In Torres v. Pasco County, Florida, 2022 WL 7125207 (M.D.Fla. Oct. 12, 2022), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s sexual harassment claim asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
In this case, Plaintiff claims that she was subject to unwelcome sexual harassment through “cat calls.” However, Plaintiff offers no evidence that suggests the employee’s remarks implicated her gender in any way. See Byrd v. Postmaster Gen., 582 F. App’x 787, 792 (11th Cir. 2014); Mitcham v. Univ. of S. Fla. Bd. Of Trs., 71 F. Supp. 3d 1306, 1317 (M.D. Fla. 2014). In fact, reviewing the comments made by the employee, it is clear that Plaintiff’s gender is not implicated whatsoever. The term “cat call” suggests an inappropriate sexual and gender-based type of comment. Plaintiff has chosen to label the statements at issue here as “cat calls,” but her decision to use that label does not mean the statements were actually sexual or gender-based. In fact, the three instances of “cat calls” identified by Plaintiff are not sexual in nature and do not support a sexual harassment claim. See, e.g., Cramer v. Bojangles’ Restaurants, Inc., No. 2:10-CV-0159-RWS-SSC, 2012 WL 716176, at *4 n.5 (N.D. Ga. Feb. 8, 2012). Plaintiff takes offense here simply because a male employee made statements to her that were not related to work. Under Plaintiff’s view of the world, any statement unrelated to work made to another employee of a different gender would constitute unwelcome sexual harassment. No reasonable person (or jury) could find the conduct identified by Plaintiff here to be sexual, related in any way to gender, or sufficiently hostile or abusive to support an employment discrimination claim.
In addition, although Plaintiff generally alleges that the conduct involving catcalls was “severe and pervasive,” the facts demonstrate that she only received three “cat calls” during a brief window of time. This does not rise to the level of severity necessary to support a hostile work environment claim. See Byrd, 582 F. App’x at 792-93 (conduct occurring over six months at unspecified frequency not severe or pervasive so as to alter the conditions of employment).
Finally, the evidence shows that when Plaintiff reported these “cat calls” to human resources, even though Defendant did not believe these comments to constitute sexual harassment, Defendant took immediate and appropriate corrective action in response to her complaint. Defendant investigated and discovered the identity of the male employee and directed him not to speak to Plaintiff again. And the employee did not speak to Plaintiff again in compliance with this directive. Although Plaintiff may wish that Defendant would have punished this employee in more severe ways, such as suspension or termination, she has not presented any evidence of significant shortcomings in Defendant’s response to her complaint and has not presented any basis for liability here.
The court additionally observed that plaintiff “failed to present evidence about any prior complaints that are sufficiently severe, similar, or near in time to her complaint to demonstrate an issue of fact as to whether Defendant had knowledge of harassment,” noting that the alleged harasser “received one other complaint in his 33 years with” defendant, which occurred after the incident involving plaintiff, and “involved an isolated comment made to another employee that was significantly more sexual in nature than any of the comments made to Plaintiff.”