Solouki v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation, et al.

Accordingly, the applications are DENIED.

Plaintiff to give notice.

111 Solouki v. Saint-Gobain DEMURRER TO 3RD CAUSE OF ACTION - Performance Plastics OVERRULED Corporation, et al, 2025- 01507443 Defendant Mac Patel demurs to plaintiff Tony Solouki’s third cause of action for harassment on the basis of age. Defendant argues that the cause of action fails to state sufficient facts because it is based on a single incident that involved a benign comment between two coworkers.

Government Code section 12940, subdivision (j), defines “unlawful employment practice” to include harassment in the workplace based on, among other statuses, age. “Under the statute ‘harassment’ in the workplace can take the form of ‘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.’ ” ’ [Citations.]” (Rehmani v. Superior Court (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 945, 951.)

“Whether the conduct of the alleged harassers was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile or abusive working environment depends on the totality of 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.” ’ [Citations.] ‘ “Common sense, and an appropriate sensibility to social context, will enable courts and juries to distinguish between simple teasing or roughhousing. . . and conduct [that] a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position would find severely hostile or abusive.” ’ [Citations.]” (Rehmani, supra, 204 Cal.App.4th at pp. 951–952.)

In an action for harassment, “ ‘[i]t 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.’ ” (Gov. Code, § 12923(a).) “A single incident of harassing conduct is sufficient to create a triable issue regarding the existence of a hostile work environment if the harassing conduct has unreasonably interfered with the plaintiff's work performance or created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” (Id., § 12923(b).)