In Barrington v. FM Salt Lake Care Properties LLC, No. 2:26-CV-00028-DBB-JCB, 2026 WL 3269143, (D. Utah Oct. 30, 2026), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim of a sex-based hostile work environment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
Title VII makes it unlawful ‘to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to [her] compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.’ ”48 “Title VII’s prohibition of employment discrimination based on sex encompasses hostile work environment sexual harassment.”49
A plaintiff may make out a claim of sex discrimination based on a hostile work environment if she can show (1) that she was discriminated against because of her sex; and (2) that the discrimination was sufficiently severe or pervasive such that it altered the terms or conditions of her employment and created an abusive working environment.50
With respect to the first element, “[g]eneral harassment if not … sexual is not actionable.”51 “[I]f the nature of an employee’s environment, however unpleasant, is not due to her gender, she has not been the victim of sex discrimination as a result of that environment.”52
As for the second element, “[p]roof of either severity or pervasiveness can serve as an independent ground to sustain a hostile work environment claim.”53 “[A] sexually objectionable environment must be both objectively and subjectively offensive, one that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive, and one that the victim in fact did perceive to be so.”54
Thus, [the court] must assess the objective severity of the harassment from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position, considering all the circumstances. In other words, [the court] must look to a totality of the circumstances … and consider such factors as 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.55
“Title VII does not establish a general civility code for the workplace. Accordingly, the run-of-the-mill boorish, juvenile, or annoying behavior that is not uncommon in American workplaces is not the stuff of a Title VII hostile work environment claim.”56 “A recurring point” in United States Supreme Court Title VII hostile work environment opinions “is that simple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not amount to discriminatory changes in the terms and conditions of employment.”57 “An employer creates a hostile work environment when the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment.”58 The United States Supreme Court has “made it clear that conduct must be extreme to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of employment.”59
Ms. Barrington fails to allege sufficient facts to support her claim for hostile work environment. Her only factual allegations concerning a hostile work environment are: (1) in November 2024, she “was subjected to sexual harassment, intimidation, and a hostile work environment created by” Mr. Hale; (2) “Mr. Hale’s conduct included hostility toward [her] and toward staff under [her] supervision, creating an abusive and intimidating workplace”; and (3) “[t]he harassment was severe and pervasive and altered the terms and conditions of [her] employment.”60 Those conclusory factual allegations fail to satisfy the minimum pleading standards of Rule 8 because the allegations are nothing more than “ ‘a formulaic recitation’ ” and a “[t]hreadbare recital[ ] of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements.”
(Cleaned up.)
The court thus concluded that since plaintiff has not supported her hostile work environment claim with adequate factual allegation, that claim fails.
The court did, however, give the plaintiff an opportunity to amend her complaint.