Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—D.D.C.: Hospital clerk fired two-and-a-half months after complaint to HR advances retaliation claim, (Aug 25, 2025)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

The employee alleged she was called “snitch” because of her complaints or “Cinderella” to mock her gender and cleanliness.

Retaliation claims brought by a hospital clerk, terminated after her medical leave ended, survived a motion to dismiss. The federal district court for the District of Columbia ruled that the employee could proceed on her retaliation claim based on the theory that the hospital terminated her in retaliation for her complaints to HRs about an alleged assault by a hospital employee two and a half months prior to her termination. Her allegations were narrowly sufficient to establish an inference of causation at the motion to dismiss stage, the court held. Because she failed to plausibly allege severe or pervasive conduct, however, the court dismissed her hostile work environment claims (Dews v. Howard University Hospital, No. 24-cv-01490 (DLF) (D.D.C. Aug. 15, 2025)).

Alleged harassment. The employee worked as a unit clerk in a hospital’s surgical intensive care unit. She alleged that she was subjected to “ongoing and continuous” sexual harassment based on her gender by a coworker, management, and a male employee. The coworker allegedly engaged in a “pattern of harassment,” by yelling and expressing open hostility towards the employee, enlisting other employees to create a hostile work environment for her, and calling her names, mocking her gender and cleanliness.

The employee said she “repeatedly reported” the coworker’s actions to her manager, who advised her to escalate her complaints to the HR department. When she did so, she claimed that the Director of Nursing warned her that “continued complaints could lead to termination,” dismissed her concerns, and “told her never to return with similar complaints.” At some point during her employment, “management” also allegedly commented that her buttocks were “too big” to wear scrubs.

Assault allegations. The employee further alleged that a male employee sexually assaulted her on two occasions. In March 2022, she clamed he aggressively grabbed her waist and buttocks. She did not report this incident to HR. Rather, she requested a transfer to a specific department. Instead, the hospital transferred her to a different unit where she worked on different floors daily, was assigned less desirable shifts and tasks, and faced “increased workload, lack of stable assignment, and being floated to different units.”

Report to HR. In September 2022, she alleged that the same employee again grabbed her buttocks, sang inappropriate songs, became aggressive, and stated that she “act[ed] like a little as* girl.” The employee reported the September incident to HR. Despite a promise that another representative would call her the next day, she did not receive any further communications about the incident.

Separated. The employee began medical leave on September 21, 2022. To support her leave, she sent the hospital her medical notes, the last of which stated that she was “not cleared to return” because of “the trauma and unsafe environment she experienced.” When the employee’s approved leave ended on December 8, the hospital notified her that her employment also ended due to “separation of employment.” She alleged that she was constructively terminated, as she was not medically cleared to “return to an environment where her safety was not guaranteed.”

The employee sued the hospital, alleging gender discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the D.C. Human Rights Act (DCHRA). The hospital moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Discriminatory hostile work environment claim. The court determined that the employee did not allege sufficiently severe or pervasive discriminatory conduct to establish a hostile working environment. She asserted that the coworker yelled at her, mocked her, and called her names like “snitch” and “Cinderella.” But petty insults, vindictive behavior, and angry recriminations are “ordinary tribulations of the workplace” that do not support a hostile work environment claim, the court said. And management’s remark that her buttocks were “too big” was an “offhand comment” and isolated incident that did not affect her employment.

The employee separately claimed that the male employee grabbed her buttocks twice over a six-month period. During the second incident, he also purportedly sang inappropriate songs and called her a “little as* girl.” While frequent patting on the buttocks or escalating sexual advances could suggest severe or pervasive conduct, said the court, isolated instances of unwanted touching with comments like those alleged here, did not “meet the demanding legal standard for a hostile work environment.” Because the employee did not plausibly alleged severe or pervasive conduct, the court dismissed her hostile work environment claims.

Retaliation claims. The court found that the employee sufficiently alleged that she engaged in protected activity when she reported a discriminatory hostile work environment to her manager and to HR on multiple occasions.

Although she also alleged three potential adverse employment actions—a hostile work environment, a transfer, and termination—only her termination supported a cognizable retaliation claim. A retaliatory adverse employment action must be so objectively harmful to an employee’s “working conditions or future employment prospects,” that it would “dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Her firing was a materially adverse action that involved a significant change in employment status. Thus, she plausibly alleged a materially adverse action through her termination.

Because the employee presented no direct evidence of causation, the court relied on an inference drawn from temporal proximity. The employee only alleged one cognizable adverse employment action—her termination on December 9, 2022. That event occurred roughly two and a half months after she last engaged in protected activity by reporting her interaction with the male employee to HR in mid-September. That temporal gap “just barely clears the bar,” said the court.

The hospital offered an alternative, nonretaliatory justification for the termination—she was terminated because “her leave was exhausted and she didn’t return to work.” To support that justification, the hospital presented two exhibits of correspondence between the hospital and the employee. In resolving a motion to dismiss, however, the court may not consider evidence outside the pleadings, and it declined to treat the hospital’s motion as one for summary judgment without an opportunity for the employee to present all pertinent information.

Accordingly, the court concluded that the employee’s allegations were narrowly sufficient to establish an inference of causation at the motion to dismiss stage. It therefore ruled that the employee could proceed on her retaliation claim based on the theory that the hospital terminated her in retaliation for her complaints to HR.

The case is No. 24-cv-01490 (DLF).

Judge: Friedrich, D.

Attorneys: Janelle Jade Romero (Consumer Justice Law Firm) for Christina Dews. Zachary I. Shapiro, Howard University, for Howard University Hospital.

Cases: Retaliation Discrimination SexDiscrimination SexualHarassment Discharge DistrictofColumbiaNews