could not view the evidence as showing that the employer’s treatment of the employee was attributable to her race. Therefore, the employee could not establish the first element of a hostile work environment.

Severe/pervasive. But even assuming the employee could satisfy the first element, said the court, her claim of hostile environment still would fail because she could not establish that she suffered severe or pervasive harassment. Here, observed the court, the harassment occurred in one isolated incident. The HR official gave the employee a prior example of what-not-to-do when speaking with clients and, in poor taste, he spoke the language a previous employee had used to a client and in doing so conveyed an anecdote demonstrating how clients could repeat the language spoken in their presence.

In providing the example, he chose to speak a racial epithet aloud. The employee conceded that the HR official did not provide the example in a way that was intended to be derogatory or demeaning to her because of the color of her skin or her racial heritage. Indeed, she testified that he did not use the epithet to directly disparage, insult, or intimidate her. Given these context-specific circumstances, a reasonable finder of fact could not conclude that the offhanded anecdote was so extreme that it altered the terms and conditions of her employment.

Failure to discipline. The employee’s attempt to bolster the discriminatory severity of this vignette by highlighting that the employer failed to discipline the HR director was unavailing. To be sure, said the court, an employer's failure to take adequate measures to control or eliminate ongoing harassment in the work environment can contribute to its severity and/or pervasiveness. That said, the employee failed to advance any evidence to support her contention that the employer’s handling of the incident led to additional or other incidents of harassment. The only fact the employee cited to support the notion that the environment was made worse by the employer’s response was that the HR official was not disciplined beyond being required to attend sensitivity training. However, the employee did not offer any facts on how this asserted lack of discipline impacted her actual working environment.

There was no genuine dispute of material fact that the employer investigated the matter and took measures to address the HR official’s misconduct. And the employer changed its training protocol to avoid any similar incidents in the future. The employee had no evidence that this state of affairs impacted or otherwise altered her day-to-day work environment. Thus, the measures the employer took to address the HR official’s conduct added nothing to the assessment that the employee lacked sufficient evidence to satisfy the severe or pervasive element.

Retaliation claim. The employee briefly raised an inference that the employer assigned her to difficult clients in retaliation for reporting the HR official. This was also devoid of evidentiary support, said the court. There was no genuine dispute that she sought employment because of the cash bonus opportunity from working with difficult clients and that she herself pursued this opportunity after the incident with the HR official. The record indicated that the employee engaged in voluntary discussions with her manager regarding the assignment to difficult clients in order to obtain the bonus. And she failed to produce evidence that she was given a more taxing client as opposed to other alternatives that were available at that time. Further, she testified that it was the stress from the difficult client that induced her to resign. Under these circumstances, the mere fact that one event followed the other did not supply a causal relationship between the two. Nor did it supply a basis to infer that the employer made the assignment based on a retaliatory or discriminatory basis.

The case is No. 2:23cv1638.

Judge: Cercone, D.

Attorneys: Graham Baird (Law Office of Eric A. Shore) for Lynn Stallworth. Trisha A. Gill (Litchfield Cavo) for Weiblinger’s Residential Care, Inc.

Companies: Weiblinger’s Residential Care, Inc.

Cases: RaceDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation PennsylvaniaNews