In Smith v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, LLC, 2025 WL 2403042 (D.Conn. Aug. 19, 2025), the court granted the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration of plaintiff’s sex-based hostile work environment claim under Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, the court held that plaintiff’s claims did not implicate the protections of the Ending of Forced Arbitration in Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA).
After engaging in statutory interpretation of the EFAA, the court explained:
Plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that he was subject to a hostile work environment. “To state a claim for a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII, a plaintiff must plead facts that would tend to show that the complained of conduct: (1) is objectively severe or pervasive — that is, creates an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive; (2) creates an environment that the plaintiff subjectively perceives as hostile or abusive; and (3) creates such an environment because of the plaintiff’s sex.” Miro v. City of Bridgeport, No. 3:20CV00346(SALM), 2022 WL 3284400, at *4 (D. Conn. Aug. 11, 2022) (quoting Patane v. Clark, 508 F.3d 106, 113 (2d Cir. 2007)). Nothing in the Amended Complaint allows the Court to infer that the conduct to which Plaintiff was subjected was objectively severe.
Because there is no “mathematically precise test” for severity or pervasiveness, courts must “assess the totality of the circumstances, considering elements such 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,’ ” as well as its effect on the employee’s psychological well-being. Raspardo v. Carlone, 770 F.3d 97, 114 (2d Cir. 2014) (quoting Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 22–23 (1993)). “[A] plaintiff must show that 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.’ ” Id. (quoting Harris, 510 U.S. at 21).
Even considered in conjunction with his allegedly disparate treatment as compared to his female counterparts, Plaintiff’s allegations do not evince conduct severe enough to sustain his hostile work environment claims. He does not allege that Marsh, in the more than six years that they worked together, engaged in any conduct that a reasonable person would find physically threatening, nor that she used any language that a reasonable person would find patently offensive. According to the Amended Complaint, Marsh only conveyed her apparent animus via her “body language,” “tone of voice,” and “facial expressions,” which Plaintiff references over twenty times each throughout his allegations. Even multiple occurrences of such conduct, that is by its nature only subjectively offensive, cannot sustain a hostile work environment claim.
Notably, Plaintiff never describes Marsh’s body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions in any detail, except to characterize them in general and self-serving terms such as “derogatory,” “dismissive,” “hateful,” or “sexist.” Id. at ¶¶ 38, 47. Courts have generally found such conclusory allegations or labels insufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim. See Fiorillo v. United Techs. Corp., No. 3:13-CV-1287 (VLB), 2016 WL 1118789, at *21 (D. Conn. Mar. 21, 2016) (holding that “unspecified facial gestures and verbal tones” did not “evince an objectively hostile work environment”); Irrera v. Humpherys, 695 F. App’x 626, 629 (2d Cir. 2017) (holding, in the context of Title IX, that “[Plaintiff] does not plausibly allege that [defendant’s] sporadic winks, leers, and blown kisses were ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of his educational environment.’ ”); Mira v. Argus Media, No. 15-CV-9990 (RJS), 2017 WL 1184302, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 29, 2017) (plaintiff’s allegations that, inter alia, defendant greeted her in a “highly personal, sexualized voice tone” were “perhaps vaguely offensive, but certainly not threatening” and did not interfere unreasonably with plaintiff’s job performance). And Plaintiff’s allegations that Marsh was unduly critical of him, withheld praise, and denied him professional development opportunities are similarly “too trivial to contribute to a Title VII hostile workplace claim.” Perez v. City of New York, No. 1:23-CV-00447 (CM), 2024 WL 898943, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 29, 2024) (collecting cases). Plaintiff has therefore failed to plausibly allege the existence of a hostile work environment.
Continuing, the court held that since plaintiff did not contest the validity of the parties’ arbitration agreement, and none of plaintiff’s claims implicate the EFAA’s protection, they are subject to mandatory arbitration.