CACI 2524 “Severe or Pervasive” Explained

New September 2003; Revised December 2007, July 2019

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Read this instruction with any of the Work Environment Harassment instructions (CACI Nos. 2521A, 2521B, 2521C, 2522A, 2522B, and 2522C). Read also CACI No. 2523, “Harassing Conduct” Explained. Give the last optional sentence if a single incident forms the basis of the claim. (See Gov. Code, § 12923(b) [single incident of harassing conduct can be sufficient to create a triable issue regarding the existence of a hostile work environment].)

In determining what constitutes “sufficiently pervasive” harassment, the courts have held that acts of harassment cannot be occasional, isolated, sporadic, or trivial. (See Fisher v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 590, 610 [262 Cal.Rptr. 842].) Whether this limitation remains in light of Government Code section 12923 is not clear.

•“We have agreed with the United States Supreme Court that, to prevail, an employee claiming harassment based upon a hostile work environment must demonstrate that the conduct complained of was severe enough or sufficiently pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create a work environment that qualifies as hostile or abusive to employees because of their sex. The working environment must be evaluated in light of the totality of the circumstances: ‘[W]hether an environment is “hostile” or “abusive” can be determined only by looking at all the circumstances. 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.’ ” (Miller v. Dept. of Corrections (2005) 36 Cal.4th 446, 462 [30 Cal.Rptr.3d 797, 115 P.3d 77], internal citations omitted.)

•“[T]he adjudicator’s inquiry should center, dominantly, on whether the discriminatory conduct has unreasonably interfered with the plaintiff’s work performance. To show such interference, ‘the plaintiff need not prove that his or her tangible productivity has declined as a result of the harassment.’ It suffices to prove that a reasonable person subjected to the discriminatory conduct would find, as the plaintiff did, that the harassment so altered working conditions as to ‘make it more difficult to do the job.’ ” (Harris v. Forklift Sys. (1993) 510 U.S. 17, 25 [114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295], conc. opn. of Ginsburg, J.; see Gov. Code, § 12923(a) endorsing this language as reflective of California law.)

•“For sexual harassment to be actionable, it must be sufficiently severe or pervasive ‘to alter the conditions of [the victim’s] employment and create an abusive working environment.’ … [¶] ‘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. Likewise, if the victim does not subjectively perceive the environment to be abusive, the conduct has not actually altered the conditions of the victim’s employment, and there is no Title VII violation.’ … California courts have adopted the same standard in evaluating claims under the FEHA.” (Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 121, 129–130 [87 Cal.Rptr.2d 132, 980 P.2d 846], internal citations omitted.)

•“Whether the sexual conduct complained of is sufficiently pervasive to create a hostile or offensive work environment must be determined from the totality of the circumstances. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s conduct would have interfered with a reasonable employee’s work performance … and that she was actually offended … . The factors that can be considered in evaluating the totality of the circumstances are: (1) the nature of the unwelcome sexual acts or works (generally, physical touching is more offensive than unwelcome verbal abuse); (2) the frequency of the offensive encounters; (3) the total number of days over which all of the offensive conduct occurs; and (4) the context in which the sexually harassing conduct occurred.” (Fisher v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 590, 609–610 [262 Cal.Rptr. 842], internal citation omitted.)

•“The United States Supreme Court … has clarified that conduct need not seriously affect an employee’s psychological well-being to be actionable as abusive work environment harassment. So long as the environment reasonably would be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile or abusive, there is no need for it also to be psychologically injurious.” (Kelly-Zurian v. Wohl Shoe Co., Inc. (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 397, 412 [27 Cal.Rptr.2d 457], internal citations omitted.)

•“As the Supreme Court recently reiterated, in order to be actionable, ‘… a sexually objectionable environment must be both objectively and subjectively offensive, one that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive, and one that the victim in fact did perceive to be so.’ The work environment must be viewed from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position, considering ‘all the circumstances.’ This determination requires judges and juries to exercise ‘[c]ommon sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context’ in order to evaluate whether a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position would find the conduct severely hostile or abusive.” (Beyda v. City of Los Angeles (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 511, 518–519 [76 Cal.Rptr.2d 547], internal citations omitted.)

•“The requirement that the conduct be sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a working environment a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive is a crucial limitation that prevents sexual harassment law from being expanded into a ‘general civility code.’ ” (Jones v. Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (2007) 152 Cal.App.4th 1367, 1377 [62 Cal.Rptr.3d 200], internal citations omitted.)

•“[T]he jury only needed to find the harassing conduct to be either severe or pervasive … .” (Caldera v. Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (2018) 25 Cal.App.5th 31, 40 [235 Cal.Rptr.3d 262].)