[F]or the entire time Plaintiff was employed by the Defendant, Defendant had a policy that the highest-ranked Retail Sales Consultant for the prior month was instructed by his or her supervisor … to tie the lowest-ranked sales consultant … to a chair in the back office and thereafter assault that person by violently smashing a cream pie in their face.

Compl., Figueroa v. Comcast Cable Communications Mgt. LLC (Conn. Super. Ct. filed July 9, 2026) (via Ars Technica).

Mr. Figueroa alleges that on February 27, 2026, he resigned from his position of Retail Sales Consultant at a Comcast store in Plainville, Connecticut, because he was no longer comfortable with the company’s policy of motivating consultants by threatening them with cream pies as described above. While you may assume, as I did, that this means Mr. Figueroa must have been the lowest-ranked sales consultant in January, that was apparently not the case.

Rather, he alleges that on February 25, he was present for that month’s application of the policy. According to Plaintiff, he “witnessed and videotaped a co-worker, Ty, being tied up and assaulted [with a cream pie] by a co-worker in the back room of the Comcast store.” He alleges the store’s manager and other co-workers were also “present for and videotaped this assault [with a cream pie]….” The unidentified co-worker “who struck Ty in the face [with a cream pie] while Ty was tied up had better sales results than Ty and, therefore, [the manager] ordered him to assault his poorer performing co-worker [with a cream pie] in front of his peers.”

Plaintiff also alleges that on another occasion an employee who “received a poor survey score from a customer” similarly got a pie in the face. Two other co-workers showed him a video of this cream-pie assault. These are allegedly the two pie assaults identified in the image above, which purports to be of a whiteboard in the store’s back room. (What the other slightly happier faces indicate is not clear.)

As a result, Plaintiff called the regional manager on February 27 and told her the company’s “shocking” cream-pie-assault policy “made him feel uncomfortable and caused him concern as to whether he could continue” with Comcast and remain subject to “these violent, [cream-filled], management-created, and management-enforced policies and practices.” She asked him to send her a text message memorializing his concerns, which he did. But when she “never responded,” he resigned (the same day).

Plaintiff thus contends he was “repeatedly exposed to a violent and hostile work environment” during “the entire time he was employed” by Comcast. (He was hired on February 2, so “the entire time he was employed” by Comcast was 25 days. But still.) Because any “objective, reasonable person in Plaintiff’s position would have felt compelled to resign, the complaint says, he was unfairly “constructively discharged,” so the company must pay.

I’m no expert in employment law, but as usual I do have a few comments anyway.

First, Plaintiff does not allege discrimination, unless low-ranking sales consultants are a protected class in Connecticut (and maybe they are). In many states, an employer can generally fire somebody for any non-discriminatory reason, so that may be one problem here.

Second, Plaintiff is suing Comcast, but I don’t see any allegations that Comcast knew this was happening (if it did), much less that cream-pie assaults are corporate policy. The store manager was allegedly ordering the pie strikes, but Plaintiff doesn’t allege that even the regional manager knew until he told her on February 27 (and he quit the same day). He alleges Comcast should have known, but I’m not sure that’s enough if only the store manager was involved.

Third, while hitting someone in the face with a cream pie could certainly be harassment or at least an element of a harassing or discriminatory policy, this is still a cream pie we’re talking about. If he alleged they hit low-ranking sales consultants in the face with a bat, we wouldn’t be having this conversation (well, maybe we would). But with a cream pie it depends on context (and probably also the fluffiness of the pie.) There’s no allegation employees were threatened with termination if they refused to participate, for example. I also note the complaint says the second of the two incidents involved not a salesperson but the “assistant sales manager,” which seems to undercut Plaintiff’s characterization. On the other hand, the face depicted on the image above being hit with a pie is frowning, so maybe that’s bad for Comcast.

Finally, I haven’t researched this extensively, but there appear to be no cases in which getting a cream pie in the face served, without more, as the basis for a viable claim. My search (“hostile work environment and pie /s face”) did yield eight cases, but let’s just say there was a lot more going on there than pie-throwing.

And in an amazing coincidence (well, maybe not), one of those is a case I’ve already covered. See “Tip of the Day: Spanking, Mocking, Diapering All Frowned Upon in the Workplace” (Apr. 25, 2006). There, a company was also accused of a problematic “motivational” program, and it involved pie-throwing, but again, lots more going on there. That case went to trial, and I noted that at the time of writing the jury had awarded half a million dollars to an employee who was spanked three times with a yard sign. I can now report that the jury also awarded $1 million in punitives. But that verdict was later reversed due to errors in the jury instructions and sent back for a new trial. See Orlando v. Alarm One, 2008 WL 115833 (Cal. App. Jan. 14, 2008). It appears to have settled after that.

So, while I wouldn’t recommend pie-throwing as a motivational practice, I see little reason to think Comcast has much to worry about. It could turn out this was a hostile work environment, but it pales in comparison to the hostility of other work environments we have considered. See Orlando, supra; see especially, e.g., “Has Your Boss Ever Pooped in Your Lunchbox?” (Mar. 7, 2016).