Legal Question in Sexual Harassment in New York

Re: sexual haraessment at work

Well it certainly sounds as if you have a good basis for taking legal action. For one thing, although a supervisor's sexual harassment may be deemed to be outside the scope of employment because this conduct has been for personal motives, an employer can be liable, nonetheless, where its own negligence is a cause of the harassment. An employer is negligent with respect to sexual harassment if it knew or should have known about the conduct and failed to stop it. Negligence sets a minimum standard for employer liability under Title VII. It also sounds as if there may be a pattern of such misconduct at your place of employment: although a continuing pattern of hostile or abusive behavior is ordinarily required to establish a hostile work environment for Title VII purposes, even a single instance can suffice if it is sufficiently egregious, and it sounds that way based on what you're saying. We will be happy to discuss this matter with you further.