In Ashmore v. Ohio Department of Transportation, Case No. 3:20-cv-499, 2023 WL 6880380 (S.D.Ohio Oct. 18, 2023), the court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s hostile work environment sexual harassment claim asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In finding that the alleged harassment was not “severe or pervasive,” the court explained:
While Ashmore alleges numerous incidents, these incidents, when viewed in the light most favorable to Ashmore, constitute gender-related jokes and occasional teasing and one single incident in which an employee allegedly grabbed her buttocks. Viewing “the accumulated effect” of the incidents, see Williams, 187 F.3d at 563, the Court finds that this does not amount to a hostile work environment. See Morris, 201 F.3d at 790 (finding no hostile work environment because the offensive conduct amounted to teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents when the sex-based conduct included several dirty jokes, a sexual advance, a “one-time reference to [the] plaintiff as “Hot Lips[,]” and comments about the plaintiff’s outfit); Burnett, 203 F.3d at 984–85 (“[U]nder the totality of the circumstances, a single battery coupled with two merely offensive remarks over a six-month period does not create an issue of material fact as to whether the conduct alleged was sufficiently severe to create a hostile work environment”); but see Hawkins v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 517 F.3d 321, 334 (6th Cir. 2008) (finding that the allegation that the harassment was severe and pervasive was sufficient for a jury to hear because the harassment was continuous: the offender made sexual comments constantly and engaged in inappropriate behavior every time they worked together, often attempted to touch her while working together, and touched his private parts against her).
Ashmore fails to meet her burden of alleging a hostile work environment because she has not presented evidence that the sex-based harassment she alleges was severe or pervasive. See Williams, 187 F.3d at 560 (“Discrimination in this form occurs ‘[w]hen 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.’ ” (citing Harris, 510 U.S. at 21, 114 S.Ct. 367) (alteration in original)); Rayford, 489 F. App’x at 5 (finding no hostile work environment where the plaintiff alleged that the incidents sometimes interfered with his ability to focus, but “he was able to work regularly and continuously and perform his job duties[ ]”). The only claims that Ashmore said interfered with the conditions of her work were the allegations against Wilson, which were not sexual and cannot be considered when determining whether the harassment based on sex was severe and pervasive. Doc. No. 25 at PageID 108; see Williams, 187 F.3d at 560. For all these reasons, the Court finds that Ashmore’s allegations about the harassment she endured fail to create a genuine issue of fact sufficient to avoid summary judgment on her sexual harassment claim.
The court further explained that, even assuming that plaintiff’s co-workers created a sexually hostile work environment, plaintiff failed to show that the defendant “knew or should have known about the behavior and failed to act.”