Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint

Answer:

A question we sometimes get is how bad the harassment needs to be before a lawsuit can be filed. That’s a tough question. It’s a tough question to answer the question of how much is enough. How much harassment are you expected to go through before you can go to court and say enough is enough and that what you were subjected to was unlawful? I think what’s important for you to understand is whether or not you can actually meet the burden of a hostile work environment. Have you been subjected to enough inappropriate comments about your body, or about what sexual positions your supervisor might like, or how many inappropriate text messages or videos your supervisor might have shown you? Whether or not you’ve been subjected to enough for a hostile work environment, you have to understand that you’re protected to complain about one instance of inappropriate conduct.

If you’ve been subjected to a hostile work environment, is it necessary the question as to whether or not you should go to Human Resources. If you’ve been subjected to conduct that you believe is inappropriate in the workplace based off gender or sex discrimination, a racist comment, comments about your disability, comments that were sexual in nature, you always have the right to go to somebody in Human Resources and raise those issues that specifically identify that you are being subjected to a hostile work environment based off of what we call a protected class – sexual harassment, racial harassment, disability harassment. Whether or not you are ultimately able to show that it was what we call severe or pervasive enough, understand that you can’t be retaliated against for making a complaint even with that one comment. The employer has to take your complaint seriously and take steps to prevent harassment in the future. What the employer surely can’t do and clearly can’t do is retaliate against you.

If you make a complaint or if you’ve made a complaint and you feel that you’ve been subjected to retaliation for making that complaint, understand that you have rights. If you have any questions as to how much is enough, or what claims there are as a result of a hostile work environment, or what has happened since you made a claim or what will happen if you make a claim, feel free to give us a call. I’m more than happy to answer your question and walk you through those issues. Thanks.