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Harassment Sufficient To Create an Illegal Hostile Environment

The Courts have said that harassment is a type of discrimination. If the harassment is sufficiently severe or sufficiently frequent to create a hostile work environment as judged by the reasonable person in the employee’s shoes, that harassment is illegal.  But to be illegal the harassment must be based on the employee’s gender, age, disability, national origin, race, sexual orientation, religion, or in retaliation for the employee’s complaint of certain types of illegal conduct on the part of the employer, superior, or co-worker.  Harassment can embrace verbal harassment (i.e. derogatory comments, racist or dirty jokes under the right circumstances), visual harassment (i.e. displaying a noose, derogatory or embarrassing posters, cartoons, drawing, etc.), physical harassment such as rape, assault, touching, blocking access, blocking exit, or sexual favors (i.e. sexual advances, confrontation with sexual demands).  In the work place, harassment can come from the owner, supervisor, manager, lead person, foreperson, co-worker and/or customer.  Factors that the courts typically use to determine whether or not the environment is sufficiently hostile to justify bringing a lawsuit include the following:

·         The frequency of the conduct

·         The severity of the conduct

·          Whether the conduct is physical or verbal

·          Whether it unreasonably interferes with a worker's performance

·         The effect of the conduct on its victims.

We have years of experience handling harassment cases with the use of California and Federal discrimination laws.  Unfortunately, not all harassment (such as that based on nepotism) is illegal.  Nor is all harassment sufficiently severe or frequent enough to rise to the level of illegal hostile environment.  Nonetheless, we are often able to effectively address the harassment by educating an employer as to the law, the full panoply of the client’s negative experiences, and the consequences to the employer if the harassment/hostile work environment is not remedied.  When this remedy cannot be achieved informally, we may recommend and pursue litigation.