California Labor and Employment Law

Sexual Harassment in California

It’s hard to believe that sexual harassment still occurs in the modern workplace, but it does. Luckily, Federal and California state laws offer powerful protections against workplace sexual harassment.

Under the law, there are two main types of sexual harassment:

“Sleep with me if you want to keep your job”

Quid pro quo sexual harassment is the type of harassment people are most familiar with. “Quid pro quo” is Latin for “this for that”. This form of sexual harassment involves a supervisor conditioning employee benefits, such as promotions, benefits or continuation of employment itself, on the employee’s acceptance of the supervisor’s harassing conduct, e.g., sexual advances.

There is probably not a more blatant form of employer exploitation of his superior position over a subordinate and the law is correspondingly harsh toward this type of harassment. Under California law, the employer is strictly liable for the sexual harassment of the supervisor and has no special legal defenses available to it. A successful plaintiff can recover lost wages and compensation of other economic losses, emotional distress damages, interest and attorney fees, and in cases where the employer’s officers, directors or managing agents knew of the harassment, punitive damages intended to punish or deter the employer.

Hostile work environment sexual harassment

Hostile work environment sexual harassment (HWE) consists of harassing conduct that is so severe or pervasive that it creates a hostile work environment for employees. Supervisors, co-workers, even subordinates can engage in conduct that gives rise to HWE. Harassing conduct includes slurs, taunts, intimidation, ridicule, groping, grabbing, etc.

Notice the requirement is not severe AND pervasive, but severe OR pervasive, meaning that a single instance of harassing conduct could create a hostile work environment if it is severe enough. Alternatively, a campaign of multiple acts of subtle harassment could collectively create a hostile work environment if it is pervasive enough.

The employee does not have to be the direct target of the harassing conduct in order to file a claim. For instance, a woman who witnesses her female co-workers being groped and propositioned can bring a claim for hostile work environment sexual harassment.

Recently, the California Supreme Court held that employer actions, such as termination, demotion, etc., could also constitute hostile work environment harassing conduct. See Roby v. McKesson HBOC (2009) 146 Cal.App.4th 63.

Harassment by supervisors and co-workers

If the harassment is by a supervisor, under California law, the employer will be on the hook under strict liability. If the harassment is by a co-worker, however, the employer will only be on the hook if a supervisor knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action.

Federal law diverges from California law here in an unwelcome direction. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when a supervisor engages in hostile work environment harassment that does not involve tangible employer actions (e.g., termination, demotion), the employer can escape liability for HWE if the employer can show 1) employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior and 2) the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of the preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer, or to avoid harm otherwise. See Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth (1998) 524 US 742, 764–765; Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (1998) 524 US 775, 806. This is unfortunate in that many victims of sexual harassment do not immediately report it to their employers for fear of retaliation. Under federal law, these employees may be out of luck. This is one of the reasons why filing a sexual harassment claim under California rather than Federal law is usually the better course.

Conclusion

Sexual harassment law offer strong protections in California and victims should not be afraid to fight back. As always, it is best to talk to a lawyer as soon as possible. This is particularly true given that strict filing deadlines apply (180 days to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and 1 year to file a charge with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing). Many lawyers offer free and confidential consultations, so don’t wait.

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