Verizon hostile work environment in western New York will go to trial

Lately, we have seen some lengthy Second Circuit rulings that reverse the grant of summary judgment in discrimination cases. This is another one, and I will write about the case in multi-parts. We will start with sexual harassment.

The case is Moll v. Telesector, Inc., issued on February 28. This case was argued in January 2022, which means the parties waited two years for a ruling, which raises a multitude of issues, comprising about 90 pages. Some of the evidence goes back to the 1990s.

The defendant is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. While the district court said plaintiff proffered evidence revealing a triable fact issue on whether a reasonable person would have subjectively found the work environment abusive on account of sex, in dismissing the case, it held that plaintiff did not show an objective person would have perceived a hostile work environment. That objective/subjective distinction is difficult to resolve on a summary judgment motion.

The trial court identified 17 instances of sexual harassment/comments/gestures from 1998 through 2003. The Court of Appeals identifies a heck of a lot more than that, another 36 examples from that time period, including harassment endured by plaintiff's co-workers. The list of incidents goes on for pages and pages in this ruling and qualifies this as one of the worst workplaces for women that I've seen in any Second Circuit ruling. 

The Court of Appeals summarizes the evidence as follows:

In sum, Moll proffered evidence that overtly sexual or sexist comments, sexual innuendos, and gender-based disparagements were regularly directed at women in Verizon's enterprise solutions group or made about women in general--such statements being made in the woman's own office, or near a woman's desk, or to a woman in a manager's office, or about a woman amid persons in a casual gathering in a common office area, or in conference calls or meetings among co-workers, or in a van heading for a staff outing, or in a buffet line at an office party, or in meetings with clients. She proffered evidence that most managers did nothing to discourage that objectionable conduct--and that some managers participated in such conduct. 

Perhaps most troubling, as discussed above, Moll pointed to evidence that Irving--who as her co-worker had harassed her with sexually connotative comments and requests to come to his hotel room--after becoming her manager, left her a note saying that he "thought about [her] when he was in the shower." And as her manager, he insisted that she communicate with him only in person, demanded that she stay at the office alone with him late at night, and followed her to client lunches against her wishes because he wanted to "develop" her. Irving attended an HR awareness presentation at which he simply laughed throughout. Although Moll complained to HR about Irving's demonstration of contempt for the HR training presentation, Verizon did nothing in response.

For such a lengthy ruling, this case does not purport to clarify or extend the law of sexual harassment. Rather, after citing a few sexual harassment precedents, the Court of Appeals (Kearse, Walker and Sullivan) simply goes on to summarize each and every incident of sexual harassment en route to its holding that a reasonable person may find the work environment sufficient hostile as to violate Title VII.