Company Gets Hot Seat From Toilet Humor

Company Gets Hot Seat From Toilet Humor
An employee with multiple sclerosis unfortunately had some bowel accidents at work related to his condition. So co-workers thought it would be funny and entertaining to leave a child’s potty training book at his desk and called him “Poopy” and “The Shitmeister”.
The employee sued the company for hostile work environment.

Who Won?

The Company

Courts which recognize hostile work environment claims under the ADA apply the same standard utilized in Title VII cases. In order to prevail under that standard, a plaintiff must establish two elements. First, a plaintiff must show that his workplace was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment.”

The court in evaluating a hostile work environment claim, a court should consider 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. Generally, isolated incidents of harassment do not give rise to a hostile
work environment claim; instead, the incidents must be sufficiently continuous and concerted in order to be deemed pervasive. Simple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents . . . will not amount to discriminatory changes in the terms and conditions of employment sufficient to meet the threshold of severity or pervasiveness. Daily, offensive name-calling does not establish the basis for a hostile work environment claim.

The court concludes that a reasonable jury could not find such conduct so severe and pervasive as to have altered his working conditions. While it was insensitive for Murphy’s coworkers to call him names and leave a scatological children’s book near his workspace, such teasing does not rise to the level of severity and pervasiveness for hostile work environment. This court cannot conclude that those episodes constituted anything more than the type of isolated, sporadic incidents that are insufficient to establish a hostile work environment claim.

http://www.ctemploymentlawblog.com/beavex.pdf