Legal Question in Sexual Harassment in California

Harassment not reported- is company still liable?

If a report was never made to the employer regarding sexual harassment by another employee with an extensive HR file related to the same, can the employer still be held responsible for the unreported actions? If there are witnesses, the extensive history, and the employer never sanctioned the individual for his/her past actions, is that enough to find the company liable for this employee's actions (who is largely responsible for the company's success) even without a formal complaint being filed?


Asked on 5/30/08, 10:45 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert F. Cohen Law Office of Robert F. Cohen

Re: Harassment not reported- is company still liable?

If one of the witnesses was a management-type person, then the company conceivably could be liable since the manager, on behalf of the company, should have taken appropriate action. However, if that was not the case, how could the company be held liable for a colleague's current sexual harassment if it didn't know of the harassment in the first place?

You might try to hold the company liable for negligence -- i.e. wrongful retention of a sexual harasser. Then you would have to show the unreasonableness of their prior investigations, assuming that they did not find this colleague was a harasser, or that they knew the colleague was a harasser but retained that person, anyway, in proximity to people of the same gender as were harassed in the past.

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Answered on 6/02/08, 2:58 pm


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