In Steiner v. Giant of Maryland, LLC, 2023 WL 4421373 (D.Del. July 10, 2023), the court dismissed plaintiff’s hostile work environment sexual harassment claim asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
In reviewing a hostile work environment claim, the Court must look to the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the accused actions constitute severe or pervasive conduct actionable under Title VII. See Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 23 (1993) (“[W]hether an environment is ‘hostile’ or ‘abusive’ can be determined only by looking at all the circumstances. These 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.”); see also Kokinchak v. Postmaster Gen. of the United States, 677 F. App’x 764, 767 (3d Cir. 2017). Accepting Plaintiff’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true, the Court cannot reasonably infer that Plaintiff was subjected to either pervasive or severe sexual harassment. While Plaintiff plausibly alleges inappropriate verbal conduct by Harding on two occasions, as well as one instance of attempted physical contact by Harding, see D.I. 1 ¶¶ 13-16, 18-19, the Court is unable to conclude that these isolated incidents were of the severity necessary to support Title VII liability. Importantly, “[u]nless extremely serious, offhand comments and isolated incidents are insufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim.” Chinery v. Am. Airlines, 778 F. App’x 142, 145 (3d Cir. 2019); see also Castleberry v. STI Grp., 863 F.3d 259, 264 (3d Cir. 2017) (a single complained-of incident must be so extreme as “to amount to a change in plaintiff’s employment terms and conditions”) (quoting Faragher, 524 U.S. at 788).
Harding’s verbal harassment and unwanted physical advancement was unbecoming of any individual in modern society and is unacceptable in the workplace—or anywhere else—but Title VII requires more. See Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68 (2006) (“Title VII, we have said, does not set forth a general civility code for the American workplace.”) (quotation marks and citation omitted). To state a claim under Title VII, Plaintiff must plausibly allege that she was subjected to severe or pervasive sexual harassment that created a hostile work environment.
The court concluded that since plaintiff failed to do this, her hostile work environment claim must be dismissed.