In Elliff v. City of Mesa, No. CV-25-01146-PHX-JJT, 2025 WL 3237480 (D. Ariz. Nov. 20, 2025), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
From the decision:
Title VII prohibits employers covered by the Act from discriminating against an individual based on the individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). No allegations in the Complaint lead to the plausible inference that Hamilton suffered discriminatory acts or a hostile work environment based on his sex. And Neese’s conduct toward Hamilton’s wife, which plausibly constitutes conduct based on her sex, is not actionable under Title VII even if the City knew about the conduct and took no action, because Hamilton’s wife was not an employee of the City.3 In their Response, Plaintiffs argue that Hamilton has Title VII claims against the City because his supervisors and co-workers treated him differently after he reacted to Neese’s text messages to his non-employee wife. (Resp. at 5.) But, as Title VII itself sets forth, an individual must suffer discriminatory acts by his employer on account of his own sex for his discrimination or hostile work environment claims to be actionable under that statutory framework.
The court distinguished the case from the Supreme Court’s decision in Thompson v. N.A. Stainless, L.P., 562 U.S. 170, 178 (2011), where both the plaintiff and his fiancée—who filed a sex discrimination case against their employer—were employees of the company and fell under the “zone of interests” of Title VII, and the plaintiff brought a claim of retaliation for being fired, not of discrimination or a hostile work environment, as plaintiff does here.