In Huber v. TIAA, 2025 WL 1139131 (W.D.Va. April 17, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In sum, plaintiff alleged that defendant engaged in religious discrimination by failing to accommodate her request for a religious exemption to the company’s COVID-19 vaccine policy, wrongfully terminating her based on her religion, and creating a hostile work environment. While the court held that plaintiff alleged sufficient facts to state a failure-to-accommodate claim, it held that plaintiff failed to state a claim for wrongful termination or hostile work environment.
As to the latter claim, the court explained:
Huber’s hostile work environment claim, as alleged in her amended complaint, continues to focus on the comments the TIAA representative allegedly made during the interview about her exemption request. She asserts that the representative questioned the sincerity of her beliefs and “repeatedly asked about [her] belief in ‘God’ ” in a biblical sense, “without acknowledgment of [her] belief of not allowing chemicals to be introduced into [her] blood.” The amended complaint includes some allegations about the interview that did not appear in the original complaint. They allege that Huber “felt harassed, frustrated and intimidated by the questioning” and that “[t]he interviewer never asked questions about why [Huber] did not want to allow chemicals into [her] body, nor did she ask how [Huber’s] belief was ‘religious’ in nature.”
To state a claim for hostile work environment under Title VII, Huber must allege that (1) she “experienced unwelcome harassment”; (2) the harassment was based on her protected class or protected activity; (3) “the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive atmosphere”; and (4) “there is some basis for imposing liability on the employer.” Holloway v. Maryland, 32 F.4th 293, 300 (4th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted).
To satisfy the third element, harassment must be so severe or pervasive to render the workplace hostile from both a subjective and objective standpoint. Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21–22 (1993). When evaluating whether harassing conduct qualifies as objectively severe or pervasive, the court “must look at all the circumstances, including 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.” EEOC v. Sunbelt Rentals, Inc., 521 F.3d 306, 315 (4th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). Harassment “surely” meets this standard when it results in a workplace “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.” Id. (quoting Harris, 510 U.S. at 21). “[S]imple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not amount” to severe or pervasive harassment. Id. (quoting Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998)).
As the court previously held, the TIAA representative’s alleged comments during the interview with Huber do not plausibly rise to the level of actionable harassment. While Huber’s amended complaint adds allegations that she subjectively felt harassed by the interviewer’s questioning, the new allegations do not come any closer to demonstrating harassment that could qualify as objectively severe or pervasive.
[Citations omitted.]
Based on this, the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss, with prejudice.