Opinion ID: 799311
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hostile Work Environment Principles

Text: Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminat[ing] against any individual with respect to his [or her] compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of, inter alia, such individual's ... sex. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). `The phrase terms, conditions, or privileges of employment evinces a congressional intent to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women in employment,' which includes requiring people to work in a discriminatorily hostile or abusive environment. Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993) (quoting Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 64, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) ( Meritor )). Leaving aside for the moment the question of an employer's liability for the acts of its employees, see Part II.D. below, it is established [w]ithout question, [that] when a supervisor sexually harasses a subordinate because of the subordinate's sex, that supervisor `discriminate[s]' on the basis of sex. Meritor, 477 U.S. at 64, 106 S.Ct. 2399 (emphasis added). [S]ex discrimination consisting of same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII.... Oncale, 523 U.S. at 82, 118 S.Ct. 998. For sexual harassment to be actionable, it must be sufficiently severe or pervasive, Meritor, 477 U.S. at 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399both subjectively and objectively, see, e.g., Harris, 510 U.S. at 21-22, 114 S.Ct. 367to alter the conditions of [the victim's] employment and create an abusive working environment. Meritor, 477 U.S. at 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399 (internal quotation marks omitted). And, of course, the plaintiff must establish that the hostile or abusive treatment was because of his or her sex. See, e.g., Oncale, 523 U.S. at 80, 118 S.Ct. 998. When 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,'... Title VII is violated. Harris, 510 U.S. at 21, 114 S.Ct. 367 (quoting Meritor, 477 U.S. at 65, 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399). [T]he kinds of workplace conduct that may be actionable under Title VII.... include `[u]nwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.' Meritor, 477 U.S. at 65, 106 S.Ct. 2399 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11(a) (1985)). [W]hether an environment is `hostile' or `abusive' can be determined only by looking at all the circumstances. Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. 367. These may include 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. The effect on the employee's psychological well-being is, of course, relevant to determining whether the plaintiff actually found the environment abusive. But while psychological harm, like any other relevant factor, may be taken into account, no single factor is required. Id. (emphases added). To establish[] this element, a plaintiff need not show that her hostile working environment was both severe and pervasive; only that it was sufficiently severe or sufficiently pervasive, or a sufficient combination of these elements, to have altered her working conditions. Pucino v. Verizon Communications, Inc., 618 F.3d 112, 119 (2d Cir.2010) ( Pucino ) (emphases in original); see, e.g., Terry v. Ashcroft, 336 F.3d 128, 148-50 (2d Cir.2003) (race discrimination); see generally Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 787 n. 1, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998) (standards for what amounts to actionable abuse are the same for racial and sexual harassment). Isolated incidents usually will not suffice to establish a hostile work environment, although we have often noted that even a single episode of harassment can establish a hostile work environment if the incident is sufficiently severe. E.g., Pucino, 618 F.3d at 119; Kaytor, 609 F.3d at 547; Howley v. Town of Stratford, 217 F.3d 141, 153 (2d Cir.2000); Quinn v. Green Tree Credit Corp., 159 F.3d 759, 768 (2d Cir. 1998), abrogated in part on other grounds by National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002); Torres v. Pisano, 116 F.3d 625, 631 n. 4 (2d Cir.1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 997, 118 S.Ct. 563, 139 L.Ed.2d 404 (1997); see, e.g., Feingold v. New York, 366 F.3d 138, 150 (2d Cir.2004) ([A] single act can create a hostile work environment if it in fact work[s] a transformation of the plaintiff's workplace. (internal quotation marks omitted)). The court must take care, however, not to view individual incidents in isolation. In assessing the evidence to determine whether a rational juror could infer that a reasonable employee would have found the abuse so pervasive or severe as to alter her working conditions, especially in the context of a claim of sexual harassment, where state of mind and intent are at issue, the court should not view the record in piecemeal fashion, Kaytor, 609 F.3d at 548 (internal quotation marks omitted). The objective hostility of a work environment depends on the totality of the circumstances, viewed from the perspective... of a `reasonable person in the plaintiff's position, considering all the circumstances [including] the social context in which particular behavior occurs and is experienced by its target.' Petrosino, 385 F.3d at 221 (quoting Oncale, 523 U.S. at 81, 118 S.Ct. 998). Nonetheless, while the central statutory purpose[ of Title VII was] eradicating discrimination in employment, Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U.S. 747, 771, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976), Title VII does not set forth `a general civility code for the American workplace,' Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68, 126 S.Ct. 2405, 165 L.Ed.2d 345 (2006) (quoting Oncale, 523 U.S. at 80, 118 S.Ct. 998). In Oncale, the Court noted that it had emphasized in Meritor and Harris [that] the statute does not reach genuine but innocuous differences in the ways men and women routinely interact with members of the same sex and of the opposite sex. The prohibition of harassment on the basis of sex requires neither asexuality nor androgyny in the workplace; it forbids only behavior so objectively offensive as to alter the conditions of the victim's employment.  Conduct that is not severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environmentan environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusiveis beyond Title VII's purview.  Oncale, 523 U.S. at 81, 118 S.Ct. 998 (quoting Harris, 510 U.S. at 21, 114 S.Ct. 367 (emphases ours)). The Court noted that it regarded the objective component both as crucial[ ] and as sufficient to ensure that courts and juries do not mistake ordinary socializing in the workplacesuch as male-on-male horseplay or intersexual flirtationfor discriminatory `conditions of employment.' Oncale, 523 U.S. at 81, 118 S.Ct. 998 (emphasis added). It pointed out that [i]n same-sex (as in all) harassment cases, th[e] inquiry requires careful consideration of the social context in which particular behavior occurs and is experienced by its target. A professional football player's working environment is not severely or pervasively abusive, for example, if the coach smacks him on the buttocks as he heads onto the field even if the same behavior would reasonably be experienced as abusive by the coach's secretary (male or female) back at the office. The real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships which are not fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed. Common sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context, will enable courts and juries to distinguish between simple teasing or roughhousing among members of the same sex, and conduct which a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position would find severely hostile or abusive. Id. at 81-82, 118 S.Ct. 998 (emphases added). The line between complaints that are easily susceptible to dismissal as a matter of law and those that are not is indistinct. See, e.g., Schiano v. Quality Payroll Systems, Inc., 445 F.3d 597, 605 (2d Cir.2006) ( Schiano ); Holtz, 258 F.3d at 75. On one side lie [complaints of] sexual assaults; [other] physical contact[, whether amorous or hostile, for which there is no consent express or implied]; uninvited sexual solicitations; intimidating words or acts; [and] obscene language or gestures.... On the other side lies the occasional vulgar banter, tinged with sexual innuendo, of coarse or boorish workers. Gallagher, 139 F.3d at 347 (internal quotation marks omitted). And on either side of the line there are, depending on the circumstances, gradations of abusiveness. Casual contact that might be expected among friends[a] hand on the shoulder, a brief hug, or a peck on the cheekwould normally be unlikely to create a hostile environment in the absence of aggravating circumstances such as continued contact after an objection .... And [e]ven more intimate or more crude physical actsa hand on the thigh, a kiss on the lips, a pinch of the buttocksmay be considered insufficiently abusive to be described as `severe' when they occur in isolation.... But when the physical contact surpasses what (if it were consensual) might be expected between friendly coworkers ... it becomes increasingly difficult to write the conduct off as a pedestrian annoyance. Patton v. Keystone RV Co., 455 F.3d 812, 816 (7th Cir.2006) ( Patton ) (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphases added). [D]irect contact with an intimate body part constitutes one of the most severe forms of sexual harassment. Worth v. Tyer, 276 F.3d 249, 268 (7th Cir.2001). Most of the above principles have been established in cases involving heterosexual conflicts. In same-sex harassment cases, however, an inference that physical contact was because of the employee's sex may be less evident. Courts and juries have found the inference of discrimination easy to draw in most male-female sexual harassment situations, because the challenged conduct typically involves explicit or implicit proposals of sexual activity; it is reasonable to assume those proposals would not have been made to someone of the same sex. The same chain of inference would be available to a plaintiff alleging same-sex harassment, if there were credible evidence that the harasser was homosexual. But harassing conduct need not be motivated by sexual desire to support an inference of discrimination on the basis of sex. A trier of fact might reasonably find such discrimination, for example, if a female victim is harassed in such sex-specific and derogatory terms by another woman as to make it clear that the harasser is motivated by general hostility to the presence of women in the workplace. A same-sex harassment plaintiff may also, of course, offer direct comparative evidence about how the alleged harasser treated members of both sexes in a mixed-sex workplace. Whatever evidentiary route the plaintiff chooses to follow, he or she must always prove that the conduct at issue was not merely tinged with offensive sexual connotations, but actually constituted discrimina[tion]... because of ... sex.  Oncale, 523 U.S. at 80-81, 118 S.Ct. 998 (emphases added) (original emphasis omitted). [T]he question of whether considerations of the plaintiff's sex ` caused the conduct at issue often requires an assessment of individuals' motivations and state of mind.' Kaytor, 609 F.3d at 548 (quoting Brown v. Henderson, 257 F.3d 246, 251 (2d Cir.2001) (emphasis ours)). Issues of causation, intent, and motivation are questions of fact. See, e.g., Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 287-90, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982). Although summary judgment in discrimination cases is fully appropriate, indeed mandated, when the evidence is insufficient to support the non-moving party's case, Distasio, 157 F.3d at 61 (sex discrimination); see, e.g., McLee v. Chrysler Corp., 109 F.3d 130, 135 (2d Cir.1997) (race discrimination); Abdu-Brisson v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 239 F.3d 456, 466 (2d Cir.2001) (age discrimination), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 993, 122 S.Ct. 460, 151 L.Ed.2d 378 (2001), when, as is often the case in sexual harassment claims, fact questions such as state of mind or intent are at issue, summary judgment should be used sparingly, Distasio, 157 F.3d at 61 (internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., Kaytor, 609 F.3d at 548; Schiano, 445 F.3d at 605. Likewise, [t]he question of whether a work environment is sufficiently hostile to violate Title VII is one of fact. Holtz, 258 F.3d at 75 (emphasis added); see, e.g., Schiano, 445 F.3d at 605 (the line between boorish and inappropriate behavior and actionable sexual harassment ... is admittedly indistinct, [and] its haziness counsels against summary judgment (internal quotations omitted)). The interpretation of ambiguous conduct is an issue for the jury. Gallagher, 139 F.3d at 347. The EEOC Guidelines emphasize that the trier of fact must determine the existence of sexual harassment in light of the record as a whole and the totality of circumstances, such as the nature of the sexual advances and the context in which the alleged incidents occurred. 29 CFR § 1604.11(b) (1985). Meritor, 477 U.S. at 69, 106 S.Ct. 2399 (italics added).