Case: 21-30150 Document: 00516252451 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/24/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
No. 21-30150 March 24, 2022
Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Anthony J. Woods,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
LaToya Cantrell, Mayor, officially; New Orleans City,
officially; French Market Corporation, officially; Rhonda
Sidney, officially and individually; N'Gai Smith, officially and
individually; Robert Matthews, officially; Elizabeth S. Robins,
officially and individually,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
USDC No. 2:20-CV-482
Before Jolly, Willett, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
E. Grady Jolly, Circuit Judge:
This case comes to us from a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of Anthony J.
Woods’s complaint. Woods’s complaint alleges that his prior employer,
French Market Corporation, violated Title VII by discriminating against him
on the basis of race and religion and by subjecting him to a hostile work
environment. He also alleges violations of other civil rights statutes,
including section 1981 for race discrimination, section 1983 for violating his
Case: 21-30150 Document: 00516252451 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/24/2022
No. 21-30150
First Amendment right to speech and Fourteenth Amendment right to due
process, and section 1985 for conspiracy to violate his civil rights. Most of the
claims Woods alleged are conclusory and cannot support any cognizable,
triable claim.
Liberally construing Woods’s pro se appeal, Woods raises many of the
same issues that he alleges in his complaint, and it is certainly true that his
complaint is extensive. But it is also true that the district court issued a
detailed Order and Reasons of forty-four pages responding to each claim,
which we have carefully examined. We can find no reversible error in the
district court’s Order and Reasons, except in one respect: the hostile work
environment claim.
For his hostile work environment claim, Woods’s complaint
specifically alleges that in the presence of other employees, Woods’s
supervisor, N’Gai Smith, a person of Hispanic descent, directly called him a
“Lazy Monkey A__ N____.” 1 This allegation is specific, and unlike the
majority of Woods’s other allegations, non-conclusory. The district court
dismissed Woods’s hostile work environment claim because “a single
utterance of a racial epithet, despicable as it is, cannot support a hostile work
environment claim.”
We think that the district court erred in this one respect. It is true that
this court has indicated that a single instance of a racial epithet does not, in
itself, support a claim of hostile work environment. See, e.g., Mosley v. Marion
Cnty., 111 F. App’x 726, 728 (5th Cir. 2004) (per curiam) (finding no hostile
work environment despite three incidents involving a racial slur). We have
further said, however, that “[u]nder the totality of the circumstances test, a
single incident of harassment, if sufficiently severe, [can] give rise to a viable
1
The racial epithet is not further spelled out anywhere in the record.
2
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No. 21-30150
Title VII claim.” See, e.g., EEOC v. WC&M Enters., Inc., 496 F.3d 393, 400
(5th Cir. 2007).
As other circuits have recognized, “[p]erhaps no single act can more
quickly ‘alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working
environment’ than the use of an unambiguously racial epithet such as [the N-
word] by a supervisor in the presence of his subordinates.” Rodgers v.
Western-Southern Life Ins. Co., 12 F.3d 668, 675 (7th Cir. 1993) (quoting
Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson,
477 U.S. 57, 67 (1986)); see also Alston v.
Town of Brookline,
997 F.3d 23, 47 (1st Cir. 2021); Boyer-Liberto v.
Fontainebleau Corp.,
786 F.3d 264, 280 (4th Cir. 2015); Ellis v. Houston,
742
F.3d 307, 325-26 (8th Cir. 2014); Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae,
712 F.3d 572, 577
(D.C. Cir. 2013) (per curiam); Rivera v. Rochester Genesee Reg’l Transp. Auth.,
743 F.3d 11, 24 (2d Cir. 2014); McGinest v. GTE Serv.,
360 F.3d 1103, 1116
(9th Cir. 2004). The N-word has been further described as “a term that sums
up . . . all the bitter years of insult and struggle in America, [a] pure anathema
to African-Americans, [and] probably the most offensive word in English.”
Ayissi-Etoh,
712 F.3d at 580 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (citations omitted).
The incident Woods has pleaded—that his supervisor directly called
him a “Lazy Monkey A__ N____” in front of his fellow employees—states
an actionable claim of hostile work environment. Ayissi-Etoh, 712 F.3d at 580
(Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (“[I]n my view, being called the n-word by a
supervisor—as [plaintiff] alleges happened to him—suffices by itself to
establish a racially hostile work environment.”). Furthermore, if supported
with adequate proof, Woods could be entitled to emotional and other
damages that have been alleged. See 42 U.S.C. § 1981a (allowing
compensatory damages, including for “emotional pain” and “mental
anguish,” and punitive damages for certain claims brought under the civil
rights statutes); see also Henry v. Corpcar Servs. Hous., Ltd.,
625 F. App’x 607,
3
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No. 21-30150
617 (5th Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (affirming the award of damages for a hostile
work environment claim involving a single incident of racial harassment).
Accordingly, we remand for further consideration not inconsistent
with this opinion. In all other respects, the district court judgment is
affirmed.
AFFIRMED in part. REVERSED in part. REMANDED.
4
