Woods v. Cantrell, 29 F.4th 284

Pro se plaintiff Anthony J. Woods sued his former employer French Market Corporation and several officials alleging Title VII race and religion discrimination, a hostile work environment, §1981 race discrimination, §1983 First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment violations, and §1985 conspiracy.
The district court dismissed Woods’s complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) as largely conclusory and not pleading viable claims; it issued a detailed 44-page Order and Reasons addressing each claim.
Woods specifically alleged that supervisor N’Gai Smith called him a “Lazy Monkey A N__” in front of other employees; this allegation was pleaded with particularity unlike most of his claims.
The district court rejected the hostile work environment claim, reasoning that a single racial epithet cannot, standing alone, support such a claim.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court in all respects except it reversed the dismissal of the hostile work environment claim, holding that a supervisor’s use of an unambiguously racial epithet in front of subordinates can, under the totality of the circumstances, be actionable and warrant remand.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether a single racial epithet by a supervisor can state a Title VII hostile work environment claim	Woods: the supervisor called him a racial epithet in front of coworkers, which is sufficiently severe	Defendants: a single utterance of a slur, however offensive, cannot establish a hostile work environment	Reversed dismissal: a single, sufficiently severe incident by a supervisor can support a hostile work environment claim under the totality of circumstances
Sufficiency of the remaining claims under Rule 12(b)(6) (Title VII disparate treatment, §1981, §1983, §1985)	Woods: pleaded discrimination, First Amendment and due process violations, and conspiracy	Defendants: most allegations are conclusory and fail to state plausible claims	Affirmed dismissal: most claims were conclusory and insufficiently pleaded; no reversible error in district court’s dismissal
Availability of damages for a hostile work environment based on a single incident	Woods: alleged emotional and other damages from the racial slur incident	Defendants: disputed entitlement given alleged insufficiency of claim	Court noted if proved, Woods could recover compensatory (including emotional) and possibly punitive damages and remanded for further proceedings

EEOC v. WC&M Enters., Inc., 496 F.3d 393 (5th Cir. 2007) (a single incident can be actionable if sufficiently severe under the totality of circumstances)
Mosley v. Marion Cnty., [citation="111 F. App'x 726"] (5th Cir. 2004) (multiple incidents involving racial slurs did not amount to a hostile work environment)
Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (U.S. 1986) (grounding hostile work environment doctrine under Title VII)
Rodgers v. Western-Southern Life Ins. Co., 12 F.3d 668 (7th Cir. 1993) (supervisor’s use of the N-word can rapidly create an abusive environment)
Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae, 712 F.3d 572 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (recognizing the extreme offensiveness of the N-word and its potential to support a hostile work environment claim)
Henry v. Corpcar Servs. Hous., Ltd., [citation="625 F. App'x 607"] (5th Cir. 2015) (affirming damages for a hostile work environment claim involving a single incident)