In Simms v. The State of Maryland Office of the Attorney General For Maryland, 2025 WL 213965 (D.Md. Jan. 16, 2025), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s hostile work environment sexual harassment claim.
From the decision:
The Court need not decide whether Plaintiff has adequately alleged facts sufficient to “impos[e] liability on the employer” for the Assistant Chief Deputy Clerk’s alleged conduct. See Holloway, 32 F.4th at 300; Bazemore, 957 F.3d at 200. That is because count V separately fails because it does not adequately allege facts sufficient to state a claim of “harassment…sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive atmosphere.” Holloway, 32 F.4th at 300. The details of the alleged sexual harassment are sparse, and the only specific allegations are that the Assistant Chief Deputy Clerk harassed Ms. Simms by “constantly staring at [her] in a sexual manner, stalking her, and intentionally invading and crowding her personal space.” Am. Compl. ¶ 52. As stated above, courts determine whether a plaintiff has adequately pled severe or pervasive harassment “by looking at all the circumstances, which may include 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.” Holloway, 32 F.4th at 300 (quoting Boyer-Liberto, 786 F.3d at 277). Ms. Simms may subjectively believe that staring at her and crowding her was actionable conduct. But the case law expressly requires that, to be actionable under Title VII, a claim of hostile work environment based on sexual harassment must allege conduct that is not only harassing but is so “extreme” such as “to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of employment.” Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998).
Based on this, the court held that plaintiff’s sexual harassment based hostile work environment claim did not satisfy this standard, and thus dismissed this claim without prejudice.