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 

 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, 

 (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, 

, 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, 

 (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, 

 (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. 

 (quoting Hurd v. District of
Columbia, 

 (D.C. Cir. 2017)).1
                                  A
     We begin with Joyner’s discrimination claim against
Morrison under 

, which protects “the equal
right . . . to make and enforce contracts without respect to
race.” Domino’s Pizza, Inc. v. McDonald, 

(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, 

 (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, 

 (D.C.
Cir. 2014) (quoting George v. Leavitt, 

 (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., 

 (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, 

, at *5 (quoting
Redmon v. YMCA of Metro. Wash., 

, 103
(D.D.C. 2019), in turn quoting Holbrook v. Reno, 

 (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., 

 (D.C. Cir.
2015); Holbrook, 

 (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., 

 (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, 

.
   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, 

 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 

). This standard does not amount to a “probability
requirement,” but it requires “more than a sheer possibility that
a defendant has acted unlawfully.” 

 (first excerpt quoting
Twombly, 

). “Threadbare recitals of the
elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory
statements” and “devoid of further factual enhancement,” “do
not suffice.” 

 (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, 

. 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, 

.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., 

 (7th Cir. 2024) (quoting Bennett v. Schmidt, 

 (7th Cir. 1998)). That approach echoes the pre-Twombly
standard that the Supreme Court abrogated. See Ho v. Garland, 

, 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., 

 (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, 

,
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,

 (quoting Swierkiewicz, 

). 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.” 

 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, 

; L. Xia v. Tillerson, 

, 659–60
(D.C. Cir. 2017), and many circuits have held similarly. See, e.g.,
Rodriquez-Reyes v. Molina-Rodriquez, 

 (1st Cir.
2013); Vega v. Hempstead Union Free Sch. Dist., 

, 83–
84 (2d Cir. 2015); Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 

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

, 585–86 (4th Cir. 2015); Austin v.
Univ. of Or., 

 (9th Cir. 2019); see also Swanson
v. Citibank, N.A., 

 (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, 

(quoting Twombly, 

).
     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. 

 (citing Second Am. Compl.
                               10
¶¶ 3, 17, 57–68, Nanko Shipping, USA v. Alcoa, Inc., 

 (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.” 

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

 (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.” 

. 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 

 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.” 

.
     By contrast, we upheld the dismissal of a Section 1981
claim in L. Xia v. Tillerson, 

 (D.C. Cir. 2017).
There, Chinese nationals alleged that their naturalization
certificates had been summarily canceled without appropriate
process. 

. 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.” 

. 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.”

 (quotation omitted).
     Although the described pleading standard is “not
onerous,” Nanko Shipping, 

 (quoting Patterson
v. McLean Credit Union, 

 (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.

 ¶ 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.”       

    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 

 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 

. 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, 

; Wheeler v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 

,



     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, 

 (quoting
Atherton v. D.C. Off. of Mayor, 

 (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. 

 ¶¶ 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, 

 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (quoting Wilson v. Ark. Dep’t of
Hum. Servs., 

 (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, 

 (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, 

 (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, 

 (D.C.
Cir. 2017) (quoting Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 

 (1993)). The allegations must also be “adequately linked
such that they form a coherent hostile environment claim.”
Baird v. Gotbaum, 

 (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.” 

. 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, 

.
                               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., 

 (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, 

 (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. 

 ¶¶ 32–33. But Joyner alleges that Morrison
quickly responded to those concerns by separating the
employees in the workspace. 

 ¶¶ 32–34. Once Joyner was
cleared of misconduct, he was returned to his prior workspace.

 Per the complaint itself, then, Morrison took “prompt and
appropriate corrective action,” and so was not negligent in
addressing the underlying conduct. Curry, 

.
     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, 

 (quoting
Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 

(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, 

 (quoting Baird v. Gotbaum, 

 (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, 

.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, 

, 94–95 (1998).
    The district court properly had subject matter jurisdiction
over Joyner’s federal claims per 

 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 

(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,

 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting United Mine
Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 

 (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., 

 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Lyon v. Whisman, 

 (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., 

, 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, 

; see also Shavitz v.
Guilford Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 

, 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, 

 (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, 

, 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., 

(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, 

, 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, 

, thought this court’s
decision in Prakash v. American University, 

 (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. 

. 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.