Junius Joyner, III v. Morrison and Foerster LLP

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 21, 2024 Decided June 20, 2025

No. 23-7142

JUNIUS JAY JOYNER, III,

APPELLANT

v.

MORRISON AND FOERSTER LLP, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:20-cv-01440)

Junius J. Joyner, III, pro se, argued the cause and filed the

briefs for appellant.

David Lawrence Schenberg argued the cause and filed the

brief for appellees.

Before: WALKER and GARCIA, Circuit Judges, and

RANDOLPH , Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARCIA.

2

GARCIA, Circuit Judge: Junius Joyner, III, was hired by a

legal staffing agency and assigned to work at the D.C. office of

Morrison & Foerster LLP. Following his termination, Joyner

sued that staffing agency, the law firm, and several individual

employees. He asserted claims of racial discrimination and a

hostile work environment in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and

Title VII, and wrongful discharge under D.C. law. The district

court dismissed Joyner’s complaint for failure to state a claim.

We hold that the district court properly dismissed Joyner’s

federal claims, but that it lacked supplemental jurisdiction over

the D.C. law claims.

I

The following facts are alleged in Joyner’s complaint and

are accepted as true in our review of a motion to dismiss. See

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Joyner

is an “African-American male.” Third Am. Compl. ¶ 1. He

was hired by the legal staffing firm Mestel & Company

(hereinafter Hire Counsel) to provide temporary support on a

corporate antitrust matter for Morrison & Foerster LLP. Joyner

worked on the merger of Sprint Corporation with T-Mobile

U.S., Inc. at the firm’s Washington, D.C. office from July to

December of 2019.

Joyner’s complaint describes several incidents that form

the basis of his discrimination claims.

First, upon his arrival at Morrison, Joyner was assigned to

work on “integration calls not previously assigned to specific

integration team members.” Id. ¶ 22. He was not assigned to

“a particular workstream” until over two months later, which

“reduced the number of hours” he could work and his

compensation. Id. ¶¶ 22–23. Joyner alleges that this treatment

differed from that of his “Caucasian” colleagues. For example,

during his time at Morrison, two Caucasian attorneys added to

3

the same merger project were assigned workstreams without

any delay. Id. ¶ 22 n.2.

Second, during training on his first day at the firm, Joyner

mentioned that he was a prepaid wireless customer. Morrison

associate Evan Harris nonetheless described prepaid wireless

customers as “low class” or “lower class” than postpaid

wireless customers. Id. ¶ 19. Harris did so knowing—based

on “statistical data . . . shown in the training documents”—that,

like Joyner, “a large percentage of prepaid customers were

African-American.” Id.

Third, Joyner details various demeaning statements from

Caucasian coworkers directed at him throughout his

employment at Morrison. A colleague referred to him as

“‘Boy’ on one occasion”; another commented that it was

“stupid” for several students to post pictures of themselves

posing with rifles in front of Emmett Till’s memorial because

they should have preserved their “anonymity”; and a group of

coworkers discussed their participation in Civil War

reenactments “as members of the Confederacy.” Id. ¶¶ 25–26.

Fourth, a Caucasian coworker subjected Joyner to

“constant harassment,” including “physical intimidation” and

“verbal and mental abuse” in the workplace. Id. ¶ 32 & n.5.

She also lodged “unsubstantiated” claims against Joyner with

the Domestic Violence Unit of the Superior Court of the

District of Columbia. Id. ¶ 32 & n.6.

Joyner also alleges that his race motivated both Hire

Counsel’s denial of a request to work remotely, and Morrison’s

failure to inform him in advance that he was being terminated,

leading to an unexpected confrontation with security and

expulsion from the office building.

Separately, as the basis for his claim under D.C. law for

wrongful termination, Joyner alleges that he was terminated

4

after reporting potential antitrust violations to firm leadership.

Joyner believed that a document containing “competitively

sensitive information . . . had been improperly disclosed.” Id.

¶ 40. When he brought his concerns to the attention of Harris

and others, he was fired within a week. Id.

Following his termination, Joyner filed a charge of

discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission, which issued him a right-to-sue letter. Id. ¶ 11.

He filed his initial complaint in federal district court on May

29, 2020, and he has since amended it three times. This appeal

concerns his third amended complaint. He claimed that Hire

Counsel, Morrison, and several employees had violated

Section 1981 and Title VII, and that his termination violated

D.C. law. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The district

court granted the motion, dismissing Joyner’s claims with

prejudice and entering judgment in favor of the defendants.

Joyner v. Morrison & Foerster LLP, 2023 WL 6313194, at *13

(D.D.C. Sept. 27, 2023). Joyner appeals.

II

We review the district court’s dismissal for failure to state

a claim de novo. W. Org. of Res. Councils v. Zinke, 892 F.3d

1234, 1240 (D.C. Cir. 2018). We “accept the operative

complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draw

all reasonable inferences” in Joyner’s favor. N. Am. Butterfly

Ass’n v. Wolf, 977 F.3d 1244, 1249 (D.C. Cir. 2020). We may

also consider “any documents either attached to or incorporated

in the complaint,” which here includes emails between Hire

Counsel and Morrison discussing Joyner, as well as portions of

a transcript from the D.C. Superior Court proceeding

5

referenced in his complaint. Id. (quoting Hurd v. District of

Columbia, 864 F.3d 671, 678 (D.C. Cir. 2017)).1

A

We begin with Joyner’s discrimination claim against

Morrison under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which protects “the equal

right . . . to make and enforce contracts without respect to

race.” Domino’s Pizza, Inc. v. McDonald, 546 U.S. 470, 474

(2006) (cleaned up). Joyner was employed by Hire Counsel.

He does not specify whether he maintained an independent

contract with Morrison, but Morrison does not contest that

Section 1981 applies to his allegations and so we assume that

it does.

To prevail on his claim, Joyner must “initially plead and

ultimately prove that, but for race, [he] would not have suffered

the loss of a legally protected right.” Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l

Ass’n of Afr. Am.-Owned Media, 589 U.S. 327, 341 (2020).

Joyner’s claim centers on the allegation that he was not

assigned to a “workstream” for over two months after starting

at the firm, and instead was assigned “to work on integration

calls not previously assigned to specific integration team

members.” Third Am. Compl. ¶ 22. He does not allege facts

directly suggesting his work assignment was racially

motivated. Instead, he asks us to infer racial discrimination

from allegations that, in his view, indicate that he “was treated

differently from similarly situated employees” outside his

protected class. Brown v. Sessoms, 774 F.3d 1016, 1022 (D.C.

Cir. 2014) (quoting George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 412 (D.C.

1

This court has held that “the liberal pleading standard for pro

se litigants does not invariably apply when,” as here, “the litigant is

a licensed attorney.” Spence v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 109

F.4th 531, 538 (D.C. Cir. 2024). Joyner filed this suit pro se but

makes no request for a more liberal pleading standard, so we do not

apply one.

6

Cir. 2005)). His theory is that other attorneys who were

similarly situated to him apart from their race were

“immediately assigned to workstreams,” whereas he was not.

Third Am. Compl. ¶ 22 n.2. And he argues that it is plausible

to infer that race was the reason for that disparate treatment.

We first address the proper standard for assessing a

complaint based on this type of comparator theory. The district

court reasoned that to survive a motion to dismiss in a

discrimination case on such a theory, a plaintiff must

“demonstrate that all of the relevant aspects of [his]

employment situation were nearly identical to those of the

comparator[s].” Joyner, 2023 WL 6313194, at *5 (quoting

Redmon v. YMCA of Metro. Wash., 417 F. Supp. 3d 99, 103

(D.D.C. 2019), in turn quoting Holbrook v. Reno, 196 F.3d 255,

261 (D.C. Cir. 1999)).

That articulation overstates a plaintiff’s burden at the

pleading stage. The “nearly identical” standard is the one our

cases prescribe for summary judgment or at trial, once

plaintiffs have had the benefit of discovery. See, e.g., Burley

v. Nat’l Passenger Rail Corp., 801 F.3d 290, 301 (D.C. Cir.

2015); Holbrook, 196 F.3d at 261 (using a similar standard for

the grant of judgment as a matter of law during trial). In our

cases addressing motions to dismiss, however, we have

emphasized that the plaintiff’s “burden at the summary

judgment stage and at trial is different and substantially more

onerous than the pleading burden.” Nanko Shipping, USA v.

Alcoa, Inc., 850 F.3d 461, 467 (D.C. Cir. 2017). After all, the

pleading burden is calibrated to require only enough factual

allegations “to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery

will reveal evidence of” the necessary elements of a claim.

Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.

At the pleading stage, the standard set out by the Supreme

Court in Twombly and Iqbal is the lodestar: The complaint

7

“must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to

‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S.

at 570). This standard does not amount to a “probability

requirement,” but it requires “more than a sheer possibility that

a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. (first excerpt quoting

Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “Threadbare recitals of the

elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory

statements” and “devoid of further factual enhancement,” “do

not suffice.” Id. (cleaned up).

So, in this context, a plaintiff must plead facts sufficient to

allow a plausible inference that the challenged action was taken

because of his race. Brown, 774 F.3d at 1023. And, by

extension, a plaintiff proceeding on only a comparator theory

must plead enough facts about those comparators and the

relevant context to allow a plausible inference that he was

treated differently because of his race. That standard cannot be

reduced to a mechanical formula; it is sensitive to the specific

context of each case, and courts must draw on their “judicial

experience and common sense” in determining whether it is

met. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.2

2

At least one circuit has held that a plaintiff need allege no more

than “I was turned down for a job because of my race” to state a claim

of racial discrimination. Thomas v. JBS Green Bay, Inc., 120 F.4th

1335, 1337 (7th Cir. 2024) (quoting Bennett v. Schmidt, 153 F.3d

516, 518 (7th Cir. 1998)). That approach echoes the pre-Twombly

standard that the Supreme Court abrogated. See Ho v. Garland, 106

F.4th 47, 51 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (explaining that Twombly abrogated

similar pre-2007 cases from this circuit concerning retaliation

claims). The Seventh Circuit thought the Supreme Court’s decision

in Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002), supported its

approach. See Thomas, 120 F.4th at 1337–38. We disagree. As

Twombly explained, the Court in Swierkiewicz “reversed on the

ground that the Court of Appeals had impermissibly applied what

8

But we can at least mark certain outer bounds. At one

extreme, it cannot be enough to simply allege that the plaintiff

was treated differently from a “similarly situated” comparator,

without additional allegations showing the comparators are in

fact “similarly situated” in some meaningful respect. That

would be a “[t]hreadbare recital” of a “legal conclusion,”

“devoid of further factual enhancement.” Id. at 678 (cleaned

up). At the other pole, as noted, we have never required a

complaint to include factual allegations showing that the

comparator’s circumstances are “nearly identical” to the

plaintiff’s in “all relevant aspects.” Joyner, 2023 WL 6313194,

at *5 (quotation omitted).

amounted to a heightened pleading requirement by insisting that

Swierkiewicz allege ‘specific facts’ beyond those necessary to state

his claim and the grounds showing entitlement to relief.” Twombly,

550 U.S. at 570 (quoting Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 508). The

Twombly Court harmonized its decision with Swierkiwicz by

clarifying that it did “not require heightened fact pleading of

specifics, but only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is

plausible on its face.” Id. Put otherwise, Swierkiewicz prohibits

imposing heightened pleading requirements on plaintiffs in

discrimination cases; nothing in that decision supports imposing a

standard lower than the now-prevailing pleading standard. This

court has already explained that the Twombly standard requires more

than a bare assertion of discrimination in this context, see, e.g.,

Brown, 774 F.3d at 1023; L. Xia v. Tillerson, 865 F.3d 643, 659–60

(D.C. Cir. 2017), and many circuits have held similarly. See, e.g.,

Rodriquez-Reyes v. Molina-Rodriquez, 711 F.3d 49, 54 (1st Cir.

2013); Vega v. Hempstead Union Free Sch. Dist., 801 F.3d 72, 83–

84 (2d Cir. 2015); Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 211

(3d Cir. 2009); McCleary-Evans v. Md. Dep’t of Transp., State

Highway Admin., 780 F.3d 582, 585–86 (4th Cir. 2015); Austin v.

Univ. of Or., 925 F.3d 1133, 1138 (9th Cir. 2019); see also Swanson

v. Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 411 (7th Cir. 2010) (Posner, J.,

dissenting).

9

Our case-by-case application of the plausibility standard in

this context offers further guidance. Each complaint we have

found sufficient to proceed on a comparator theory has

contained allegations that a comparator was similarly

positioned to the plaintiff in at least some relevant respects, and

included enough detail that we could plausibly infer that

discrimination caused the defendant’s differential treatment of

the plaintiff. The traits a petitioner must plead about

comparators to provide a benchmark against which the court

can make such a determination will vary widely from case to

case. But the question is always whether there are enough facts

pleaded to make it “plausible,” as opposed to just

“speculative,” to infer that a defendant was motivated by the

plaintiff’s race rather than the myriad other reasons that might

affect an employment decision. Brown, 774 F.3d at 1023

(quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555).

For example, in Brown, a law professor sued her employer

for discrimination after she was denied tenure for failing to

publish three articles (as the school generally required). Id. at

1019. She identified a comparator who was granted tenure by

the same decisionmakers despite having published no articles.

Id. at 1019, 1023. And she “sufficiently” “explained why she

ha[d] equivalent qualifications” to that professor “with regard

to teaching and service.” Id. at 1023. We found those

allegations sufficient to proceed to discovery. Id.

We reached a similar result in Nanko Shipping, where a

shipping company alleged that Alcoa, Inc. refused to do

business with it because of its owner’s race. The complaint

alleged that Nanko had the specific necessary qualifications to

perform the work the comparators were performing (and even

partnered with the same third-party shipping companies), and

that it had offered to perform the work at lower cost, but was

repeatedly ignored or subjected to harsher treatment than those

other companies. 850 F.3d at 467 (citing Second Am. Compl.

10

¶¶ 3, 17, 57–68, Nanko Shipping, USA v. Alcoa, Inc., 107 F.

Supp. 3d 174 (D.D.C. 2015), Dkt. No. 14-1). Those

allegations, we held, plausibly suggested that Alcoa “treated

[it] less favorably than similarly situated white-owned

companies.” Id.

And in Wright v. Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation,

68 F.4th 612 (D.C. Cir. 2023), the plaintiff alleged that

although her former employer defamed her after her

termination, that same employer “did not defame her

predecessor, a white man who also separated from the

company, nor any other non-African-American employee.” Id.

at 622. The allegations that the comparator served in the exact

same role and had also been terminated sufficed to plausibly

show the two individuals were similarly situated in the context

of that case. See id. We also explained that allegations that

Wright’s performance had recently been praised, and that there

was a “general culture of racial inequity at the Foundation,”

pushed her claim “farther over the plausibility threshold.” Id.

at 623.

By contrast, we upheld the dismissal of a Section 1981

claim in L. Xia v. Tillerson, 865 F.3d 643 (D.C. Cir. 2017).

There, Chinese nationals alleged that their naturalization

certificates had been summarily canceled without appropriate

process. Id. at 646. The plaintiffs’ only attempt to show that

similarly situated individuals had been treated differently was

to provide “a chart that purport[ed] to list denaturalized former

U.S. citizens” and then to “assert without factual support that

the list contain[ed] over a hundred ‘similarly situated persons

of other’ (i.e., non-Chinese) ‘original ethnicity’ who were

denaturalized via valid processes not equally offered to the

plaintiffs.” Id. at 660. We explained that the plaintiffs did not

“identify the listed individuals’ ethnicities or the process they

received before being denaturalized,” meaning “the court”

11

could not “infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct.”

Id. (quotation omitted).

Although the described pleading standard is “not

onerous,” Nanko Shipping, 850 F.3d at 467 (quoting Patterson

v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 186 (1989)), Joyner

fails to meet it. Again, Joyner’s Section 1981 claim against

Morrison focuses on the fact that he was not assigned to a

“particular workstream” for over two months after beginning

work at the firm. Third Am. Compl. ¶ 22. His sole allegations

about comparators come in a footnote, where he first alleges

that three Caucasian attorneys who began at Morrison either

before or after him were immediately assigned to workstreams.

Id. ¶ 22 n.2. He then alleges “on information and belief” that

“all attorneys that were [not African American and were] hired

through Hire Counsel were immediately assigned to

workstreams.” Id. In context, those allegations are

insufficient.

To start, the complaint includes no information about the

other attorneys’ experience or qualifications relative to

Joyner’s. As to the three specific attorneys Joyner identifies,

he does not even allege that they were placed through Hire

Counsel as opposed to being hired directly or through a

different staffing firm. Nor does he allege that the Hire

Counsel attorneys worked on his project, or a similar project.

See id. Unlike in Wright, then, the factual allegations do not

show that Joyner and his comparators worked in the same

position in a meaningful sense. See 68 F.4th at 622. Instead,

Joyner has alleged only that he and his comparators were

attorneys working at the same law firm.

Moreover, even if such allegations might suffice in another

case, they do not here given two additional features of the

complaint.

12

The first is that it is entirely unclear what a “workstream”

is, how many there were, or what would make someone

qualified for a workstream assignment. The complaint does not

describe the term, even in a general way, except to note that

such an assignment could allow an attorney to work more hours

than the similarly unclear role Joyner was initially assigned

(fielding “integration calls not previously assigned to specific

integration team members”). Third Am. Compl. ¶ 22. Still

further, the complaint suggests there existed several distinct

workstreams on his project, each with different needs and roles.

Because the “workstream” assignment Joyner sought could,

based on his pleadings, have encompassed any number of

different roles and responsibilities, each requiring different

experience and qualifications, it is necessarily more difficult to

infer that Joyner and other attorneys were similarly situated

with respect to such an assignment. This is a marked contrast

with cases like Brown and Nanko, where the plaintiff was

denied a discrete opportunity (tenure, or specific contract

awards) that the defendant decided to grant to some but not

others in a way that facilitated comparative inferences.3

Second, Joyner’s complaint does not allege that the same

supervisor or supervisors were responsible for deciding

whether to place him and the other attorneys on a workstream.

Our cases have repeatedly recognized that whether the same

decisionmakers were involved is relevant to whether two

employees were similarly situated. See, e.g., Burley, 801 F.3d

at 301; Wheeler v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 812 F.3d 1109,

3

In this vein, it is notable that although Joyner alleges that the

two attorneys who arrived at Morrison after him were “immediately”

placed on workstreams, Joyner does not clarify whether that occurred

before or after he was placed on a workstream himself. Third Am.

Compl. ¶ 22 n.2.

13

1116 (D.C. Cir. 2016). And there was no uncertainty on this

score in Brown, Nanko, or Wright.

Each of these variables makes it less plausible that Joyner

was similarly situated to other attorneys who received

workstream assignments in the ways that mattered to the

unspecified manager(s) making those decisions.

We do not mean to suggest that Joyner was required to

plead all of these facts in his complaint to survive a motion to

dismiss. That type of showing would be more akin to what is

required at summary judgment or trial. See supra at 6. Nor did

we insist upon that level of detail in Brown, Nanko, or Wright.

The problem for Joyner is that he pleaded essentially no facts

at all to show that his identified comparators were similarly

situated to him in relevant respects except that they were

attorneys working at the same law firm. Paired with the

nebulous and varied nature of a “workstream” assignment, and

the lack of allegations showing that the same decisionmakers

made assignments to the many positions on “workstreams,”

Joyner’s general allegations about comparators do not provide

a meaningful benchmark against which to assess whether

Morrison’s treatment of him was racially motivated. His

allegations do “not permit the court to infer more than the mere

possibility of misconduct.” L. Xia, 865 F.3d at 660 (quoting

Atherton v. D.C. Off. of Mayor, 567 F.3d 672, 688 (D.C. Cir.

2009)).

B

Joyner also sued Hire Counsel for discrimination based on

race under Section 1981. Third Am. Compl. ¶¶ 130–33. Hire

Counsel denied Joyner’s request to work remotely for three

days, even though it “had authorized similar or longer remote

work for Caucasian” employees. Id. ¶¶ 57–58. Joyner does

not offer any other allegations about these comparators or the

circumstances of their remote work requests. He does point to

14

one specific Caucasian attorney who received permission to

work remotely for two weeks. Id. ¶ 57, Ex. 4. But he does not

allege that this coworker was employed by Hire Counsel or that

Hire Counsel otherwise was responsible for any remote work

arrangement. Under the framework described above, these

allegations do not suffice to plausibly plead that Hire Counsel

denied the request because of Joyner’s race.

Further, Joyner’s own pleadings raise—and then offer

nothing to rebut—at least one alternative explanation for Hire

Counsel’s denial of his request. Joyner attached to his

complaint an email suggesting the request was denied because

he had directed it to Morrison rather than to Hire Counsel, in

violation of Hire Counsel’s protocol. Id. Ex. 5. The email

clarified that it was a “final warning,” after which continued

requests on employment matters to Morrison rather than Hire

Counsel would result in “disciplinary action.” Id. That

“obvious alternative explanation[]” further confirms that

discrimination is not a plausible inference. Ho v. Garland, 106

F.4th 47, 54 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (quoting Wilson v. Ark. Dep’t of

Hum. Servs., 850 F.3d 368, 373 (8th Cir. 2017)).4

III

Joyner also lodges hostile work environment claims

against the corporate defendants under Section 1981 and Title

VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). We “use the same framework

for determining whether unlawful discrimination has occurred”

under both statutes. Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae, 712 F.3d 572,

576 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (per curiam). To make out a hostile work

environment claim, a plaintiff must plausibly plead that “he

4

Joyner pleads similar claims against the individual defendants,

Harris, Natalie A. Fleming Nolen, and Patti Ayala. Third Am.

Compl. ¶¶ 152–73. But he raises no independent argument as to

those claims on appeal, so we do not address them. Am. Wildlands

v. Kempthorne, 530 F.3d 991, 1001 (D.C. Cir. 2008).

15

was exposed to ‘discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and

insult’ that is ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the

conditions of [his] employment and create an abusive working

environment.’” Durant v. D.C. Gov’t, 875 F.3d 685, 700 (D.C.

Cir. 2017) (quoting Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17,

21 (1993)). The allegations must also be “adequately linked

such that they form a coherent hostile environment claim.”

Baird v. Gotbaum, 792 F.3d 166, 168 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (cleaned

up). “For example, they might involve the same type of

employment actions, occur relatively frequently, and be

perpetrated by the same managers.” Id. at 169. To assess such

claims, a court should consider “the frequency of the

discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically

threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and

whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work

performance.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 23.

A

Joyner’s allegations against Morrison do not state a hostile

work environment claim under those standards. Several of

Joyner’s allegations describe statements by other attorneys

working in the same conference room. These include

“disparaging comments about Emmett Till,” “being called

‘Boy,’” and his allegations about coworkers’ participation in

Civil War reenactments. Third Am. Compl. ¶ 74; see also id.

¶ 26.

But Morrison is liable for the actions of Joyner’s

coworkers—as opposed to his supervisors—only if it “was

negligent in controlling working conditions.” Vance v. Ball

State Univ., 570 U.S. 421, 424 (2013). That theory requires

allegations that Morrison “knew or should have known of the

harassment and failed to implement prompt and appropriate

corrective action.” Curry v. District of Columbia, 195 F.3d

654, 660 (D.C. Cir. 1999). Here, Joyner does not plausibly

16

allege that his supervisors were aware of these incidents. He

does not allege that he notified any supervisor of his

coworkers’ comments. Joyner’s only relevant allegations are

that a secretary questioned how Joyner could stand working in

that conference room, and that Harris stated at one point, “We

don’t want you down there!” Third Am. Compl. ¶¶ 28–29.

Those allegations, without more, do not plausibly support an

inference that Morrison knew of his coworkers’ actions and

failed to respond, even if we assume (without deciding) that

Harris qualified as a supervisor.

Joyner does allege that he brought his concerns about

abuse and false claims from one coworker to Morrison’s

attention. Id. ¶¶ 32–33. But Joyner alleges that Morrison

quickly responded to those concerns by separating the

employees in the workspace. Id. ¶¶ 32–34. Once Joyner was

cleared of misconduct, he was returned to his prior workspace.

Id. Per the complaint itself, then, Morrison took “prompt and

appropriate corrective action,” and so was not negligent in

addressing the underlying conduct. Curry, 195 F.3d at 660.

The remaining incidents Joyner alleges, even if

attributable to Morrison, do not approach the level of “severe”

and “pervasive” harassment we have required to state a hostile

work environment claim. George, 407 F.3d at 416 (quoting

Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 78

(1998)). These include, for example, Harris’s alleged

statement that prepaid wireless customers were “low class”

compared to postpaid wireless customers, Third Am. Compl.

¶ 19, and Morrison’s failure to immediately assign him to a

workstream, which is not plausibly race-based for the reasons

given above. Joyner also alleges that his firing subjected him

to further humiliation “because of his race,” id. ¶ 83, but that

allegation assumes the legal conclusion his pleadings are

required to support. In sum, these claims do not constitute a

“coherent hostile [work] environment claim” against Morrison.

17

Baird, 792 F.3d at 168 (quoting Baird v. Gotbaum, 662 F.3d

1246, 1251 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).

B

Joyner also brings a hostile work environment claim

against Hire Counsel, but his allegations fail for similar

reasons. Joyner alleges that he reported his concerns about his

coworkers to Hire Counsel, but he does not allege that Hire

Counsel employed these coworkers, or that it could take any

action against them. Third Am. Compl. ¶ 52. Joyner points

also to “threatening emails” denying his request to work

remotely and Hire Counsel’s failure to inform Joyner that he

was discharged. Id. ¶ 127. One of those emails makes clear

that the decision not to permit his remote work request was due

to his attempt to circumvent the requirement that he obtain Hire

Counsel’s approval. It does not evidence discrimination or

insult. Neither does the method of his termination. Id. ¶ 62.

Like Joyner’s allegations against Morrison, those against Hire

Counsel do not rise to the level of “an objectively hostile or

abusive work environment.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 21.5

IV

The district court dismissed Joyner’s wrongful-discharge

claim under D.C. law against Morrison and Hire Counsel for

failure to state a claim. Upon review, we identify a threshold

obstacle for this claim: The district court lacked jurisdiction to

consider it, and so do we. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better

Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998).

The district court properly had subject matter jurisdiction

over Joyner’s federal claims per 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because they

5

As with his Section 1981 claims, Joyner does not challenge the

district court’s dismissal of the hostile work environment claims

against the individual defendants. Third Am. Compl. ¶¶ 175–189.

18

arise under federal laws. Because Joyner has not alleged

diversity of citizenship between himself and the defendants, the

only potential basis for federal jurisdiction over his state-law

claim is 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), which provides for supplemental

jurisdiction over claims that are “so related . . . that they form

part of the same case or controversy” as claims over which a

federal court has original jurisdiction. To make that

determination, we ask “whether the state and the federal claims

‘derive from a common nucleus of operative fact.’” Women

Prisoners of the D.C. Dep’t of Corr. v. District of Columbia,

93 F.3d 910, 920 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting United Mine

Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725 (1966)). The

clearest case for supplemental jurisdiction is where “the same

acts violate parallel federal and state laws”—say, if Joyner had

raised a claim under D.C. laws prohibiting discrimination

based on the same or similar facts underlying his federal

discrimination claims. Lindsay v. Gov’t Emps. Ins. Co., 448

F.3d 416, 424 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Lyon v. Whisman, 45

F.3d 758, 761 (3d Cir. 1995)). In such a case, the “operative

facts” overlap.

There is no meaningful overlap between the operative

facts of the federal and state claims here. The federal claims

involve Joyner’s allegations of racial discrimination and a

hostile work environment while working at Morrison. His state

law claim, by contrast, is that he was wrongfully discharged for

reporting to Morrison what he believed to be improper

disclosure of competitively sensitive information. Third Am.

Compl. ¶¶ 40–54. That claim requires him to (1) pinpoint

“some identifiable policy that has been officially declared in a

statute or municipal regulation, or in the Constitution,” (2)

show that there is a “close fit between” that policy and the

matters he reported, and (3) show that his “protected activity

was the predominant cause of [his] termination.” Davis v.

Cmty. Alts. of Wash., D.C., Inc., 74 A.3d 707, 709–10 (D.C.

2013) (cleaned up). If Joyner succeeded in proving that he was

19

terminated for reporting antitrust violations in a way that made

out his wrongful termination claim under D.C. law, that would

do nothing to inform the analysis of his federal race

discrimination or hostile work environment claims, and vice

versa. The only facts in common between the federal claims

and the D.C. law claim are the background facts that Joyner

was employed by Hire Counsel and placed at Morrison; those

are not “operative” facts in the sense the case law requires.

Although our court has not directly confronted an

analogous fact pattern, the weight of authority in other circuits

and in this circuit’s district court suggests that such a minimal

connection between claims is insufficient to support

supplemental jurisdiction. As the Third Circuit has put it,

supplemental jurisdiction is unavailable “under any standard”

when “[t]he only link between [a plaintiff’s federal] and state

law claims is the general employer-employee relationship

between the parties.” Lyon, 45 F.3d at 762; see also Shavitz v.

Guilford Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 100 F. App’x 146, 150–51 (4th

Cir. 2004) (per curiam) (though claims all arose from

government’s red-light camera program, such “superficial

factual overlap” is insufficient where the “operative facts” do

not overlap); Wisey’s # 1 LLC v. Nimellis Pizzeria LLC, 952

F. Supp. 2d 184, 191 (D.D.C. 2013) (no supplemental

jurisdiction where state claims “do not have a legal overlap

with the [federal] claims” and the only factual overlap is that

the claims “relate[d] generally to the parties’ broader

background dispute”); Clark v. District of Columbia, 2024 WL

3181440, at *16 (D.D.C. June 26, 2024) (no supplemental

jurisdiction where, despite “some background factual overlap”

in that all claims related to plaintiffs’ employment with the

defendant, “as currently pled, the facts that could, if proven,

give rise to liability on Plaintiffs’ collective Section 1981

claim[s] are separate from the facts that could, if proven, give

rise to liability on” the state law claims); 13D Wright &

Miller’s Federal Practice & Procedure § 3567.1 (3d ed.)

20

(“[T]he fact that claims arise from an employment relationship

will not necessarily mean that they are sufficiently related to

support supplemental jurisdiction.”). We find these authorities

persuasive and are aware of no contrary authority on similar

facts.6

We therefore vacate the district court’s judgment on that

claim and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of

jurisdiction.

V

Finally, Joyner challenges the district court’s decision to

dismiss his third amended complaint with prejudice. We

review that choice for abuse of discretion. United States ex rel.

Williams v. Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., 389 F.3d 1251, 1259

(D.C. Cir. 2004). As the district court explained, Joyner “has

already amended his complaint three times, and the

deficiencies in those claims in the Third Amended complaint

were previously identified in [Morrison’s] Motion to Dismiss

[his] Second Amended Complaint.” Joyner, 2023 WL

6313194, at *13 n.11. In these circumstances, we cannot

conclude that the district court abused its discretion by

declining to offer Joyner yet another opportunity to plead his

claims.

6

The Third Circuit in Lyon, 45 F.3d at 762, thought this court’s

decision in Prakash v. American University, 727 F.2d 1174 (D.C.

Cir. 1984), could be read as contrary authority. Prakash held that

where a plaintiff brought a Fair Labor Standards Act claim,

supplemental jurisdiction was proper over his D.C. law claims for

breach of contract and various torts. There, however, the Court

understood all the plaintiff’s claims to stem from his “contract

dispute with the University,” which concerned whether the

University had made and breached a contract to employ the plaintiff

permanently and on what terms. Id. at 1183. As described in the

text, Joyner’s claims do not share a similar commonality.

21

VI

For the forgoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s

dismissal of Joyner’s employment discrimination and hostile

work environment claims. The district court’s decision on

Joyner’s claim under D.C. law is vacated and remanded with

instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

So ordered.