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The Court of Appeals has held that an employee with a strong foreign accent cannot sue for wrongful termination after her supervisor angrily complained that he could not understand her and ultimately terminated her employment.
The case is Matthew v. JP Morgan Chase, a summary order issued on June 30. I briefed and argued the appeal.
This case was dismissed on a Rule 12 motion, so the facts in the Complaint, along with the plaintiff's affidavit, stated as follows: "Matthew alleged that her supervisor, district manager John Wolf,
'complained that he couldn’t understand anything [Matthew] was saying because of [her] accent,' but that her other supervisors did not have similar complaints." Plaintiff alleged that Wolf “informed [her], in nearly every single conversation that [they] had, both in person and over the phone, that he could not understand [Matthew] because of [her] Trinidadian accent,” and that “Wolf expressed clear anger and annoyance to [Matthew] that [she] spoke with an accent.”
Since Wolf played a role in plaintiff's termination, she sued for national origin discrimination. The district court and the Court of Appeals (Lynch, Menashi and Bianco) affirms, and the case is over. We argued that Wolf's hostility was enough to assert a plausible discrimination claim, especially since other managers did not give plaintiff a hard time over had accent. The Court of Appeals disagrees, reasoning as follows:
While mistreatment related to accents can have “a nexus to” national-origin discrimination, Zheng-Smith v. Nassau Health Care Corp., 2021 WL 4097316, at *3 (2d Cir. Sept. 9, 2021) (summary order), allegations concerning the former must still “allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that” the alleged mistreatment was motivated by invidious discrimination. Construed liberally, the allegations here suggest, at best, that Wolf had difficulty understanding Matthew because of her accent on multiple occasions and was consequently angry or annoyed at Matthew due to that difficulty. As the district court noted, she does not allege that he mimicked or mocked her or that he used derogatory words or phrases during these conversations. Nor has Matthew “demonstrate[d] circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination by alleging that [s]he was treated less favorably than similarly situated employees.”
The Second Circuit has not yet published a precedential ruling on when hostility or anger toward the plaintiff's accent is enough to support a discrimination claim. This ruling suggests the plaintiff cannot simply allege that a manager fixated on the plaintiff's accent, even if other managers did not have a problem with it.
