In Carmichael, Shayla v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Human Services, No. CV 24-6307, 2026 WL 1846548 (E.D. Pa. June 26, 2026), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s sex-based hostile work environment claim asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The facts, in sum:
Plaintiff’s claims are based on a series of inappropriate remarks made by her supervisor, Karen Johns. First, in May 2023, there was a “free pretzel day” at the DHS office where Plaintiff worked. ECF No. 17-2 ¶ 7. Johns told Plaintiff that she could have a pretzel because she didn’t “need to ‘watch [her] figure.’ ” Id. ¶ 10. Johns went on to say that “[w]hen she wants to look snatched like [Plaintiff], she puts on a girdle.” Id. ¶ 11.
Second, in June or July 2023, Plaintiff and Johns had a conversation regarding the office dress code policy, during which Johns told Plaintiff to “ ‘cover [her] butt up’ because ‘men will look at [her].’ ” Id. ¶ 13. Johns then told Plaintiff that when she was younger, she also “had a big butt.” Id. ¶ 14. Johns also referred to a former coworker “who was shaped like [Plaintiff] with a big butt,” and it “became a problem in the office, and [Johns] didn’t want [Plaintiff] to have the same problem.” Id. ¶ 15. Later, Johns told another coworker outside of Plaintiff’s presence to not dress like Plaintiff and to “cover her butt up.” Id. ¶ 19.
Third, at some point during the summer of 2023, Plaintiff discussed an open teaching position with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, which a coworker encouraged her to apply for due to her background in education. Id. ¶¶ 21-22. Johns interjected and said that Plaintiff “can’t work for the prisons” because she is “too shapely” and “[t]he inmates will be all over her.” Id. ¶ 23.
Fourth, at some point during the summer of 2023, Plaintiff was attending a training when another supervisor came in to speak with Johns. Id. ¶ 24. That supervisor picked up Plaintiff’s pocketbook and started “parading around the training room.” Id. ¶ 25. During this incident, Johns said that Plaintiff “was the type of young girl to make other people jealous” because she has “a nice shape.” Id. ¶ 26. Johns made additional remarks about Plaintiff being a homeowner, her “shape and [her] butt,” and about Plaintiff wearing “designer items which would make someone jealous.”
Applying the law, the court explained:
Considering the circumstances as a whole, the Court concludes that the four remarks made by Johns did not create sufficiently severe or abusive work conditions to support Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim. Johns’s comments about Plaintiff’s body, appearance, and clothing were undoubtedly crass and inappropriate. But “the purview of Title VII does not extend to all workplace difficulties, even where the conduct at issue may be crass and unwarranted.” Selvato v. SEPTA, 143 F. Supp. 3d 257, 266 (E.D. Pa. 2015) (citing Mandel, 706 F.3d at 165-67) (further citations omitted).
Courts have found that similar inappropriate remarks about a plaintiff’s appearance did not constitute a hostile work environment. See Shramban v. Aetna, 115 F. App’x 578, 579-80 (3d Cir. 2004) (affirming grant of summary judgment where hostile work environment claim was based on string of offensive comments about plaintiff’s personal life, jewelry, clothes, and appearance). Indeed, courts in this Circuit have found that far more severe, inappropriate, and crude remarks have not risen to the level of creating a hostile work environment. See, e.g., Grassmyer v. Shred-It USA, Inc., 392 F. App’x 18, 25, 30 (3d Cir. 2010) (holding that defendant’s “regularly [making] comments about the size of his genitalia and about the intimate details of his sexual relationships,” referring to women as “bitches,” and telling “of a colleague frequenting ‘titty bars’ ” did not rise to the level of “severe or pervasive” harassment); Saidu-Kamara v. Parkway Corp., 155 F. Supp. 2d 436, 439-40 (E.D. Pa. 2001) (remarks that plaintiff looked “fresh,” sexual propositions toward plaintiff, and asking if plaintiff wanted to join harasser for a “good time” were “loathsome and inappropriate” but not sufficiently severe or pervasive).
The frequency of Johns’s remarks also do not amount to “pervasive” harassment. To constitute a hostile work environment, discriminatory remarks “must be more than a few isolated incidents.” Powell-Folks v. Villanova Univ., 24cv5065, 2025 WL 756538, at *4 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 10, 2025) (quotations omitted); see also Faragher, 524 U.S. at 788 (“sporadic use of abusive language” is insufficient to sustain hostile work environment claim) (internal citation omitted). Rather, “there must be a steady barrage” of discriminatory comments. Powell-Folks, 2025 WL 756538, at *4; Tourtellotte v. Eli Lilly & Co., 09cv0774, 2013 WL 1628603, at *8 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 16, 2013), aff ‘d, 636 F. App’x 831 (3d Cir. 2016) (“a few unpleasant incidents” do not rise to “extreme” conduct constituting hostile work environment).
The exact timeline here is a little uncertain because Plaintiff only links a few remarks to sometime in the summer of 2023 and does not give exact dates. But the record shows that, at most, Johns made four inappropriate remarks over the course of a three-to-four-month period, beginning in May of 2023 and ending in August/September of 2023. See supra at 1-2. This pace and frequency more closely resemble “sporadic and isolated instances of discomfort” rather than the barrage of continued harassment necessary to establish pervasiveness. See Powell-Folks, 2025 WL 756538, at *4; see also Rosati v. Colello, 94 F. Supp. 3d 704, 716 (E.D. Pa. 2015) (three specific incidents of harassment over a four-month period “is not a continuous period of harassment”).
Accordingly, based on this, the court held that it need not address the remaining disputed elements of plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim, since plaintiff cannot establish that she was subjected to severe or pervasive harassment.