In Taylor v. PJ Cheese, Inc., No. 3:25CV355, 2025 WL 3215734 (E.D. Va. Nov. 18, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant Papa John’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim of hostile work environment sexual harassment asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
Taylor states that he found the physical contact from Turgeon and Moseley “inappropriate, unprofessional, and humiliating,” and the parties do not dispute that Taylor found his coworkers’ conduct “unwelcome.” Even assuming Taylor pleads sufficient facts to satisfy the first element, however, Papa Johns contends that Taylor fails to meet his burden as to the remaining three elements of his Title VII sexual harassment claim. The Court agrees.
First, Taylor asserts, without any supportive details, that his colleagues subjected him to “unwelcome harassment based on his sex (male).” Beyond this bare legal conclusion, Taylor does not indicate that the touches he experienced constituted discrimination because of his sex. Indeed, the Court finds that “the underlying circumstances and the setting in which the touches occurred” weigh heavily against Taylor’s contention of sex-based harassment. Taylor alleges a total of eight brushes, grazes, and bumps—five from a female coworker and three from a male colleague—all of which took place in a busy restaurant on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Taylor presents no facts from which the Court could conclude that this culinary clumsiness actually constituted sexual harassment. And, alone, the fact that some touches occurred on Taylor’s buttocks does not satisfy the second element of a Title VII claim for hostile work environment based on sexual harassment.
As for severity or pervasiveness, the Court agrees with Papa Johns that Taylor’s allegations fall short of this Circuit’s “high bar.” Taylor claims he experienced eight unwanted touches in thirty-seven days. Perhaps this rate exceeds what one might expect to tolerate when working in a restaurant. Still, the severity of the contacts Taylor pleads nearly trivializes Title VII’s protections. Taylor’s own words—“brushed,” “bumped into,” “grazed,” among others—indicate that he found the touches offensive, maybe, but not “physically threatening or humiliating.” Taylor also fails to describe how these contacts interfered with his performance as a Papa Johns delivery driver, if at all. Finally, Taylor fails to plead imputability entirely. Indeed, the pleadings show that Papa Johns’s human resources director responded to Taylor’s allegations promptly and thoroughly.
(Cleaned up.)
The court thus held that plaintiff “has not sufficiently pleaded facts to support a prima facie claim of Title VII hostile work environment based on sexual harassment” and concluded by observing that while “[w]orking in a popular restaurant can involve discomfort, tight spaces, and some unwanted contact from coworkers … such workplace inconveniences do not give rise to a Title VII claim for sexual harassment.”