Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—D. Md.: Volvo wins summary judgment on factory worker’s religious and disability hostile work environment claims, (Mar 24, 2026)

By Tulay Turan, J.D.

His coworkers’ “difficult questions” about his religion did not constitute severe or pervasive conduct.

Volvo was entitled to summary judgment on an employee’s state law hostile work environment claims based on religion and disability where the unwelcome conduct he experienced was not severe or pervasive enough to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of his employment, a federal district court in Maryland ruled. Most of his coworkers’ conduct was merely rude and lacked a religious nexus, and one instance of name calling did not meet the pervasive standard. In addition, his general assertions about being profiled as “weird” or “creepy” because he had autism were too vague and did not rise to the level of severity needed to survive summary judgment (Graham v. Volvo Group North America Moha, No. 24-1514-BAH (D. Md. Mar. 20, 2026)).

The employee, who was a Christian and suffered from Asperger’s, began working at Volvo in January 2022. He did not inform the company about his disability. He asserted that many other employees knew he was religious as he would bring his Bible to work to read during breaks.

Training period. The employee was hired to work on third shift but worked on first shift during his training period for about a month. The employee claimed he told his supervisor that the coworker who was training him was saying sexual things about him to other coworkers. Also during this time, he claimed his Asperger’s resulted in him misunderstanding a conversation between coworkers. One of the coworkers slammed her hand down on the table and made threats to him and later constantly told him that he needed to improve his performance.

Other shifts. In February, the employee completed his training and moved to third shift. His supervisor stated the employee did not have any performance problems while working on that shift. However, in May, he agreed to transfer to second shift. He stated that his coworkers would “ostracize” him, one of them called him “Bible boy”, and they asked him “difficult questions” about his religion.

His supervisor stated he would usually only talk to the employee about his quality defects and his station, but on one occasion, the employee expressed concern about his inability to make friends. The supervisor provided some counseling about his socialization concerns, recommending that he not discuss his Bible “as people aren’t religious nowadays.”

Termination. In July 2022, in the wake of a shooting at another facility, a coworker reported that the employee had made some disturbing comments. After an investigation, Volvo terminated him due to a violation of the harassment and workplace violence policies.

Complaint filed. Thereafter, the employee filed this action in state court, alleging he was subject to a hostile work environment due to his religion and disability in violation of the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act (MFEPA). Volvo removed the action to federal court. After the parties completed discovery, Volvo filed this motion for summary judgment.

Applicable state law. As a threshold matter, the court discussed which definition of harassment under the MFEPA applied to this case. While MFEPA’s harassment provision originally mirrored the language in Title VII, it was amended in October 2022 to clarify that harassment need not be severe or pervasive to be actionable in all circumstances. The amendment was substantive rather than procedural, the court said, and there is a presumption of prospective application for substantive Maryland laws.

Because the court found no expression of legislative intent for retroactive application of the amendment, it applied the presumption of prospective application. Accordingly, the court ruled that it would apply the MFEPA’s pre-October 2022 definition of harassment to the employee’s claims, which accrued prior to the amendment’s effective date.

Religious-based harassment. Turning to the employee’s religious-based hostile work environment claim, the court granted Volvo’s motion for summary judgment because the unwelcome conduct he experienced was not severe or pervasive enough to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of his employment.

The employee asserted the trouble began in January 2022 when his trainer began saying sexual things about him to coworkers. Even assuming the trainer’s comments about him were based on his knowledge of the employee’s faith, there was no evidence to suggest these comments continued to impact his working conditions after he spoke to his supervisor about them. He was moved to a different part of the line away from other employees, and throughout the rest of the time he worked on third shift, he did not describe any instances of unwelcome conduct related to his religion.

Bible-related comments. The next example of unwelcome conduct was a coworker on second shift calling him “Bible boy” and making references to him reading the Bible in the bathroom. The employee indicated this name-calling happened only once. Courts have made clear that name-calling, on its own, rarely gives rise to objectively severe or pervasive harassment.

Rude behavior. Likewise, the employee’s allegations of unwelcome conduct that involved mostly general descriptions of rude or dismissive behavior, without express reference to, or disparagement of, his religion, did not constitute severe or pervasive conduct. He asserted his coworkers “ostracized” him and would get up from the lunch table when he would sit down, but he did not provide details about the frequency or duration of these interactions.

Even assuming these interactions happened at a high frequency over the course of his short term of service on second shift, the court said the lack of details about the behavior made it impossible for it to determine whether the behavior would be seen as objectively hostile by a reasonable person.

Difficult questions. The court also rejected the employee’s allegations that his coworkers’ “difficult questions” about his religion constituted severe or pervasive conduct. At the lunch table, his coworkers would ask questions such as “why would God allow suffering?” After he would answer, he stated his coworkers would “get silent and kind of look at each other as if it wasn’t the answer they were looking for.” He stated at his deposition that he perceived that reaction as a way of mocking him. However, the court said it could not conclude that a reasonable person would find occasional questions of this kind, followed by a lack of verbal response to the answers given, to meet the severe and pervasive standard. That was especially so, the court said, in light of his concession at his deposition that “[a]t the time” he did not think the reason his coworkers asked those questions was to make fun of him.

Discussion with supervisor. The employee’s discussion with his second shift supervisor was likewise uncompelling, the court said. The supervisor allegedly told him to avoid talking about religion if he wanted to fit in with his coworkers. The employee did not suggest the supervisor disparaged his religion outright during their conversation or demanded that he cease talking about it at work. The court noted it had held that more egregious statements from supervisors, spanning beyond the context of a single discussion, have failed to meet the severe or pervasive standard.

Working environment. In addition, the court noted both parties invoked the Fourth Circuit’s decision in EEOC v. Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. as support for their arguments related to the employee’s hostile work environment claim. In that case, the Fourth Circuit reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendant where the plaintiff, a Muslim American, argued he was subject to a religiously hostile work environment. The court found he produced evidence that he “suffered religious harassment that was ‘persistent, demeaning, unrelenting, and widespread.’” He was called names “over and over again,” harassed about his appearance, and told it would be “the end of him” if his coworker ever caught him praying again.

Here, the court found that, taken together, the instances of harassing conduct the employee described fell far below the religiously hostile working environment described in Sunbelt. The employee admitted he was only called “Bible boy” on one occasion. He did not provide evidence of incidents close to the severity or pervasiveness done “often” or “over and over again” described in Sunbelt. The employee’s case here lacked evidence of “extensive, explicitly religious harassment” in his work environment.

Thus, the employee failed to adduce evidence related to the frequency of the unwelcome conduct, and the conduct described failed to meet the severe or pervasive standard. Moreover, he did not argue and failed to point to any evidence in the record, that the comments or conduct toward him actually affected the terms and conditions of his employment.

Disability-based harassment. Turning to the employee’s disability-based hostile work environment claim, the court granted Volvo’s motion for summary judgment because his allegations were not sufficiently severe or pervasive to establish an abusive environment. The employee pointed to far fewer instances of unwelcome conduct on this claim than he did on his religious-based claim, and his general assertions about being profiled as “weird” or “creepy” were too vague and did not rise to the level of severity needed to survive summary judgment.

The employee described one incident where a misunderstanding between himself and his coworker allegedly culminated in the coworker slamming her hand down on the table and making threats toward him. He told his coworker that his misunderstanding was because of Asperger’s, but she continued to tell him that he needed to perform better. Criticism of one’s work is not abusive, the court said, and the Fourth Circuit previously rejected a plaintiff’s contention that one episode of yelling and pounding the table was sufficiently severe to establish an abusive environment.

Thus, because the employee failed to produce evidence that he suffered a hostile work environment based on his religion and disability, the court granted Volvo’s motion for summary judgment on both claims.

The case is No. 24-1514-BAH.

Judge: Hurson, B.

Attorneys: Lauren Elise Thomas (Employment Law Center of Maryland) for Tanner Wyatt Graham. Maxim V. Doroshenko (Jackson Lewis) for Volvo Group North America, LLC.

Companies: Volvo Group North America, LLC

Cases: Discrimination ReligiousDiscrimination DisabilityDiscrimination MarylandNews