In Saunders v. Albertsons/Safeway, LLC et al, No. 24-CV-00814-PAB-SBP, 2026 WL 2819757 (D. Colo. Sept. 18, 2026), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
The crux of Ms. Saunders’ factual support for a hostile work environment at Safeway rests on two encounters between herself and Mr. Escobar. In the first, Mr. Escobar, perceiving that Ms. Saunders had saddled him with work that he would be obliged to finish, yelled at her and twice used the degrading term “bitch.” Docket No. 94 at 8, ¶ 29. The second incident occurred after Mr. Escobar learned that he had ground up expired meat that could not be sold, which prompted him to accuse Ms. Saunders of purposefully allowing him to waste his time doing so rather than telling him of the problem. Id. at 9, ¶¶ 40-41. Mr. Escobar yelled at Ms. Saunders and slammed a meat cart to the floor. Id., ¶ 41.
As an initial matter, it is unclear that these encounters reflect sex-based harassment, as opposed to flare-ups of a long-simmering personality conflict between Ms. Saunders and Mr. Escobar. Ford, 45 F.4th at 1227. Regardless, this evidence is insufficient to raise a triable issue on either the severity or the pervasiveness prongs of the hostile work environment test.
On the severity prong, the two encounters do not reflect “particularly threatening or humiliating circumstances” that “rise[ ] to the level of severity required for a hostile work environment claim.” See Throupe, 988 F.3d at 1255 (citing Morris, 666 F.3d at 667); see also Granger v. City of Anderson Transit Sys., 2025 WL 3199889, at *9 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 17, 2025) (evidence showing that employee “was called or referred to as a ‘bitch’ twice over the course of [her] multi-year employment…weighs against finding that she was subjected to a hostile work environment,” and concluding that these “were isolated incidents and offhand comments that do not amount to a hostile work environment”); Gurcak v. Ctr. for Victims, 2024 WL 1052839, at *5 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 11, 2024) (holding that while the comment “dyke bitch” was offensive, “[i]solated incidents and offhanded comments…are not sufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim”).
Conduct of a significantly more degrading nature than Ms. Saunders experienced has been found not to constitute a hostile work environment as a matter of law. See, e.g., Iweha, 121 F.4th at 1223 (comments directed toward a Black woman of Nigerian national origin, including remarks about her hair, that “Nigerian women do not go to school,” that Nigerian women who “get educated are bossy,” and showing her “slave trade beads,” did not “rise to the level of creating a hostile work environment”); Morris, 666 F.3d at 666, 668 (comments to a surgical nurse, including “get your ass in gear” and “get someone in here who knows what they are doing,” along with throwing bloody pericardium tissue at her, did “not make a sufficient showing of a pervasively hostile work environment”; while the conduct “was unquestionably, juvenile, unprofessional, and perhaps independently tortious, viewed in context, we cannot conclude from this record that it objectively altered the terms and conditions of Ms. Morris’s employment”)). Mr. Escobar’s choice of words was offensive and his conduct immature, and Ms. Saunders may have endured “bruised or wounded feelings” as a consequence, but that does not “satisfy the severe or pervasive standard.” Mr. Escobar’s conduct is illustrative of the sort of “run-of-the mill boorish, juvenile, or annoying behavior” that does not turn a workplace into an objectively intolerable hostile work environment. See Ford, 45 F.4th at 1228 (citation modified).
Ms. Saunders’ evidence is not comparable to that required to show an actionable, intolerable work environment. Iweha, 121 F.4th at 1225. The isolated comments of which she complains are objectively insufficient to support a hostile work environment claim. No rational jury could conclude that these remarks, while offensive, demonstrate the existence of a work environment so “particularly threatening or humiliating” as to overcome summary judgment. See Throupe, 988 F.3d at 1255.Neither are the two instances in which Mr. Escobar yelled at Ms. Saunders sufficient to raise a triable issue on the pervasiveness prong of the hostile work environment test. See, e.g., Iweha, 121 F.4th at 1224 (observing that “a handful of insensitive questions” and “two offensive incidents that touched on [an employee’s] race and national origin” were “simply not enough” to overcome summary judgment on her hostile work environment claim); Sprague v. Thorn Americas, Inc., 129 F.3d 1355, 1365-66 (10th Cir. 1997) (holding that “five separate incidents of allegedly sexually-oriented, offensive comments either directed to [the plaintiff] or made in her presence in a sixteen month period” were not sufficiently pervasive to support a hostile work environment claim). Even if the comments directed at Ms. Saunders could be construed as discriminatory, a hostile work environment claim requires “more than a few isolated incidents of prohibited conduct, such as a steady barrage of opprobrious comments” Aramburu v. Boeing Co., 112 F.3d 1398, 1410 (10th Cir. 1997). Scrutinized pursuant to these standards, Ms. Saunders’ evidentiary showing is insufficient.
Perhaps appreciating the gap between her evidence and that required to establish a viable hostile work environment claim, Ms. Saunders raises the specter of Mr. Escobar’s criminal history. See Docket No. 105 at 7, ¶ 10; Docket No. 105-5. Her attempt is unavailing. First, Ms. Saunders did not disclose the criminal history document during discovery, see Docket No. 122 at 7 n.3, and the Court discerns no justification for allowing her to use it now. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1) (“If a party fails to provide information or identify a witness as required by Rule 26(a) or (e), the party is not allowed to use that information or witness to supply evidence on a motion, at a hearing, or at a trial, unless the failure was substantially justified or is harmless.”) (emphasis added). But even if the Court were to overlook this defect, Ms. Saunders admits that she had no knowledge of Mr. Escobar’s criminal history at the time of her interactions with him, Docket No. 105 at 7, ¶ 10 (“Unbeknownst to Plaintiff at the time”), thus negating her ability to show that this information informed her subjective perception of the severity of his conduct. See Ford, 45 F.4th at 1223 (to establish a severe or pervasive hostile work environment, the plaintiff must “subjectively perceive the conduct to be severe or pervasive”) (citation modified). This information, even if considered, would not establish a triable issue concerning the purported existence of a hostile work environment.
Finally, Ms. Saunders fails to point to any evidence demonstrating how her allegations about standard workplace grievances—alleged pay disparity, interviewing for a position she did not get (and that did not exist and was not filled), working non-preferred shifts, and being held to a higher standard of production than a co-worker with substantially less experience—manifest a workplace “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.” See Ford, 45 F.4th at 1228. In the first place, Ms. Saunders has not presented evidence to substantiate these allegations, but even if she had, they would not support the conclusion that she endured “an abusive working environment.”
Accordingly, since plaintiff failed to show a genuine issue of disputed fact that would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that she was subjected to a hostile work environment, defendant was entitled to summary judgment on this claim.