A Connecticut retail worker says his job at a Comcast Xfinity store came with a shocking catch: if sales numbers fell, some staff risked being tied to a chair and hit in the face with a cream pie. You probably won’t be surprised that this ultimately pushed him to quit — and sue.
Performance Reviews With a Side of Pie
David Figueroa was hired as a Retail Sales Consultant at a Comcast store in Plainville, Connecticut, in February 2026. He alleges he soon discovered that poor sales performance came with a disturbing consequence: underperforming employees were tied to a chair in the back office and subjected to pie‑in‑the‑face assaults in front of coworkers, at the direction of store manager Sully Fuentes Peterson. He claims Comcast never disclosed this policy when offering him the job.
Figueroa describes a monthly ritual that allegedly functioned as store policy. At the end of each month, the highest‑ranked sales consultant was instructed by Peterson to tie the lowest‑ranked consultant to a chair in the back room and then smash a cream pie into that person’s face. This was done in front of coworkers and recorded on video. A whiteboard chart in the back office allegedly ranked staff, noted who had already been assaulted, and showed who was next.
Figueroa says Peterson ordered staff to participate in these assaults and to record them on their phones, causing physical injury and public humiliation to the coworkers targeted. He claims he once witnessed and filmed a coworker, Ty, being tied up and hit in the face with a pie. Allegedly, Ty’s coworker with better sales was ordered by Peterson to carry out the assault while Peterson and others filmed it.
Figueroa further alleges that coworkers told him this was not an isolated event. He says he was informed that Peterson had previously ordered a pie‑assault on the store’s Assistant Sales Manager, Jania, after she received a poor customer survey, and that he viewed a video of that incident on a coworker’s phone.
Reporting Up the Chain and Resigning
Two days later, Figueroa says he called Regional Manager Maranda Cody, who supervised the store and Peterson, to report what was happening. Figueroa claims he told Cody that the policy of gathering staff to watch underperforming workers be tied down and assaulted made him uncomfortable and made him doubt whether he could continue working there.
Cody allegedly asked Figueroa to send a text message explaining his concerns. Figueroa did so, writing that he felt uncomfortable with “how the store handled reps not hitting certain metrics tying them to a chair… and physically pieing them in the face.” He says Cody never responded to his text or addressed his complaints. He then resigned, stating that the environment was intolerable.
After leaving, Figueroa didn’t just move on. He filed a lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against Comcast Cable Communications Management LLC, the company that operates the Xfinity store. In the complaint, he argues that he was effectively forced out of his job and that Comcast leadership failed to rein in a store manager running a violent, humiliating “motivation” program.
Taking Comcast to Court
His lawsuit brings two main claims. First, he alleges “constructive discharge,” which is the idea that a resignation can legally count as a firing when working conditions become so intolerable that a reasonable person would feel compelled to quit. Figueroa’s position is that a workplace where underperforming staff are tied to chairs and hit in the face for everyone to see crosses that line.
Second, he claims “negligent supervision,” arguing that Comcast should have known what its store managers were doing and had a duty to stop policies that exposed employees to threats of violence and actual assaults.
According to Figueroa, the monthly pie‑assault ritual wasn’t a rogue prank; it was a manager‑created policy designed to boost sales by bullying and intimidating staff. He says the policy had the purpose and effect of substantially interfering with his ability to do his job and creating an intimidating, hostile, and offensive work environment.
His call and follow‑up text to Cody are framed in the complaint as an attempt to get higher‑level management to intervene. When that didn’t happen, he says, quitting wasn’t a real choice; it was the only way to avoid becoming the next person tied to the chair.
What He’s Asking For
In terms of relief, Figueroa is seeking more than just an acknowledgment that the policy was wrong. He asks the court for compensatory damages, including lost wages, lost employment benefits, and other economic losses. He also claims emotional distress, damage to his reputation, and loss of enjoyment of life stemming from working in what he describes as a violent, humiliating environment and from having to walk away from his job.
On top of that, he seeks punitive damages on the constructive‑discharge claim (i.e., extra damages that can be awarded when a defendant’s conduct is especially egregious). He also asks for back pay and front pay (to cover past and future lost earnings) and for any other relief the court finds appropriate in law or equity.
As with any complaint, these are allegations, not findings. Comcast will have the opportunity to respond, and the court will ultimately decide whether the facts and legal theories support Figueroa’s claims. But even at the pleading stage, the case points to a larger issue in employment law and HR practice: when does “tough” performance management become bullying or assault, and what systems should employers have in place to spot and stop humiliating “motivational” rituals before they become the basis for constructive‑discharge and negligent‑supervision claims?
