## Facts

- Jenny Burnett worked for Grinnell Corporation (a Tyco-related entity) for more than 19 years.
- Burnett alleged the personnel manager, Jim Phillips, sexually harassed her in three incidents during 1994.
- At a July 1994 packing-department meeting, Phillips allegedly placed a cigarette pack containing a lighter inside Burnett’s tank top near her brassiere strap.
- About two weeks later, Phillips allegedly gave Burnett a cough drop and remarked, “Since you have lost your cherry, here’s one to replace the one you lost.”
- On December 29, 1994, after Phillips saw Burnett wearing a Christmas sweater reading “Deck the Malls,” he allegedly said, “Dick the malls, dick the malls, I almost got aroused.”
- Burnett also submitted affidavits from other female employees describing Phillips’s inappropriate conduct toward women generally and stating the workplace treated women poorly.
- Burnett filed a Title VII hostile work environment claim; the district court granted summary judgment for the employer, finding the conduct not sufficiently severe or pervasive.

## Issues

1. Whether three alleged incidents over roughly five months, together with affidavits about offensive behavior toward other women, created a genuine issue of material fact that Burnett was subjected to a hostile work environment under Title VII.
2. Whether the district court properly granted summary judgment by concluding the alleged conduct was not sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of Burnett’s employment.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the employer.
- Taking Burnett’s allegations as true, the court held the conduct was insufficient as a matter of law to satisfy Title VII’s “severe or pervasive” hostile-environment requirement.
- The court found the incidents were sporadic and not shown to be physically threatening, highly humiliating, or to have unreasonably interfered with Burnett’s work performance.
- The court treated evidence about harassment of other women as limited background that did not convert Burnett’s own experiences into an actionable hostile environment.
- Chief Judge Martin dissented, concluding a jury could find the physical contact and explicit remarks objectively hostile.

## Legal Principles

- A Title VII hostile work environment requires harassment that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment.
- Hostility is assessed both subjectively (plaintiff perceived it as hostile) and objectively (a reasonable person would find it hostile or abusive).
- Relevant factors include frequency, severity, whether conduct is physically threatening or humiliating versus a mere offensive utterance, and whether it unreasonably interferes with work performance.
- Title VII does not function as a general workplace civility code; isolated or sporadic offensive conduct may be nonactionable absent sufficient severity or pervasiveness.
- On summary judgment, if no reasonable jury could find the alleged conduct meets the severe-or-pervasive threshold, the employer is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that three incidents over several months—one involving limited physical contact and two involving crude sexual comments—without evidence of substantial interference with job performance, were not severe or pervasive enough to support a Title VII hostile work environment claim, so summary judgment for the employer was proper.


Burnett v. Tyco Corp., 203 F.3d 980 (6th Cir. 2000)