Virginia Employment Law Blog
Have you ever wondered how bad your working conditions have to become your work is a “hostile work environment?” A recent case may help you decide whether you’re in a position to take legal action.
Reya Boyer-Liberto, an African-American woman, sued the Fontainebleu Corporation and her boss Leonard Berger for racial discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Liberto alleged that her former employer discriminated against her by allowing a hostile work environment to persist at the hotel where she worked because a coworker yelled at her and called her a “porch monkey” twice within a two-day period.
Despite recognizing the racial slurs as unacceptable, the Fourth Circuit held that Liberto’s coworker’s conduct was too isolated to constitute a hostile work environment, reasoning that a two-day period of racial comments, relating to one altercation, was not sufficiently “severe” or “pervasive” to change a term or condition of her employment or create an abusive workplace atmosphere.