In Holsten v. Barclays Servs. LLC, No. 3:24CV844 (RCY), 2025 WL 2696991 (E.D. Va. Sept. 22, 2025), the court held that plaintiff sufficiently alleged a sex-based hostile work environment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, therefore, in accordance with the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, denied the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.
As to whether the alleged conduct was “because of sex”, the court explained:
The Court finds Plaintiff sufficiently alleged that Trill’s behavior toward her was on the basis of her sex. Keeping in mind that “harassment need not be accompanied by a contemporaneous statement of animus to be actionable under Title VII—rather, the connection between animus and conduct may be inferred,” the Court finds that Plaintiff has, at least at this preliminary stage, sufficiently pled facts suggesting that Trill’s conduct was based on her sex. Strothers, 895 F.3d at 330–31 (cleaned up). Viewing Plaintiff’s allegations in the Amended Complaint within their workplace context, Plaintiff sets out multiple examples of Trill’s comments implying negative stereotypes regarding women. For example, Trill asked, “what does your husband say about that?” and referred to Plaintiff as “the person who gets my coffee.” Am. Compl. ¶¶ 23, 40. These comments do not exist in a vacuum. Plaintiff alleges that Trill treated her, and allegedly two other people, differently than men in the office. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 27, 30. For example, Plaintiff alleges that Trill made offensive comments to Plaintiff during meetings in front of her male colleagues, id. ¶ 25, whom Trill did not target, and excluded her, but not her male colleagues, from business matters. Id. ¶¶ 25–27. Trill’s comments, coupled with Trill’s dissimilar behavior towards male colleagues, are sufficient for the Court to find that, in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, Trill’s open hostility toward Defendant “was on the basis of her sex.”
The court further explained that the alleged conduct was “unwelcome” and (assessing the totality of the circumstances), “severe or pervasive,” and that the conduct was imputable to the defendant.