In Delancey v. Justin Wells, Fox Corporation, and Fox News Network, LLC, 23 Civ. 10357 (AT), 2025 WL 579971 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 21, 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim of hostile work environment sexual harassment asserted under the New York State Human Rights Law (which, explained the court, employs the same standards as federal claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964).
From the decision:
Fox does not dispute that the sexual assaults alleged by Delancey constitute unwelcome sexual contact of the sort regularly found to constitute severe harassment under Title VII. See Tomka v. Seiler Corp., 66 F.3d 1295, 1305 (2d Cir. 1995) (“[E]ven a single incident of sexual assault sufficiently alters the conditions of the victim’s employment and clearly creates an abusive work environment for purposes of Title VII liability.”). Fox argues, instead, that Delancey’s claim fails because the conduct occurred outside of work with no “link” to the workplace. Def. Mem. at 9.
The Court disagrees. The relevant question under Title VII is not whether the conduct occurred within or outside of the workplace, but whether it had “the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” Meritor, 477 U.S. at 65. When a hostile work environment claim includes evidence of harassment or assault outside the workplace, the question, then, is whether the conduct had a sufficient impact on, and nexus to, the plaintiff’s work environment as to trigger the employer’s duty to respond. Parrish v. Sollecito, 249 F. Supp. 2d 342, 351–53 (S.D.N.Y. 2003); see also Echevarria v. Utitec, Inc., No. 15 Civ. 1840, 2017 WL 4316390, at *7 (D. Conn. Sept. 28, 2017) (“[T]he court is aware of no settled law that, in gauging the severity or pervasiveness and effects of sexual harassment, allows the offender to … to pick and choose the venue for his assaults so as to not account for those that occur physically outside the workplace.”) (quoting Parrish, 249 F. Supp. 2d at 350–51)); Okonowsky v. Garland, 109 F.4th 1166, 1181 (9th Cir. 2024) (“[E]ven if discriminatory or intimidating conduct occurs wholly offsite, it remains relevant to the extent it affects the employee’s working environment.”). If sexual abuse by a superior “reflects similar behavior to that which also occurred and was tolerated or not effectively remedied in the actual workplace,” or if such abuse impacts the plaintiff’s “ability to perform work duties,” or causes the plaintiff “mortification aroused by encountering the offender on the job on a regular basis,” or “constant apprehension as to whether … the employee’s response, or lack of it, ultimately will transform into a … demotion [or] denial of promotion,” the offending conduct may fall within the scope of Title VII’s protections even if some of the harassment occurred offsite. Parrish, 249 F. Supp. 2d at 351–52; cf. Tomka, 66 F.3d at 1305 (finding that rapes by coworkers during the same evening outside of the workplace could “sufficiently alter[ ] the conditions of the victim’s employment [to] clearly create[ ] an abusive work environment for purposes of Title VII liability”).
Delancey’s complaint satisfies this standard. He alleges that he was sexually assaulted twice in one evening by a superior, Wells, who directly oversaw his work. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 25, 28, 30–38, 46–47. These incidents took place at Wells’ home, where Delancey went at Wells’ invitation based on the pretense that Wells was hosting a gathering of coworkers, and the promise that it would benefit Delancey’s career to attend. Id. ¶¶ 28–29. After the assault, Wells made threatening comments to Delancey at work, suggesting that Delancey’s failure to give in to Wells’ sexual demands would harm Delancey’s career. Id. ¶¶ 52, 54. Wells acted on those threats: He told a producer at another TV station to not hire Delancey, and he apparently took actions within Fox that stalled Delancey’s advancement there. Id. ¶ 50; see id. ¶ 54.
Delancey alleges that the sexual assault and Wells’ threatening comments caused Delancey distress in the workplace, where he continued to be supervised by Wells. Id. ¶¶ 40–41, 46, 53. Delancey states that it was difficult to be “forced to encounter his harasser in the workplace throughout his time at Fox,” id. ¶ 53, that he still had to take requests from Wells, who continued to contact Delancey through company email, phone calls, and internal messaging systems, id. ¶¶ 45–46, that he was “scared,” and that he felt he had no outlet to raise his concerns because of McCarthy’s order to not talk to upper management or human resources, id. ¶ 40; see id. ¶¶ 42–43, 45. A former colleague of Delancey’s in whom Delancey confided shortly after the sexual assault told Delancey years later that his assault was still “stuck in [her] memory all these years … as an example of how even smart, capable people can be intimidated into staying silent when they were wronged.” Id. ¶ 59.
Additionally, Delancey alleges that Wells’ behavior was not isolated at Fox: He claims that Fox was aware of, promoted, or failed to remedy a culture of sexual assault and harassment that pervaded the company while Delancey was there. Id. ¶¶ 1–3. He claims that Fox should have been especially wary of Wells and McCarthy, both of whom Fox knew had sexually harassed other employees at the company in the past. See id. ¶¶ 41, 44.
Taken together, Delancey’s allegations suffice to show that the out-of-workplace assault, combined with Wells’ threatening comments at work and Delancey’s understanding that he could not report the misconduct to upper management, negatively impacted Delancey’s “ability to perform work duties,” caused him “mortification aroused by encountering [Wells] on the job on a regular basis,” and placed him in “constant apprehension” and fear that rebuffing Wells’ sexual demands would negatively impact Delancey’s career. Parrish, 249 F. Supp. 2d at 351–52. Ultimately, the sexual harassment that Delancey experienced, and his inability to report it, resulted in tangible employment consequences: His career at Fox stalled and, as a result, he left his job. Id. ¶ 54. The allegations are, therefore, sufficient to support the conclusion that Delancey faced sexual misconduct “of such quality … that a reasonable employee would find the conditions of [his] employment altered for the worse.” McKinney, 2022 WL 602970, at *5 (citation omitted).
The court further held that plaintiff sufficiently alleged facts to meet the second prong of his hostile work environment claim. Specifically, plaintiff sufficiently alleged that Wells was plaintiff’s “supervisor” for Title VII purposes.